The FSF has sold out and endorsed purism

Purism claims their laptops have "open source firmware" but this is not true - their coreboot contains many binary blobs and the hardware initiation process is entirely performed by binary blobs as explained in the reddit link.

Thinkpenguin etc are honest they don't claim to be selling what they aren't selling.
Minifree, raptor, bunnylabs etc are selling real libre firmware products - sure the laptops aren't modern x86_64 systems but its almost impossible to have a brand new libre laptop without tons of money even just creating libre firmware on an existing ARM owner controlled laptop costs at least $100K.

(see below for my laptop reccomendation almost as good performance wise as purism's junk)

"With proprietary systems, you do not know what is being sent to whom. There is a real and tangible threat of your own devices being used to spy on you"

Sentances like this and also naming their laptops "Libre-M" they are implying that their hardware is open source which couldn't be further from the truth.

"Meticulously designed chip by chip to respect your privacy"
Modern Intel chipsets don't and will never respect your freedom/privacy.

Their laptops are not at all bespoke, you can't do custom motherboards for the volume and money they are dealing with nor would there be a reason to.

There is only so much customization one can do with a modern intel chipset either you have all the ports possible or you don't - it isn't like in the old days where you have many things you could change.

My issue is not that someone is selling non-free laptops that are slightly better than a dell the problem is their false advertising, implying their laptops are bespoke/special plus the history of attacking competitors and pressuring the FSF to lower their standards so that their laptops can be "RYF" with modern intel chipsets.

As long as purism keeps up with their faux-libre marketing they suck money away from their legitimate competitors and prevent the creation of a statup that sells real libre laptops such as high performance ARM design or even a POWER laptop.

Why would purism request the FSF remove the RYF microcode update rule if they weren't planning on going all the way and completely ruining the RYF standard> - simply removing the microcode rule would still leave their laptops very far from an RYF standard that a modern intel laptop simply can't reach.

When they were first created there were plenty of modern performance laptop chipsets available such as AMD's Pre-PSP FT3 with quad core CPU's slightly slower than the dual core skylakes they are currently using.
Slightly faster skylake CPU vs real freedom....gee tough choice.

Purism is on a idiotic path as x86_64 can't and won't ever be free, not only is it impossible to disable or run your own code on ME/PSP it is also illegal in the USA where they are based as those are DRM mechanisms and any method would be quickly patched - purism exists to sell brand new intel laptops but at the same time

>>>>>>WHAT TO BUY INSTEAD?<<<<<<
If one is in the market for a freedom respecting laptop I highly encourage you to buy an pre-PSP Lenovo G505S which is the last and best owner controlled x86_64 laptop, it has an IOMMU and such is qubes capable.

G505S with Coreboot:
Make sure you get one with an A10 quad core CPU which is only slightly slower than purism's cpu choices despite being from 2013 - it is also quad rather than dual core.

There is a blob for video and power, you also need microcode updates to avoid several serious bugs as it is using an AMD piledriver processor however other then that you have open source hardware initiation for the RAM/CPU etc which is much better than purism's entirely blobbed coreboot.

You can get one used for around $150 or new for $400 or so - I reccomend buying one whilst they are still easily available and lenovo is still making replacement parts (till the end of 2018)
There are a few other AMD FT3 laptops that coreboot supports with the same freedom level but the G505S is the most popular and the quality of the port is much higher people are even working on an open source EC firmware.

Purism has ruined the idea of a libre laptop in everybodies head, now people think that it is somehow possible to have brand new high performance hardware that is open source without the backing of a major OEM and a ton of money.
Somebody sees purism's slick laptops and a minifree laptop right next to theirs, I mean what do you think they will purchase? The average power-user has no idea what the difference is.

The only example I have ever seen of brand new hardware that is *actually* libre, fast and owner controlled is the TALOS 2 - without the assistance of IBM and other companies it would have been impossible for raptor to release something that has feature, performance and freedom supremacy compaired with a xeon system in the same price range.

Custom laptops are significantly more complex and costlier than a workstation/server board where you don't have to fit as much in a tight space nor make and design the rest of the components (remember almost all of them have to be custom to fit - there is no laptop ATX type standard equivilants)

Why doesn't purism sell AMD FT3 stuff? it could be sold for a lot less whilst only being slightly slower. Why doesn't purism make a real libre ARM design or even POWER? How come their marketing is fourtune 500 levels of slick? where does all of the money come from including that contributed to their own crowdfunding campaign?

I have never met someone who wasn't confused by purism's shady marketing, all prospective customers who I have conversed with thought that their laptops had entirely open source firmware, a disabled ME and even open source hardware - make no mistake thie is truly impossible even google was un-successful when they attempted to get intel to open source ME and or make it owner controlled.