Purism’s Linux phone crowdfunding campaign has now passed 50% of its overall goal.
It seems that getting the backing of both GNOME and KDE has given the Librem 5 campaign a boost of publicity, and a stack of new pledges.
At the time of writing the project has snagged $777,536 in pledges against a goal of $1,500,000 — which works out at roughly 51%.
A True Linux Phone
Purism is seeking funds to be build a ‘true’ Linux powered smartphone that “focuses on security by design and privacy protection by default”.
The device will ship with either a GNOME Shell UI or KDE Plasma Mobile UI by default but, through various partnerships and development efforts in the community, backers will be able to replace it with, well, whatever else is available!
Purism say this liberal approach will help to “create an open development utopia, rather than the walled gardens from all other phone providers.”
Don’t get complacent!
But while the project is now halfway to its goal it does mean that there’s still halfway to go to reach it.
The campaign runs for a further 26 days. If the full $1.5 million is not raised by the end date then Purism don’t get so much as a dime, and no backers will be charged.
If the full power of a Linux based phone in your pocket sounds like an absolute dream you can go help make it a reality over on the Librem 5 crowdfunding page where pledges start from $20¹.