> They did attempt to blame Covid for their long-standing production and delivery issues, despite the fact that other crowdfunded and experimental hardware was shipping with only moderate delays throughout the pandemic (such as the PinePhone!).

PinePhone managed to be done just in time to mostly avoid the COVID woes, it also used parts that were much less affected by supply chain disruption. Librem 5 was already late at that point for unrelated reasons, but had COVID not happened I'm pretty sure the phones would have been all shipped about two years earlier at least. i.MX 8 shortages are well documented outside of the Librem 5's context, although to be fair the fact that at the time COVID happened Purism still didn't have some of the most vital components secured yet is purely on them (as was the initial schedule being completely unrealistic).

> As I said, there are many people who got neither the phone nor a refund

...only because they didn't want the phone anymore. I understand that choice, but it's a choice they made.

> If they are as profitable as they claim they are

...because they were finally able to book the shipped phones as profit rather than keep them as liability. It doesn't say anything about the cashflow though.

> and subsequently fail to produce either the product or the legally-required refund

It's a good thing Purism did produce the product then, even if late. It would have been much simpler not to, as the unit price ended up being much higher than what most people paid for it, but in the end the difference got covered from other sources (such as sales of laptops and other products) and by cutting the costs (such as my and others' pay).

> and you're citing them as proof that they met their obligation

The chart I pointed to was made independently by the community based on customers' self-reports. The blog post I pointed to I'm only citing because it matches what I know from plenty of other sources - obviously I can only link to what's public.

> I can't remember if he was there at the time of the phone fiasco.

Yes he was, and he was still there when I joined (though not for very long). I have my opinions.

> Unless you literally worked for them, for pay, I don't think you would have that insight. And even if you DID work for them, I don't think you would necessarily know the status of all the orders, since that's not your department.

I did, I had, I've seen the production batches getting delivered from China, I've seen support requests from people who were receiving their phones, I've seen the user community grow, I've seen non-public order, refund and revenue numbers, I've seen people who wanted a refund but couldn't get it change their minds and receive the phone instead, and plenty of other things... What I'm saying isn't based on some blog post or something someone told me as "trust me bro", it's based on lots of various data points I've seen over the years, including off-the-record conversations with colleges from various departments (including some disgruntled ones, for good reasons), that were all consistent with each other.

Of course you're still free not to trust me. But that's not my problem. I just want to get the facts straight in case others read this, as ultimately I'm fairly proud of what we managed to achieve with this device. I'm still daily-driving one myself.