linux phone concept
Mockup of a Linux Phone, not a leak.

Hardware company Purism is best known for being the driving force behind the goal of creating a truly free software laptop — but are they about to launch a Linux phone?

Fuelling speculation that, yes, they are, the company accidentally published a blog post earlier today titled: “Phone Campaign Temporary Page“. Oblique title, sure, and as the post was password protected no additional details were able to be gleaned from the goof.

The post that (briefly) slid into RSS feeds linked to suitably vague URL @ puri.sm/posts/phone-campaign-temporary-page.

But it’s not a magic leap to wonder if a smartphone looms.

Purism has previously spoken of its desire to create a ‘truly open-source Linux phone’ that runs a ‘bona fide GNU/Linux stack’. They even launched a ‘preliminary survey’ to scope out the kind of specs and features that potential users would want from such a device.

And the last line on the “Hardware Kill Switches” page of their website makes reference to one: “We are planning additional hardware kill switches for the Librem 11 and Librem Phone, for the cellular (SIM) card slot and the GPS receiver.”

But with this slip-up the company may now be close to launching a crowd-funding campaign to actuate their ambition.

We’ll keep our ears to the ground…

via Phoronix | Thanks Niall