Hi Tiberiu,
I'm not spreading FUD; I'm simply pointing out potential issues, since I've
used a T400S myself; overheating and lack of availability (making warranties
harder to provide) is precisely why Minifree doesn't sell the T400S, and
instead focuses exclusively on the T400. The T400 is a better product.
I'm not attempting to hijack your thread; I'm simply, once again, providing
constructive criticism. Would you accuse someone who wasn't me of such
practise, if they said the exact same things as I do?
Regarding your stress test results: 94C on full load is what I regard as
overheating. Intel specifications, on most systems, usually set critical
temperature to around 100-110; this is the temperature at which the system
will forcibly shut down, to protect itself from damage. Minifree tests all of
its laptops, ensuring that they do not exceed 80C when stress tested. Many of
our laptops do not exceed 70C.
Regarding your accusation of anti-competitive practises on the part of
Minifree; some facts:
I don't feel threatened by your new T400S product, and I'm happy that you're
making sales of it. I want your company to thrive. That's why I personally
made sure that your company was openly endorsed on libreboot.org; someone
recently merged my Pull Request, adding your T400S product to Libreboot's
suppliers page:
https://libreboot.org/suppliers.html#technoethical
We in Libreboot openly endorse your products, and tell people to buy them. I
wrote that suppliers page myself.
Yes, you are quite right; Minifree *did*, for a brief period, advertise
non-FSF-endorsed GNU+Linux distributions (e.g. Debian) on its website, on its
products. I quickly saw the error of my ways, and Minifree once again
exclusively ships Trisquel GNU+Linux on all of its products. It is *no longer
possible* to purchase non-FSF-endorsed GNU+Linux configurations from
Minifree.
In practise, Minifree only ever shipped Debian during that period. I have
since contacted those customers, offering to replace their Debian
installations with Trisquel, to correct my previous error of judgement.
Minifree is the first company to ever achieve FSF Respects Your Freedom
certification - 3 times (first X60, then X200, then T400). We are still
openly endorsed by the Free Software Foundation.
Regarding your specific accusation of price dumping (a practise which is even
illegal in some countries):
You should note, that Vikings also sells the Libreboot X200 (under their own
brandname of "Vikings X200") for 248 EUR. This is quite considerably cheaper
than even Technoethical's X200, which stands at 478 EUR.
Will you also accuse Vikings of price dumping?
Minifree simply adjusted its pricing, to match the current market trends. We
were not receiving any sales, before the price drop, since our laptops were
overpriced. They are no longer overpriced; in fact, for most people, it's now
cheaper to buy a Minifree T400 with Libreboot preinstalled, than it would be
for them to flash a T400 themselves, because of the cost of flashing
equipment.
The *actual* reason that Minifree dropped its prices so heavily, is so that
we could start selling to poorer countries where the minimum wage is 300 EUR
per month or less. We realized that it was no longer ethical to sell the
laptops for the previous higher price.
The truth is, that all of your laptops are overpriced. If someone wants a
Libreboot X200, they can either pay you 478 EUR or pay Vikings 248 EUR:
https://store.vikings.net/libre-friendly-hardware/x200-ryf-certfied
Vikings X200 is also certified under the FSF's Respects Your Freedom
certification.
If they want a Libreboot T400, they can either purchase yours which is 568(or
778) EUR or Minifree T400 which is 198 EUR:
https://minifree.org/product/libreboot-t400/
If they're in the USA, they can also purchase a Libiquity X200 (which is FSF
RYF endorsed) for a lower price than Technoethical X200:
https://shop.libiquity.com/product/taurinus-x200 - Libiquity's X200 is 398
EUR (when converting from USD to EUR), which is much cheaper than
Technoethical's 478 EUR
Tiberiu, instead of accusing me of FUD and price dumping (when actually all
of your competitors are cheaper than you - Libiquity, Minifree and Vikings
are *all* cheaper than Technoethical), why don't you actually price your
laptops fairly so that people in Romania (a country where the minimum wage is
is 300 EUR per month on average) can more easily get Libreboot laptops?
Next time, please do not claim that legitimate criticism and competition is
FUD. You are currently the least competitive company selling Libreboot
hardware.
~Leah
