17 ms·

Libreboot: Open Letter to the Free Software Community

272 points by jff 10y ago

josteink 10y ago
> I hope that any damage I caused to the community is not permanent. While I believe Leah is honest about realizing her mistakes, I fear this part is unreasonably optimistic. Libreboot as a project has clearly been tainted all across the internet, and we all know how long these things persist when they've first been given a chance to take hold. I'd love free firmware though so let's hope whatever stains remain won't be too damaging for these projects as a whole (coreboot, librecore and libreboot).
- c3534l 10y ago
  Meh. People have short memories, especially about internet drama. Most people probably didn't pay any attention to the drama to begin with and are only concerned with whether or not the project is stable going forward.
  - tomstockmail 10y ago
    >People have short memories, especially about internet drama Hardly. Sony rootkit, Debian OpenSSL issue from 2008, Reddit CEO spez changing reddit user comments, and many more are things that I see pop up on a weekly basis here on HN, daily on reddit or /.
    - Avshalom 10y ago
      I forgot all of those. Hell I couldn't even remember if it was libreboot or openboot that had drama.
      - problems 10y ago
        Well, my own piece of annecdata, the main thing I've heard about Libreboot was the drama, so when I heard its named brought up, it was the first thing I thought of.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        What drama? I didn't even realize there was one. For better or worse, Sony, Debian and Reddit are all going strong. Internet dramas mean very little. There was a shitstorm about Uber every other month for the past few years; hell, there's one even now on the HN front page. Each time I hoped the company will finally crumble and die, but no, they're going forward as strong as ever.
    - Confiks 10y ago
      I think people, especially here on HN, recognize that humans in general are fallible, and I think the incidents you mention have been largely forgiven or forgotten, at least by the respective public of each company. Personally, I would be the least forgiving of the issues that were not accidents or were even a company policy, such as the Sony rootkit or the Lenovo Superfish rootkit. I can put the Reddit incident in the same box as this Libreboot drama; personal hardship that spirals out of control very publicly.
      - grayhatter 10y ago
        I haven't and likely wont forget Debian for their SSL mistake... security people have long memories when you mess up THAT badly.
        jhasse 10y ago
        Debian is still one of the most used distros.
        ersii 10y ago
        Until they fuck up themselves and might realize that even smart, hard working and careful people can fuck up.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      Some of us remember (some) of those, but how many of us have changed behaviour over it?
    - qb45 10y ago
      As far as I know places like Slashdot and Reddit, they will keep flaming Leah Rowe for decades to come but the Libreboot project itself will be spared now that they have distanced themselves from her actions.
    - HelloNurse 10y ago
      The stories you mention are remembered because they are substantial problems, hard to forgive and leaving a black marks on the respective guilty parties, while Leah Rowe severing ties with the FSF is only relatively harmless drama (civil and barely dramatic, with the final apology more intense and memorable than the initial flame).
- aanm1988 10y ago
  The fact that reason was able to take hold and get things back on track actually gives me more hope for this project. Hopefully this be a lesson to others as well.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - pluma 10y ago
    I think that the other contributors actually held out long enough to let her come to her senses speaks for the project. They seem to be invested enough to actually spend six months seeing the project be dragged through the mud and still come back and work with her.
    - Chaebixi 10y ago
      Didn't the other contributors leave to join a fork? https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecore-Formation https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecor... http://librecore.info/ http://librecore.info/
      - pluma 10y ago
        I was specifically referring to the contributors that didn't leave. The open letter was penned by someone other than Leah, so no matter how many have left, some of them seem to have stayed.
- kstenerud 10y ago
  In politics, memories are short. A year from now nobody will even care.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  I didn't even know about it, and I've kinda vaguely kept an eye on Libreboot since it launched (I even used to subscribe to the LinuxBIOS dev list when it launched like two decades ago, so it's an ongoing, if only mild, interest). I certainly don't consider the project perpetually tainted. People fuck up. People deal with mental illness. People sometimes have poor interpersonal skills (this is not uncommon in technical communities...several BDFLs are widely regarded to be assholes to varying degree). All I usually want from someone is an admission of what went wrong, and a sincere effort to never repeat it and to apologize to the folks directly harmed. I don't know enough about this to say who owes who an apology or who ought to be making amends. But, really, people have been assholes on the internet since...probably the first day the internet existed. If we let that stop us from working on cool stuff, OSS and the open internet would not be what it is today (hmmm...I guess the internet being what it is today isn't exactly a bragging point or proof of my argument).
- cgb223 10y ago
  I'm not familiar with the issue, were other developers not able to do a hard fork of the code base and continue without her?
  - timonovici 10y ago
    They did - librecore; but not much work was done on it. Libreboot is a build system more than anything else - and to be honest, that jungle of bash scripts - I'd rather see it rewriten from scratch, rather than forked. To answer your question - they kinda forked it, and kinda not.
infodroid 10y ago
I don't know why free software projects are so dominated by personnel issues, I wish they weren't.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  Groups of people in general are dominated by personnel issues, unless you're a small group of people with very similar backgrounds. Free software projects are communities first and foremost, with the software as an output of that community.
- andrepd 10y ago
  All things considered this sort of drama doesn't happen all that often in free software projects.
  - infodroid 10y ago
    There was the Jacob Appelbaum drama not so long ago, which was quite ugly and really seemed to drag out.
    - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
      That's still ongoing. I won't bring up any specifics here because it's a difficult topic to discuss without running afoul of the HN rules.
- wiz21c 10y ago
  much free software is done on spare time, so people are most often personally involved in their "babies". Creating an institution allows one to take some step back, but so may the motivation... I wonder things are really this way...
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - simcop2387 10y ago
itsmemattchung 10y ago
Because I'm unfamiliar with the project, can someone provide some context as to what happened ?
- SXX 10y ago
  Some links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13329287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13329287
- gingerbread-man 10y ago
  The full archive of Libreboot blog posts can be found via https://web.archive.org/web/*/libreboot.org https://web.archive.org/web/*/libreboot.org
- pluma 10y ago
  It's pretty much there in the letter. Leah had exclusive control of libreboot. Leah is transgender. The FSF fired someone who happened to be transgender. Leah accused the FSF of doing it because they were transgender. Leah pulled libreboot out of the FSF, burned various bridges by calling people names and retained exclusive control of libreboot, making statements in the project's name. Apparently she changed her mind and libreboot has transitioned into a more democratic project and she's sorry for what she did and cites personal issues which the letter spells out as gender dysphoria and substance abuse. A quick googling shows that both the FSF and Leah have mostly refrained from naming names when talking about who got fired but Leah explicitly called out individual members of the FSF (which she apologises for in the letter, indicating she no longer thinks her accusations hold any water). There are also various posts from libreboot contributors complaining about Leah having effectively locked them out of the project and apparently the entire ordeal didn't exactly result in quality software releases (which is to be expected). tl;dr: maintainer with exclusive access has personal problems, lashes out against FSF, takes project hostage, works personal problems out over the next six months, hands control over project to the other contributors and repents.
  - fiatjaf 10y ago
sillysaurus3 10y ago
Finally, on a personal note, she was at the time struggling with gender dysphoria and substance abuse. Since then, she has been managing these issues. She agrees that her behaviour was rash and is determined to find a unifying solution. Is it really necessary to air this in public? Did you get her permission?
- gingerbread-man 10y ago
  Leah, the woman that statement references, posted her own personal message and apology below, so I think it's fair to assume she was consulted. Though the whole situation has been an unfortunate mess, it takes real bravery to publically admit fault and share those sorts of struggles.
- deleted 10y ago
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- AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  To be honest the "substance abuse" parts explains alot more about her behavior than the gender dysphoria. During the incident period there were a number of level-headed supporters of the project trying to dial it back, and it's as though she would double down at every opportunity.
  - Sunset 10y ago
    > she would double down at every opportunity. People with this kind of personal politics ALWAYS double down.
jordigh 10y ago
This is a nice statement to hear. I have had some IRC conversations with some of the involved people, and the whole affair was rather unpleasant. I hope things really are quieting down, and I'm really excited over the possibility of disabling ME. Being unable to get rid of hardware backdoors is essentially why I haven't bought a new laptop in ten years. Remarkably, my ten-year old Inspiron 1420 dellbuntu still works great, and it's delightful to be able to still buy parts for it, but I'm starting to feel the desire for newer hardware.
- Tharkun 10y ago
  You would think that there enough geeks out there who are aware of the issues with Intel ME to do something about. But after this time the best we have is a nasty hack that can kind of disable it. Don't we have the numbers (and quite frankly the money) to solve this issue at the root? Why can't we (the broader tech community) sell a laptop aimed principally at ourselves. Without Intel ME. Without closed-source firmware. No binary blobs. Pardon the rant. I'll go back to being naive in silence.
  - eropple 10y ago
    > Don't we have the numbers (and quite frankly the money) to solve this issue at the root? Why can't we (the broader tech community) sell a laptop aimed principally at ourselves. That's a really noble aim, and "we" totally could. But it'd cost millions of dollars in setup capital, the end product would cost significantly more than its competition, and it'd be from a restricted and likely heavily performance-impacted set of components. Given those restrictions, convincing the people with the money to back it that people won't just keep using Macs or off-the-rack PCs seems like a tall order. I mean, I called it a noble effort in honesty but I probably wouldn't use one because my calculus is such that having commonly-used, high-performance stuff matters more to me right now.
    - eecc 10y ago
      I don't think ME is a performance related feature
gravypod 10y ago
Any news on that X220 support mentioned? I have, and use, an X220 for all of my personal computing. How would one flash this and what would improve/break? I've heard things about different mini PCIe cards working after flashing to different types of BIOSs.
- floatboth 10y ago
  You'd probably flash it using flashrom, just like non-blobless (blobfull?) coreboot. BTW, a really interesting coreboot distribution is https://github.com/osresearch/heads https://github.com/osresearch/heads (focused on boot security)
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  Yeah, I have an X230T (X230, tablet version.) How likely is it that any X220 supported stuff would work on the X230?
  - gravypod 10y ago
    Funily enough I have an X230T too and I'd like to switch over to that. I cant get my battery life on my X230T to match my X220 at all. Any tips for this? I can't wait to have a note-taking pen tablet laptop thing, battery life is just a big factor for me. I'm a college student and need to be able to run my laptop from 8AM to 12PM. X220 works great for that. X230T is not there yet for me.
- slackersc 10y ago
  I don't know about the X220, but I can tell you about my experiences with setting up an X200 I bought off ebay. Its not quite trivial.. You need to get access to the SPI flash chip on the mother board. They sell some fancy little clips to attach wires, but I just had one of the hardware guys at work tac some wires directly to the chip. Then I used a raspberry pi to flash the image across using their tools. Maybe I had a dodgy connection, but it took several tries of flashing to get it to work correctly. Once installed it isn't much of a bios. It is mostly just GRUB, you lose all the existing bios settings completely. It lets you boot from different images and thats about it. It does work well once it's set up though. Here's a few low quality photos of the procedure. http://imgur.com/a/zAQRl http://imgur.com/a/zAQRl
dijit 10y ago
I hate to be cynical but I've been trained to pass politico-speak and Leahs apology is only that she attacked individuals. Her apology is devoid of stating that she believes the FSF did the right thing or absolve them of any wrong-doing regarding termination of that employee regardless of their gender. To a very cynical person (which I am being for the sake of this comment) it sounds like "I won, I did the damage I wanted; but now my project is hurting and this is damage control." EDIT: Someone is bitter.
- andrewguenther 10y ago
  This seems like a pretty unreasonable conclusion to draw. We don't know what happened with the FSF, and I think that Leah is entitled to her own view. Her resulting behavior was what caused damage, and she's apologized for that.
  - dijit 10y ago
    But she's not going back on her forcibly removing the project from the FSF. It's platitudes without that. She "punished" them successfully.
- xori 10y ago
  Ya you're not the only one, I see a person coerced into making a statement. But I'm glad the project is still out of the FSF.
- sp332 10y ago
  Take responsibility for your comments. If you're going to be cynical, admit that you're cynical. Don't make up some hypothetical other person making a hypothetical point. (If you don't think it's a good point, then just don't make it.)
- mintplant 10y ago
  I thought it was clear that Leah still finds fault with the FSF (and thus has no interest in Libreboot rejoining), but has come to the conclusion that she went down the wrong path in responding to the situation. I see that as a reasonable and internally consistent position.
zokier 10y ago
What is the relevance of libreboot anymore? Why not just focus instead on librecore?
jandrese 10y ago
IMHO all of this personal drama is a sideshow compared to the inability to support modern Intel or AMD hardware. I know they're working on enabling ARM Chromebooks now, but without support for Intel or AMD it's hard to see how this project isn't dead in the water.
- azrazalea 10y ago
  You act like that is the project's fault though. The whole point of libreboot is to be a purely free software alternative and they can't do that with modern AMD/Intel. Sure, that means the project will never be mainstream but it doesn't mean it is dead in the water.
  - simcop2387 10y ago
    There's been some hacks recently that have managed to nerf the ME on sandy/ivybridge. It's still a blob but it disables a lot of the other functionality so there's hope for newer hardware.
  - jandrese 10y ago
    Even if it is not their fault it is still their problem.
- Taek 10y ago
  If more people were willing to take the step to arm and sacrifice the performance, this could move forward faster. And there's a strong security reason to do so. I am motivated to buy an Arm machine which will be soley responsible for my: + Email + Banking + Cryptocurrency Because none of those take too much power, and they are all very security sensitive.
  - abecedarius 10y ago
    Is there a favorite one I can buy now? Or a least unfavored?
    - 10y ago
peterwwillis 10y ago
Does anyone in the free software community really care about all this? Did this really need a press release?
CodeWriter23 10y ago
I think they are naive to leave Leah in any kind of position within this project. I'm not saying she is a government operative, but activist projects like this that seek to end the potential for electronic eavesdropping via the IME are going to be at least spied upon, if not disrupted. And stirring up a bunch of crazy drama is a known controlled opposition technique. Like I said, I am not accusing Leah of being such, and I have no knowledge to make such an assessment of her. I just know that in my line of activism, someone acts a fool like that, they're out. Period.
- tux3 10y ago
  That sounds like a double-edged sword, since by those rules an Evil Attacker Organization™ could now get rid of key people by stirring up enough drama around them.
  - Chaebixi 10y ago
    > That sounds like a double-edged sword, since by those rules an Evil Attacker Organization™ could now get rid of key people by stirring up enough drama around them [emphasis mine]. I don't think it is. It's one thing to have drama around you, but it's quite another to be the source or instigator of it. Leah Rowe is clearly the latter.
    - swsieber 10y ago
      Was, not is. I believe that's an important distinction.
      - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
        > Was, not is. I believe that's an important distinction. It is, but it's yet to be seen if this kind of dramatic behavior is behind the project's leader. It was all very dramatic and still very fresh. An apology is only the first step towards making it past-tense.
        10y ago
calebgilbert 10y ago
Without going into specifics that would surely prove to be incendiary to some, this whole thing makes me feel like some portion of the world has completely lost it. If you feel differently than me or hostile towards me for saying so, that is your right, but I wanted to have at least one comment on here for posterity for anyone else who feels the way I do so that they do not feel alone.
calebgilbert 10y ago
This is very telling to me that I get down voted for having a differing worldview opinion. Social justice for all unless they disagree with you, eh.
- gizmo686 10y ago
  I can't speak to why others downvoted you. However, your comment says nothing. I have no idea what you think about this; but I do know that your comment adds nothing to the conversation.
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    He is making clever implications by omission. Break it down, by the words he uses... I won't spell it out, but the OP finds some facts in the story unusual to the point of 1 in 10000 coincidences happening with 1 in 10 frequency in the context. It is a valid observation, even if it does imply a different worldview.
    - aaron695 10y ago
      Still don't get it? I think SJW's have lost the plot and are enlisting people with mental illness into their cult of culture to further their own cult while doing damage to them and the community at large. Do they think something similar?
  - calebgilbert 10y ago
    gizmo686 - For you this may be true. I don't think you can speak for everyone that comes to this thread though. I've said as much as I feel comfortable and safe to say given how hostile the internet and 'discussion' about certain subjects have become in general.
    - albedoa 10y ago
      You attributed the downvotes to having a different opinion, but in this very comment you admit to being intentionally vague. Maybe you should instead attribute the downvoting to the very good reason you gave us.
gcb0 10y ago
> At this point, it doesn’t matter. Indeed, it is unlikely that Libreboot will ever rejoin GNU, but feuding in an already fragmented community helps nobody. how is this not paradoxical/delusional? oh boy, here we go again. An apology full of grandiose but still standing on the previous stubborn point. That is not how apologies work.
- red023 10y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking. Admitting it was all BS, yet still sticking with it. Probably already making stuff up like that they where indeed biased against "her" because - micro aggression's showed it in their faces or whatever they come up with these days.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - icebraining 10y ago
    Nobody "admitted it was all BS". All was said was that the reaction was poor.
    - red023 10y ago
      To me saying "maybe, maybe not". "substance abuse" "gender dysphoria" "sorry sorry sorry" tel me that is was all BS. To me it was admitted between the lines.
- tekklloneer 10y ago
  It's possible the FSF doesn't want them back without terms they find onerous, like full dissolution of the team and just handing over the brand.
- icebraining 10y ago
  An apology full of grandiose but still standing on the previous stubborn point. That is not how apologies work. The person writing what you quoted isn't apologizing, so I'm not sure what you're on about.
redsummer 10y ago
Every SJW thing you are required to believe nowadays is just a way for self-promoters, drama queens, and the mentally ill to get power and advantage. And all in the service of globalism and corporations.
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  That's fair, the mentally ill did agree at the last big meeting that they were all on board with these tactics. More seriously, maybe next time stick to things (like self-promoters and drama queens) that people can actually walk away from? Shaming people for being mentally ill has been tried a lot as a treatment option. Shocking that it doesn't work.
  - dmix 10y ago
    Not all mentally ill people need to be coddled and babied either. I learned that the hard way. Sometimes they are just hopelessly destructive to the people around them, and themselves, and the only 'solution' is to walk away from the relationship or keep it at a distance, otherwise it can be a black hole of wasted emotional energy and effort better left to professionals. Calling someone out for negative/destructive/selfish behaviour is not always 'shaming' them either. Mental illness is not a get away with anything card. I've also learned from personal experience that not all mental illness is static either, a lot can be done to minimize issues, for ex by medication and cognitive therapy. Just as I've found some people don't entirely benefit from such help/effort either. The key is finding the middle ground. But I do agree it's better to give someone with mental illness the benefit of the doubt things are not intentional. But this isn't always about blame or causation, we all have to live in the same world too.
    - RangerScience 10y ago
      Approach relationships "sustainably". Literally, can you sustain what you are currently doing? If not, it will eventually end; with you, or with the relationship.
    - johncolanduoni 10y ago
red023 10y ago
"Justified, maybe, maybe not. Libreboot is probably never going to rejoin the GNU. Leah was at the time struggling with gender dysphoria and substance abuse." ~Alyssa Rosenzweig "I was wrong, I am sorry, I felt justified. I apologize, I apologize, I apologize" Seriously why after all this they still have not the balls to say it was all wrong. Why this "maybe". What is this BS? They admit it was all SJW BS but at the same time they don't want to rejoin the FSF? Why? I bet they would welcome them back with open arms. Seriously I think this is all great, yet another SJW whatever tirade ends with facts that show how this people often just make stuff up to feel entitled or because of their issues their brought on themselves or whatever. But why not go all the way why still "maybe" "never rejoin".
- deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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ajarmst 10y ago
I guess I'm officially part of the greybeards now. This sort of thing just makes me feel tired. I know it's naive to want your engineering projects to come without politics and drama (hell, I'm less than a decade junior to Stallman, I was there for some of the reasons politics came in), but part of me is all "just fork the damn code and let's move on".
- tekklloneer 10y ago
  Part of the problem is this: who'd fork it? Who'd put in the effort? Sure, they alienated key members, but the people doing the bulk of the work were at the core, including Leah. So, it's not so simple as forking and coming back when the dust has settled.
  - timonovici 10y ago
    There were actually enough pissed off core members to pull off a fork - what was missing was a leader. We'll see how all this ends up - but given Leah track record - the whole "leaving the GNU project", the allegations, her aggressive behavior towards competition - don't instill me a lot of confidence that the dust is settled for good. Look at this for example - censorship happened just 3 days ago - they only reverted the issue after community backlash https://trisquel.info/en/forum/libreboot-issues-open-letter-free-software-community#comment-112702 https://trisquel.info/en/forum/libreboot-issues-open-letter-...
    - tekklloneer 10y ago
      If someone was missing, then there wasn't enough people.
      - timonovici 10y ago
        It's a bit nuanced, but I guess you're right. There's the librecore thing - but AFAIK they didn't reach out to coop the other developers, they didn't publish their own builds, and the inertia was lost. What could be the straw that breaks the camel's back - would be for Leah to piss off Paul Kocialkowski, as he's the guy who wrote a big chunk of libreboot (especially the newer parts of the system, with the chromebooks); But time will tell.
lucb1e 10y ago
This is a message one rarely gets to read and I'm happy to see it: rather than having an endless flamewar and a person being put out of the project, at least from the project's side people are just moving on and the number one priority is simply the project. These things drag on way too long too often. This is the first and only thing I read about what apparently happened, so I might miss some details, but the basic message I'm seeing is "actions regretted, won't happen again, also more people have access now, let's get this thing back on track".
castle-bravo 10y ago
A wise man once told me: "no politics at work". As time goes on, the value of that advice becomes more and more certain. There's no reason that libreboot needs to be a political project. There are enough reasons to want our firmware to be free. We rely on our machines for our work, for our art, for our lives.
- icebraining 10y ago
  There are enough reasons to want our firmware to be free. We rely on our machines for our work, for our art, for our lives. That's a political position as well. You can't avoid taking political positions in a public social environment, all you're doing is silently accepting the existing position.
  - ticviking 10y ago
    Or declaring that this is not the time and space for those discussions.
    - throwaway2048 10y ago
      Doing nothing is still a choice.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      You don't need discussions; distributing code is a political action by itself. The project is inherently political. Limiting discussions is just a power play.
  - vfclists 10y ago
    This is not a political issue unless you want to make it so. It is a purely economic issue brought about by commercial interest. The fact that merchants and financiers depend on politicians to pass the laws which make it criminal to reverse engineer or share/publicise knowledge derived from reverse engineering does not make it a political issue. You only have to Google 'site:news.ycombinator.com john deere' to see that it is an economic issue. Replacing your $1000 laptop may not be much of an economic issue for you, but your replacing or paying maintenance for your $500,000 combine harvester most certainly is.
hackuser 10y ago
> With all of this in mind, were the allegations against the Free Software Foundation true? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this point, it doesn’t matter. It may matter very much to the person who was fired.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
It looks like this got hit with the HN effect. Does anybody have a mirror?
ailideex 10y ago
can I get TLDR on all the drama ?
- romanovcode 10y ago
  - FSF fires underperforming and problematic employee who happen to be transgender - Libreboot exists FSF and publicly denounces it believing that firing was based because of the transgender a la discrimination - Community gets divided, Libreboot doesn't get as much help/code/growth as before - Libeboot realised it made a huge mistake (but doesn't admit it), wants things the way they were
romanovcode 10y ago
So turns out they need GNU after all?
pdimitar 10y ago
I am very proud of all sides that are involved. The letter was very on point when stating "The world of free software is shrinking and under attack". All of us doing OSS must absolutely forgot any personal differences and work towards the cause -- and never forget the cause. There are strongly opinionated people, there are bigots, there are paid trolls, there are sexists and racists -- like in all human groups. In the end though, we still must come together.

272 points by jff 10y ago

> I hope that any damage I caused to the community is not permanent. While I believe Leah is honest about realizing her mistakes, I fear this part is unreasonably optimistic. Libreboot as a project has clearly been tainted all across the internet, and we all know how long these things persist when they've first been given a chance to take hold. I'd love free firmware though so let's hope whatever stains remain won't be too damaging for these projects as a whole (coreboot, librecore and libreboot).

c3534l 10y ago
Meh. People have short memories, especially about internet drama. Most people probably didn't pay any attention to the drama to begin with and are only concerned with whether or not the project is stable going forward.
- tomstockmail 10y ago
  >People have short memories, especially about internet drama Hardly. Sony rootkit, Debian OpenSSL issue from 2008, Reddit CEO spez changing reddit user comments, and many more are things that I see pop up on a weekly basis here on HN, daily on reddit or /.
  - Avshalom 10y ago
    I forgot all of those. Hell I couldn't even remember if it was libreboot or openboot that had drama.
    - problems 10y ago
      Well, my own piece of annecdata, the main thing I've heard about Libreboot was the drama, so when I heard its named brought up, it was the first thing I thought of.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      What drama? I didn't even realize there was one. For better or worse, Sony, Debian and Reddit are all going strong. Internet dramas mean very little. There was a shitstorm about Uber every other month for the past few years; hell, there's one even now on the HN front page. Each time I hoped the company will finally crumble and die, but no, they're going forward as strong as ever.
  - Confiks 10y ago
    I think people, especially here on HN, recognize that humans in general are fallible, and I think the incidents you mention have been largely forgiven or forgotten, at least by the respective public of each company. Personally, I would be the least forgiving of the issues that were not accidents or were even a company policy, such as the Sony rootkit or the Lenovo Superfish rootkit. I can put the Reddit incident in the same box as this Libreboot drama; personal hardship that spirals out of control very publicly.
    - grayhatter 10y ago
      I haven't and likely wont forget Debian for their SSL mistake... security people have long memories when you mess up THAT badly.
      - jhasse 10y ago
        Debian is still one of the most used distros.
      - ersii 10y ago
        Until they fuck up themselves and might realize that even smart, hard working and careful people can fuck up.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Some of us remember (some) of those, but how many of us have changed behaviour over it?
  - qb45 10y ago
    As far as I know places like Slashdot and Reddit, they will keep flaming Leah Rowe for decades to come but the Libreboot project itself will be spared now that they have distanced themselves from her actions.
  - HelloNurse 10y ago
    The stories you mention are remembered because they are substantial problems, hard to forgive and leaving a black marks on the respective guilty parties, while Leah Rowe severing ties with the FSF is only relatively harmless drama (civil and barely dramatic, with the final apology more intense and memorable than the initial flame).
aanm1988 10y ago
The fact that reason was able to take hold and get things back on track actually gives me more hope for this project. Hopefully this be a lesson to others as well.
- deleted 10y ago
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- pluma 10y ago
  I think that the other contributors actually held out long enough to let her come to her senses speaks for the project. They seem to be invested enough to actually spend six months seeing the project be dragged through the mud and still come back and work with her.
  - Chaebixi 10y ago
    Didn't the other contributors leave to join a fork? https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecore-Formation https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecor... http://librecore.info/ http://librecore.info/
    - pluma 10y ago
      I was specifically referring to the contributors that didn't leave. The open letter was penned by someone other than Leah, so no matter how many have left, some of them seem to have stayed.
kstenerud 10y ago
In politics, memories are short. A year from now nobody will even care.
SwellJoe 10y ago
I didn't even know about it, and I've kinda vaguely kept an eye on Libreboot since it launched (I even used to subscribe to the LinuxBIOS dev list when it launched like two decades ago, so it's an ongoing, if only mild, interest). I certainly don't consider the project perpetually tainted. People fuck up. People deal with mental illness. People sometimes have poor interpersonal skills (this is not uncommon in technical communities...several BDFLs are widely regarded to be assholes to varying degree). All I usually want from someone is an admission of what went wrong, and a sincere effort to never repeat it and to apologize to the folks directly harmed. I don't know enough about this to say who owes who an apology or who ought to be making amends. But, really, people have been assholes on the internet since...probably the first day the internet existed. If we let that stop us from working on cool stuff, OSS and the open internet would not be what it is today (hmmm...I guess the internet being what it is today isn't exactly a bragging point or proof of my argument).
cgb223 10y ago
I'm not familiar with the issue, were other developers not able to do a hard fork of the code base and continue without her?
- timonovici 10y ago
  They did - librecore; but not much work was done on it. Libreboot is a build system more than anything else - and to be honest, that jungle of bash scripts - I'd rather see it rewriten from scratch, rather than forked. To answer your question - they kinda forked it, and kinda not.

infodroid 10y ago

I don't know why free software projects are so dominated by personnel issues, I wish they weren't.

vertex-four 10y ago
Groups of people in general are dominated by personnel issues, unless you're a small group of people with very similar backgrounds. Free software projects are communities first and foremost, with the software as an output of that community.
andrepd 10y ago
All things considered this sort of drama doesn't happen all that often in free software projects.
- infodroid 10y ago
  There was the Jacob Appelbaum drama not so long ago, which was quite ugly and really seemed to drag out.
  - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
    That's still ongoing. I won't bring up any specifics here because it's a difficult topic to discuss without running afoul of the HN rules.
wiz21c 10y ago
much free software is done on spare time, so people are most often personally involved in their "babies". Creating an institution allows one to take some step back, but so may the motivation... I wonder things are really this way...
- deleted 10y ago
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- simcop2387 10y ago

itsmemattchung 10y ago

Because I'm unfamiliar with the project, can someone provide some context as to what happened ?

SXX 10y ago
Some links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13329287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13329287
gingerbread-man 10y ago
The full archive of Libreboot blog posts can be found via https://web.archive.org/web/*/libreboot.org https://web.archive.org/web/*/libreboot.org
pluma 10y ago
It's pretty much there in the letter. Leah had exclusive control of libreboot. Leah is transgender. The FSF fired someone who happened to be transgender. Leah accused the FSF of doing it because they were transgender. Leah pulled libreboot out of the FSF, burned various bridges by calling people names and retained exclusive control of libreboot, making statements in the project's name. Apparently she changed her mind and libreboot has transitioned into a more democratic project and she's sorry for what she did and cites personal issues which the letter spells out as gender dysphoria and substance abuse. A quick googling shows that both the FSF and Leah have mostly refrained from naming names when talking about who got fired but Leah explicitly called out individual members of the FSF (which she apologises for in the letter, indicating she no longer thinks her accusations hold any water). There are also various posts from libreboot contributors complaining about Leah having effectively locked them out of the project and apparently the entire ordeal didn't exactly result in quality software releases (which is to be expected). tl;dr: maintainer with exclusive access has personal problems, lashes out against FSF, takes project hostage, works personal problems out over the next six months, hands control over project to the other contributors and repents.
- fiatjaf 10y ago

sillysaurus3 10y ago

Finally, on a personal note, she was at the time struggling with gender dysphoria and substance abuse. Since then, she has been managing these issues. She agrees that her behaviour was rash and is determined to find a unifying solution. Is it really necessary to air this in public? Did you get her permission?

gingerbread-man 10y ago
Leah, the woman that statement references, posted her own personal message and apology below, so I think it's fair to assume she was consulted. Though the whole situation has been an unfortunate mess, it takes real bravery to publically admit fault and share those sorts of struggles.
deleted 10y ago
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AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
To be honest the "substance abuse" parts explains alot more about her behavior than the gender dysphoria. During the incident period there were a number of level-headed supporters of the project trying to dial it back, and it's as though she would double down at every opportunity.
- Sunset 10y ago
  > she would double down at every opportunity. People with this kind of personal politics ALWAYS double down.

jordigh 10y ago

This is a nice statement to hear. I have had some IRC conversations with some of the involved people, and the whole affair was rather unpleasant. I hope things really are quieting down, and I'm really excited over the possibility of disabling ME. Being unable to get rid of hardware backdoors is essentially why I haven't bought a new laptop in ten years. Remarkably, my ten-year old Inspiron 1420 dellbuntu still works great, and it's delightful to be able to still buy parts for it, but I'm starting to feel the desire for newer hardware.

Tharkun 10y ago
You would think that there enough geeks out there who are aware of the issues with Intel ME to do something about. But after this time the best we have is a nasty hack that can kind of disable it. Don't we have the numbers (and quite frankly the money) to solve this issue at the root? Why can't we (the broader tech community) sell a laptop aimed principally at ourselves. Without Intel ME. Without closed-source firmware. No binary blobs. Pardon the rant. I'll go back to being naive in silence.
- eropple 10y ago
  > Don't we have the numbers (and quite frankly the money) to solve this issue at the root? Why can't we (the broader tech community) sell a laptop aimed principally at ourselves. That's a really noble aim, and "we" totally could. But it'd cost millions of dollars in setup capital, the end product would cost significantly more than its competition, and it'd be from a restricted and likely heavily performance-impacted set of components. Given those restrictions, convincing the people with the money to back it that people won't just keep using Macs or off-the-rack PCs seems like a tall order. I mean, I called it a noble effort in honesty but I probably wouldn't use one because my calculus is such that having commonly-used, high-performance stuff matters more to me right now.
  - eecc 10y ago
    I don't think ME is a performance related feature

gravypod 10y ago

Any news on that X220 support mentioned? I have, and use, an X220 for all of my personal computing. How would one flash this and what would improve/break? I've heard things about different mini PCIe cards working after flashing to different types of BIOSs.

floatboth 10y ago
You'd probably flash it using flashrom, just like non-blobless (blobfull?) coreboot. BTW, a really interesting coreboot distribution is https://github.com/osresearch/heads https://github.com/osresearch/heads (focused on boot security)
owenversteeg 10y ago
Yeah, I have an X230T (X230, tablet version.) How likely is it that any X220 supported stuff would work on the X230?
- gravypod 10y ago
  Funily enough I have an X230T too and I'd like to switch over to that. I cant get my battery life on my X230T to match my X220 at all. Any tips for this? I can't wait to have a note-taking pen tablet laptop thing, battery life is just a big factor for me. I'm a college student and need to be able to run my laptop from 8AM to 12PM. X220 works great for that. X230T is not there yet for me.
slackersc 10y ago
I don't know about the X220, but I can tell you about my experiences with setting up an X200 I bought off ebay. Its not quite trivial.. You need to get access to the SPI flash chip on the mother board. They sell some fancy little clips to attach wires, but I just had one of the hardware guys at work tac some wires directly to the chip. Then I used a raspberry pi to flash the image across using their tools. Maybe I had a dodgy connection, but it took several tries of flashing to get it to work correctly. Once installed it isn't much of a bios. It is mostly just GRUB, you lose all the existing bios settings completely. It lets you boot from different images and thats about it. It does work well once it's set up though. Here's a few low quality photos of the procedure. http://imgur.com/a/zAQRl http://imgur.com/a/zAQRl

dijit 10y ago

I hate to be cynical but I've been trained to pass politico-speak and Leahs apology is only that she attacked individuals. Her apology is devoid of stating that she believes the FSF did the right thing or absolve them of any wrong-doing regarding termination of that employee regardless of their gender. To a very cynical person (which I am being for the sake of this comment) it sounds like "I won, I did the damage I wanted; but now my project is hurting and this is damage control." EDIT: Someone is bitter.

andrewguenther 10y ago
This seems like a pretty unreasonable conclusion to draw. We don't know what happened with the FSF, and I think that Leah is entitled to her own view. Her resulting behavior was what caused damage, and she's apologized for that.
- dijit 10y ago
  But she's not going back on her forcibly removing the project from the FSF. It's platitudes without that. She "punished" them successfully.
xori 10y ago
Ya you're not the only one, I see a person coerced into making a statement. But I'm glad the project is still out of the FSF.
sp332 10y ago
Take responsibility for your comments. If you're going to be cynical, admit that you're cynical. Don't make up some hypothetical other person making a hypothetical point. (If you don't think it's a good point, then just don't make it.)
mintplant 10y ago
I thought it was clear that Leah still finds fault with the FSF (and thus has no interest in Libreboot rejoining), but has come to the conclusion that she went down the wrong path in responding to the situation. I see that as a reasonable and internally consistent position.

zokier 10y ago

What is the relevance of libreboot anymore? Why not just focus instead on librecore?

jandrese 10y ago

IMHO all of this personal drama is a sideshow compared to the inability to support modern Intel or AMD hardware. I know they're working on enabling ARM Chromebooks now, but without support for Intel or AMD it's hard to see how this project isn't dead in the water.

azrazalea 10y ago
You act like that is the project's fault though. The whole point of libreboot is to be a purely free software alternative and they can't do that with modern AMD/Intel. Sure, that means the project will never be mainstream but it doesn't mean it is dead in the water.
- simcop2387 10y ago
  There's been some hacks recently that have managed to nerf the ME on sandy/ivybridge. It's still a blob but it disables a lot of the other functionality so there's hope for newer hardware.
- jandrese 10y ago
  Even if it is not their fault it is still their problem.
Taek 10y ago
If more people were willing to take the step to arm and sacrifice the performance, this could move forward faster. And there's a strong security reason to do so. I am motivated to buy an Arm machine which will be soley responsible for my: + Email + Banking + Cryptocurrency Because none of those take too much power, and they are all very security sensitive.
- abecedarius 10y ago
  Is there a favorite one I can buy now? Or a least unfavored?
  - 10y ago

peterwwillis 10y ago

Does anyone in the free software community really care about all this? Did this really need a press release?

CodeWriter23 10y ago

I think they are naive to leave Leah in any kind of position within this project. I'm not saying she is a government operative, but activist projects like this that seek to end the potential for electronic eavesdropping via the IME are going to be at least spied upon, if not disrupted. And stirring up a bunch of crazy drama is a known controlled opposition technique. Like I said, I am not accusing Leah of being such, and I have no knowledge to make such an assessment of her. I just know that in my line of activism, someone acts a fool like that, they're out. Period.

tux3 10y ago
That sounds like a double-edged sword, since by those rules an Evil Attacker Organization™ could now get rid of key people by stirring up enough drama around them.
- Chaebixi 10y ago
  > That sounds like a double-edged sword, since by those rules an Evil Attacker Organization™ could now get rid of key people by stirring up enough drama around them [emphasis mine]. I don't think it is. It's one thing to have drama around you, but it's quite another to be the source or instigator of it. Leah Rowe is clearly the latter.
  - swsieber 10y ago
    Was, not is. I believe that's an important distinction.
    - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
      > Was, not is. I believe that's an important distinction. It is, but it's yet to be seen if this kind of dramatic behavior is behind the project's leader. It was all very dramatic and still very fresh. An apology is only the first step towards making it past-tense.
      - 10y ago

calebgilbert 10y ago

Without going into specifics that would surely prove to be incendiary to some, this whole thing makes me feel like some portion of the world has completely lost it. If you feel differently than me or hostile towards me for saying so, that is your right, but I wanted to have at least one comment on here for posterity for anyone else who feels the way I do so that they do not feel alone.

calebgilbert 10y ago

This is very telling to me that I get down voted for having a differing worldview opinion. Social justice for all unless they disagree with you, eh.

gizmo686 10y ago
I can't speak to why others downvoted you. However, your comment says nothing. I have no idea what you think about this; but I do know that your comment adds nothing to the conversation.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  He is making clever implications by omission. Break it down, by the words he uses... I won't spell it out, but the OP finds some facts in the story unusual to the point of 1 in 10000 coincidences happening with 1 in 10 frequency in the context. It is a valid observation, even if it does imply a different worldview.
  - aaron695 10y ago
    Still don't get it? I think SJW's have lost the plot and are enlisting people with mental illness into their cult of culture to further their own cult while doing damage to them and the community at large. Do they think something similar?
- calebgilbert 10y ago
  gizmo686 - For you this may be true. I don't think you can speak for everyone that comes to this thread though. I've said as much as I feel comfortable and safe to say given how hostile the internet and 'discussion' about certain subjects have become in general.
  - albedoa 10y ago
    You attributed the downvotes to having a different opinion, but in this very comment you admit to being intentionally vague. Maybe you should instead attribute the downvoting to the very good reason you gave us.

gcb0 10y ago

> At this point, it doesn’t matter. Indeed, it is unlikely that Libreboot will ever rejoin GNU, but feuding in an already fragmented community helps nobody. how is this not paradoxical/delusional? oh boy, here we go again. An apology full of grandiose but still standing on the previous stubborn point. That is not how apologies work.

red023 10y ago
Exactly what I was thinking. Admitting it was all BS, yet still sticking with it. Probably already making stuff up like that they where indeed biased against "her" because - micro aggression's showed it in their faces or whatever they come up with these days.
- deleted 10y ago
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- icebraining 10y ago
  Nobody "admitted it was all BS". All was said was that the reaction was poor.
  - red023 10y ago
    To me saying "maybe, maybe not". "substance abuse" "gender dysphoria" "sorry sorry sorry" tel me that is was all BS. To me it was admitted between the lines.
tekklloneer 10y ago
It's possible the FSF doesn't want them back without terms they find onerous, like full dissolution of the team and just handing over the brand.
icebraining 10y ago
An apology full of grandiose but still standing on the previous stubborn point. That is not how apologies work. The person writing what you quoted isn't apologizing, so I'm not sure what you're on about.

redsummer 10y ago

Every SJW thing you are required to believe nowadays is just a way for self-promoters, drama queens, and the mentally ill to get power and advantage. And all in the service of globalism and corporations.

johncolanduoni 10y ago
That's fair, the mentally ill did agree at the last big meeting that they were all on board with these tactics. More seriously, maybe next time stick to things (like self-promoters and drama queens) that people can actually walk away from? Shaming people for being mentally ill has been tried a lot as a treatment option. Shocking that it doesn't work.
- dmix 10y ago
  Not all mentally ill people need to be coddled and babied either. I learned that the hard way. Sometimes they are just hopelessly destructive to the people around them, and themselves, and the only 'solution' is to walk away from the relationship or keep it at a distance, otherwise it can be a black hole of wasted emotional energy and effort better left to professionals. Calling someone out for negative/destructive/selfish behaviour is not always 'shaming' them either. Mental illness is not a get away with anything card. I've also learned from personal experience that not all mental illness is static either, a lot can be done to minimize issues, for ex by medication and cognitive therapy. Just as I've found some people don't entirely benefit from such help/effort either. The key is finding the middle ground. But I do agree it's better to give someone with mental illness the benefit of the doubt things are not intentional. But this isn't always about blame or causation, we all have to live in the same world too.
  - RangerScience 10y ago
    Approach relationships "sustainably". Literally, can you sustain what you are currently doing? If not, it will eventually end; with you, or with the relationship.
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago

red023 10y ago

"Justified, maybe, maybe not. Libreboot is probably never going to rejoin the GNU. Leah was at the time struggling with gender dysphoria and substance abuse." ~Alyssa Rosenzweig "I was wrong, I am sorry, I felt justified. I apologize, I apologize, I apologize" Seriously why after all this they still have not the balls to say it was all wrong. Why this "maybe". What is this BS? They admit it was all SJW BS but at the same time they don't want to rejoin the FSF? Why? I bet they would welcome them back with open arms. Seriously I think this is all great, yet another SJW whatever tirade ends with facts that show how this people often just make stuff up to feel entitled or because of their issues their brought on themselves or whatever. But why not go all the way why still "maybe" "never rejoin".

deleted 10y ago
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ajarmst 10y ago

I guess I'm officially part of the greybeards now. This sort of thing just makes me feel tired. I know it's naive to want your engineering projects to come without politics and drama (hell, I'm less than a decade junior to Stallman, I was there for some of the reasons politics came in), but part of me is all "just fork the damn code and let's move on".

tekklloneer 10y ago
Part of the problem is this: who'd fork it? Who'd put in the effort? Sure, they alienated key members, but the people doing the bulk of the work were at the core, including Leah. So, it's not so simple as forking and coming back when the dust has settled.
- timonovici 10y ago
  There were actually enough pissed off core members to pull off a fork - what was missing was a leader. We'll see how all this ends up - but given Leah track record - the whole "leaving the GNU project", the allegations, her aggressive behavior towards competition - don't instill me a lot of confidence that the dust is settled for good. Look at this for example - censorship happened just 3 days ago - they only reverted the issue after community backlash https://trisquel.info/en/forum/libreboot-issues-open-letter-free-software-community#comment-112702 https://trisquel.info/en/forum/libreboot-issues-open-letter-...
  - tekklloneer 10y ago
    If someone was missing, then there wasn't enough people.
    - timonovici 10y ago
      It's a bit nuanced, but I guess you're right. There's the librecore thing - but AFAIK they didn't reach out to coop the other developers, they didn't publish their own builds, and the inertia was lost. What could be the straw that breaks the camel's back - would be for Leah to piss off Paul Kocialkowski, as he's the guy who wrote a big chunk of libreboot (especially the newer parts of the system, with the chromebooks); But time will tell.

lucb1e 10y ago

This is a message one rarely gets to read and I'm happy to see it: rather than having an endless flamewar and a person being put out of the project, at least from the project's side people are just moving on and the number one priority is simply the project. These things drag on way too long too often. This is the first and only thing I read about what apparently happened, so I might miss some details, but the basic message I'm seeing is "actions regretted, won't happen again, also more people have access now, let's get this thing back on track".

castle-bravo 10y ago

A wise man once told me: "no politics at work". As time goes on, the value of that advice becomes more and more certain. There's no reason that libreboot needs to be a political project. There are enough reasons to want our firmware to be free. We rely on our machines for our work, for our art, for our lives.

icebraining 10y ago
There are enough reasons to want our firmware to be free. We rely on our machines for our work, for our art, for our lives. That's a political position as well. You can't avoid taking political positions in a public social environment, all you're doing is silently accepting the existing position.
- ticviking 10y ago
  Or declaring that this is not the time and space for those discussions.
  - throwaway2048 10y ago
    Doing nothing is still a choice.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    You don't need discussions; distributing code is a political action by itself. The project is inherently political. Limiting discussions is just a power play.
- vfclists 10y ago
  This is not a political issue unless you want to make it so. It is a purely economic issue brought about by commercial interest. The fact that merchants and financiers depend on politicians to pass the laws which make it criminal to reverse engineer or share/publicise knowledge derived from reverse engineering does not make it a political issue. You only have to Google 'site:news.ycombinator.com john deere' to see that it is an economic issue. Replacing your $1000 laptop may not be much of an economic issue for you, but your replacing or paying maintenance for your $500,000 combine harvester most certainly is.

hackuser 10y ago

> With all of this in mind, were the allegations against the Free Software Foundation true? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this point, it doesn’t matter. It may matter very much to the person who was fired.

Hydraulix989 10y ago

It looks like this got hit with the HN effect. Does anybody have a mirror?

ailideex 10y ago

can I get TLDR on all the drama ?

romanovcode 10y ago
- FSF fires underperforming and problematic employee who happen to be transgender - Libreboot exists FSF and publicly denounces it believing that firing was based because of the transgender a la discrimination - Community gets divided, Libreboot doesn't get as much help/code/growth as before - Libeboot realised it made a huge mistake (but doesn't admit it), wants things the way they were

romanovcode 10y ago

So turns out they need GNU after all?

pdimitar 10y ago

I am very proud of all sides that are involved. The letter was very on point when stating "The world of free software is shrinking and under attack". All of us doing OSS must absolutely forgot any personal differences and work towards the cause -- and never forget the cause. There are strongly opinionated people, there are bigots, there are paid trolls, there are sexists and racists -- like in all human groups. In the end though, we still must come together.