22 ms·

GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

295 points by codingcoyote 3y ago

codingcoyote 3y ago
While their complaints are legitimate, it seems to go against the spirit of the GNU Boot project.
chomp 3y ago
Libreboot is one of those projects I have a tough time following because there’s always some toes they are stepping on. I don’t understand why this project has so many people problems.
- DANmode 3y ago
  Sources to get the reader started? Seems like the type of project that, originating out of defending against user-hostility or user-negligence, would have some (possibly overly?) passionate people behind it.
  - housemusicfan 3y ago
    Just Google "libreboot drama" and make sure to clear your schedule for the evening.
    - ShamelessC 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - Zuiii 3y ago
        [flagged]
        Capricorn2481 3y ago
        What if someone just said it, period?
      - supazek 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - marsven_422 3y ago
        [dead]
      - zogrodea 3y ago
        From my own memory, trans topics had hardly any coverage in the news (= my best indicator for popularity/acceptance) 7 years ago in 2016[0]. I think widespread acceptance is a very recent thing and it somewhat seems like the T in LGBT is somewhat in its nascency. I'm willing to bet many of the people there have developed different views with the societal shifts in what's accepted as moral in the past 7 years. All of the events that first come to mind when I think of the movement are very recent, after 2016. Like a UK teacher refusing to use a student's preferred pronouns in 2022, JK Rowling catching heat for her views in September 2019 and Canada judging a lawsuit by a trans person) when that person's identity is relevant) in 2019 too. There wasn't any mainstream news coverage about them (whether positive or negative) in 2016, and I think the increasing news coverage since then (whether positive or negative) is a sign that they've started to gain acceptance. Negative news about a movement would only be published if those part of the movement are relevant. I just think we can try to be more understanding of the recent past. We didn't always have the same views we do now... [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54by6w/comment/d80uuqw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54by6w/comment/d80uu...
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - FireInsight 3y ago
      Wow, it's been a while since I heard so much use of "SJW". I think Leah's actions here seemed defensible. You can easily understand how a trans person would feel uncomfortable being part of or under a project that they find as hostile to their own identity.
      - jokethrowaway 3y ago
        [flagged]
  - MilnerRoute 3y ago
    https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2017-01/msg00001.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2017-01/msg00001...
zeroCalories 3y ago
Haha, I can't deny that I love the catty drama that happens around the free software community. While I do wish people would get along better for the health of the project, I also suspect that these strong characters are why the movement hasn't been completedo taken over by corporate interests.
- artyom 3y ago
  I'm 100% with you on that. Strong free software leadership (e.g. classic Torvalds), despite all its problems, is naturally anti-corporation. Anyone with a real job in a moderately Big Co. can tell you that.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Is it really though? Look at the who's who of the Linux foundation and it's all the big tech lackeys deciding everything. Even very questionable companies like Huawei are highly represented. I don't call that anti-corporate.
    - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
      Cue gratuitous eye roll. The Linux foundation is not equal to Linux. The entire point of the Linux foundation is to interface with the rest of the world's beuracracies, corporations included. Anyone can be represented by putting in the work and putting up the cash. Ultimately corporate garbage rarely leaks into the kernel proper. Most of the filth is off in driver land, which isn't even that bad given it's always going to be a vendor landfill.
      - artyom 3y ago
        Yup, exactly the point. Corporate garbage not making it into the kernel is solely the outcome of Torvalds-like style of saying "this is garbage and you're an *diot", where it's very rare that any processes or governance bodies would do anything about it.
    - bombolo 3y ago
eschaton 3y ago
Just use port and use SmartFirmware, a BSD-licensed IEEE-1275 Open Firmware implementation. It even includes a C to OF bytecode compiler for ease in porting drivers.
- wmf 3y ago
  As much nostalgia as I have for my Power Mac, Open Firmware doesn't solve anything in 2023. It doesn't natively boot any OS and it doesn't solve the blob "problem".
  - eschaton 3y ago
    Open Firmware can boot an ELF image obtained in a variety of ways, and supply the booted image with both arguments and a device tree, it doesn’t need to do more to boot an OS. It can also be extended straightforwardly to provide boot security/attestation. As for “solving” the “blob “problem,”” it provides a reasonable architecture for implementing drivers that are both platform- and architecture-independent; an OS can even choose to just use the drivers supplied by the firmware, by providing an equivalent environment. In other words, it essentially solves the “How should an arbitrary system boot and pass control to an operating system, including how to interact with arbitrary devices?” problem. What more does anyone need?
teddyh 3y ago
GNU Boot seems to have sent it not for anything in Libreboot itself, but to adress a web page with self-proclaimed “unofficial” GNU Boot releases. They wanted it to stop proclaiming to be “unofficial GNU Boot” releases. Understandable, if a bit antagonistic. EDIT: Courtesy of user jbit¹, this is the aforementioned web page: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot.org/news/gnuboot.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot...> 1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927233>
- lodovic 3y ago
  How can they object to "unofficial" releases of Free (tm) software when anyone can pull the code and build it.
  - dcow 3y ago
    Because trademarks still exist. But yeah, IDK why a true free (as in culture) software advocate would care.
    - filmor 3y ago
      Because they'll get the bug reports. It's very annoying having a bunch of "unofficial" releases floating around for a project one maintains.
  - slim 3y ago
    it's not even the same code
    - whstl 3y ago
      Well, it is GNU Boot code but rebased from newer versions of Libreboot. GNU Boot seems to be Libreboot with very minor differences (mainly documentation) + removal of binary blobs. Check https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-03/threads.html https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-0... and https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-04/threads.html https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-0... to see the patches. There is also a Savannah repository but history does seem to have been deleted: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuboot.git https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuboot.git
willcipriano 3y ago
Friends, not only is there room for two boots in the world, we need that many if we want to get anywhere.
- alexhsamuel 3y ago
  Thank you. I laughed out loud. Also, this is true.
saghm 3y ago
Obviously we don't have the full context of prior communication, but the message screenshot is super passive aggressive ("just a little reminder you're not a maintainer" when obviously both parties are aware, "you're welcome to send us patches that we will review if we want to" very implying that the patches might just be ignored). It's possible the libreboot author also wasn't communicating professionally either, but I don't think that really warrants a response like that either. If you actually want to convince someone to cease doing something, it seems better to just to stick to cold, formal language; writing something like this makes it seem more like an attempt to rile someone up rather than an attempt at legal enforcement.
- Atotalnoob 3y ago
  A maintainer shouldn't be directly sending a C&D, they'd likely have their lawyers do it. GNU will probably back pedal
  - Atotalnoob 3y ago
    Actually, it is likely the libreboot person is in the wrong, she has been involved in a lot of drama
  - ysavir 3y ago
    But this isn't really a C&D letter. It's just a request to stop using their name. Feels like Rowe is assigning it the C&D label, probably since it makes things sound more dramatic, when it really isn't.
- whstl 3y ago
  The fact that the person who sent the C&D email allegedly tried to "take over" the Libreboot name (according to TFA) is also not a good look. I found this: https://libreboot.at https://libreboot.at > Who are we? Denis ‘GNUtoo’ Carikli and Adrien ‘neox’ Bourmault. We created this and maintain it. > take a stand for fully free software is to change URLs across the web from <libreboot.org> to <libreboot.at>, and to let people know that no other version of Libreboot is reliably free software
chrismsimpson 3y ago
[flagged]
- EgregiousCube 3y ago
  GNU is somewhere between a non-profit software outfit and a cult in a way that is greater than either. I don't agree with all of the positions that GNU takes in specific, but in aggregate I think the movement has been a huge force for good because of its cultlike unbending adherence to its philosophy. It would be bad if GNU stomped out all other philosophies of developing software and products, because it would remove the commercial incentive to innovate. On the other hand, we'd be much worse off without all the work that its philosophy has produced. I get your frustration, though - GNU will never be what you want it to be, internally, unless you're 100% on board.
  - chrismsimpson 3y ago
    > but in aggregate I think the movement has been a huge force for good because of its cultlike unbending adherence to its philosophy Cringe. I will only participate in communities with meaningful codes of conduct.
  - themerone 3y ago
    It would be bad if GNU stomped out all other philosophies of developing software But this is the aim of the FSF, they clearly believe that all software should be copyleft.
    - teddyh 3y ago
      The FSF may believe that copyleft is the best way to achieve their aim, but they will not actively oppose any other licenses which are compatible. They see proprietary software and its ilk as the opposing force, not anyone else. The FSF looks at MIT and BSD licenses, etc. and think, “Oh, those are some people who might in theory be doing more to support us, but at least they’re not opposing us in any way.”. Some, even many, people has somehow got it into their heads that the FSF is equally opposed to anything which is not copylefted, and this is decidedly not the case.
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
Why is Libreboot always in the middle of drama? Is the maintainer just that kind of person?
- LukeShu 3y ago
  There was the spat of drama in 2016, and the view of "always in the middle of drama" is IMO confirmation bias since then (the financial trouble in 2020, then Leah's return to libreboot in 2021.) Today's drama is part of larger culture wars going on in the community: - The pro-RMS vs anti-RMS thing going on since RMS's removal from the FSF in 2019, much amplified by his reinstatement in 2021 (the latter of which lead to most of the FSF staff walking out). Is RMS still fit to lead the FSF? Has the FSF lost its way? - The thing about whether or not "the FSF's/RMS's RYF and FSDG policies regarding firmware and microcode are misguided and harmful". libreboot got pulled in to that when in November 2022 it merged osboot, adopting osboot's firmware/microcode policies, which are at odds with the FSF's policies. So then some folks "forked" https://libreboot.org https://libreboot.org as https://libreboot.at https://libreboot.at and claim to be the "true" libreboot. I put "forked" in quotes because there wasn't any new libreboot development going on there; it was just a snapshot of the pre-osboot-merge libreboot releases. Then, more recently, the libreboot.at folks decided to resume development of an FSF-friendly coreboot distribution as "GNU Boot". So yeah, I guess you can say this drama is Leah's fault in that she has taken a clear stance against the FSF's firmware/microcode polices, but so have a lot of other folks in the community.
  - k_roy 3y ago
    > The pro-RMS vs anti-RMS thing going on since RMS's removal from the FSF in 2019 it's been going on MUCH longer than that. No matter what he's done for free software, he's also a super-creep based on some of his comments
    - LukeShu 3y ago
      I mean, yes, but it was brought to a crest then. It went from a bunch of folks in the community separately saying "yeah, he's kinda problematic..." to a bunch of folks standing together and saying "he's problematic!" So of course it had been going on a while if more than 3000 people were "suddenly" willing to sign the open letter against him.
evasb 3y ago
Isn't Leah the person that sold ThinkPads on behalf of Libreboot, didn't send it, then put the blame on her mental issues? Then she abandoned the project and let the contributors take over, after some time she booted them with fake accusations, banned them from their IRC channel and took over the project. The contributors complained that she didn't even have the decency of contacting them, but she was adamant of taking the Libreboot name for her again to sell used Laptops. This was also the moment that she began to add binary blobs to Libreboot. They founded the GNU Boot project and she, not satisfied, created another "GNU Boot" just to say that their project is "inferior" and now she complains about a "cease and desist" of a person that rightfully don't like her. EDIT: LukeShu corrected me below. I just said here what I remembered. Upvote him.
- torstenvl 3y ago
  I don't know about past actions. But my understanding is she didn't create "another GNU Boot," she made a GNU Boot release of Libreboot to allow them to rebase their fork off something that wasn't from 2021. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying the C&D was wrong. Trademarks must be actively defended and I'm not offended that they did so. I just remain unconvinced that Leah Rowe was trying to create another GNU Boot project.
  - evasb 3y ago
    This is highly personal, and it is pretty sad that the GNU project name is being involved in this drama that doesn't have much to do with them. They (GNU Boot) don't want her help, and I understand why they don't like her. The fact she is making more drama from it is more proof that she is not trustworthy. EDIT: I was wrong
    - whstl 3y ago
      > They (GNU Boot) don't want her help, and I understand why they don't like her. The fact she is making more drama from it is more proof that she is not trustworthy. Everyone is still free to fork GNU Boot, even if the maintainers don't "want help". Also Leah seems to be the upstream maintainer. Reusing the name for a fork is of course not the best thing to do, but it was promptly changed when requested. And publishing a C&D is not really making drama. Transparency is important. EDIT: Also have to point out that the sender of the C&D wasn't among those expelled from Libreboot in 2021, they merely object to the inclusion of binary blobs, as per http://libreboot.at http://libreboot.at , so there isn't "personal drama" in this.
tamimio 3y ago
That kind of attitude in open source communities is why it took them years to fix the thumbnail bug lol, but I enjoy it!
slabity 3y ago
> I did this release for them Did I miss something? Over the past 7 years the Libreboot project has been extremely aggressive towards the FSF. Going so far as to say the GNU project shouldn't exist and throwing insults at individuals in the organization. The emphasis on the whole, "I did this release for them" honestly doesn't pass the sniff test and kind of feels like they're intentionally trying to create drama. The "why didn't they contact me" has a completely obvious answer based on past interactions. So here's a better question, why didn't Libreboot contact GNU before trying to publish their own GNU Boot release? Why did they try to impersonate them?
- torstenvl 3y ago
  No. The better question is, why didn't FSF contact Leah before trying to publish their own Libreboot releases at libreboot.at? Why did they try to impersonate Libreboot? Whatever you may think of Leah publishing an unofficial GNU Boot release for them to rebase off of, she didn't try to impersonate them by buying a confusingly similar domain. Compare her single reference to an "unofficial GNUBoot release" to this: https://libreboot.at/ https://libreboot.at/
  - evasb 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - torstenvl 3y ago
      The OP link is a trademark enforcement action for an FSF-owned trademark. A project cannot enforce FSF-owned trademarks if the FSF "has nothing to do with it." I suspect you know very well that what you said is false.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - whstl 3y ago
      Happy to be corrected, but according to these two websites [1] [2], the maintainers that were booted were Andrew Robbins and Sebastian Grzywna, and that happened two years before Adrien Bourmault and Denis Carikli created libreboot.at. Libreboot.at itself seems to be a reaction to binary-blobs, not to this other drama. [1] https://www.andrewrobbins.info/libreboot.html https://www.andrewrobbins.info/libreboot.html [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210331005023/https://libreboot.org/news/resignations.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210331005023/https://libreboot... Unless there was a third "abandonment" and a "takeover" after that, I don't see how those events are related. Once again, happy to be corrected.
jbit 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot.org/news/gnuboot.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot... For context, this is the page the cease and desist was referring to.
bubblethink 3y ago
Completely pointless drama, but there is a real issue here in that people (phoronix) mistook the unofficial one for the real one (https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Boot-20230717 https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Boot-20230717). This is their way of interjecting.
- KirillPanov 3y ago
  This is the piece of this story most people commenting here are missing. I wish this were higher up. I can see why the situation is very confusing to somebody who doesn't know this.
- FireInsight 3y ago
  This is kind of the fault of phoronix, as Leah's release was always marked as unofficial.
  - BeefWellington 3y ago
    It's still a trademark problem if I go around calling my site Unofficial Facebook. I'm struggling to see how there's an argument either party are in the right here for trying to squat on each other's names.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    This highlights why trademarks exist, to avoid confusion. I don't know the history of the project but once somebody starts calling some software Libreboot anybody else should stay clear of that name.
- Fnoord 3y ago
  I'm still not sure I understand it correctly. So we have Libreboot (pronounce 'LibreBoot'), and we have an unofficial GNU Boot (pronounce 'NewBoot') both by Leah Rowe (from UK, good coder, also a drama magnet). With the unofficial GNU Boot being more up to par with Libreboot, and being 'completely FOSS' whereas the other one made concessions. Then we have Coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) on which Libreboot is based, and we have an unofficial Libreboot, and an official GNU Boot. What is the purpose of the unofficial Libreboot and official GNU Boot? They're both lagging behind the other versions by Leah Rowe. I'm all for forks but why do we have these people who seemingly unable to collaborate with each other, and then create all this drama? I used LinuxBIOS once. On an old ThinkPad T61. I replaced the proprietary BIOS with LinuxBIOS, and my goodness it was fast compared to the slow, proprietary BIOS. But it was also risky to replace the BIOS if I didn't want to physically touch the device, fiddling with soldering and the like. So for too long, I did not dare to. Which is why Leah offers this service to other people: second hand, physically clean and proprietary firmware stripped devices. Old devices. Which require various microcode fixes but once these are active (and an up-to-date Linux distribution takes care of that) they should be secure. In the end I brought my ThinkPad T61 to the dump. The battery and backup battery were both dead, the SSD was dying, the case was a bit damaged and some screws were missing, and I couldn't bother to update the slow machine. That I could've sold it or have someone patch it up and resell it didn't tilt in my mind. I was relocating and needed to get rid of a lot of stuff so it is hindsight 20/20 that would've been the best option.
fortran77 3y ago
Trademarks need to be actively defended. Even if they liked the project, the owners need to show that they made an effort to protect their mark. This is a nothingburger. But nothing has happened yet other than a “stop it” email! I flagged this because the screenshot shown in the article is not a “cease and desist” letter. Nothing here is interesting.
Dwedit 3y ago
Libreboot is such an unfortunate name, as you could also read the name as a library dedicated to rebooting a computer.
- p0d 3y ago
  I didn't downvote you by the way, was someone else. I am in holiday in Spain and surrounded by the use of the word Libre regarding libraries and books. So the same thought as your own also crossed my mind.
  - genezeta 3y ago
    > the word Libre regarding libraries and books That's not really "libre", but either libro (book) or librería (bookshop). You may see libre on parkings [0]. [0] https://www.burguet.es/fotos/cartel_vinilo_retroiluminado.jpg https://www.burguet.es/fotos/cartel_vinilo_retroiluminado.jp...
    - p0d 3y ago
      Thank you
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I think they were going for "lib reboot" like "lib c" or "lib x11"
- DANmode 3y ago
  It made perfect sense at the time it started. Hell, even the OpenOffice fork was called LibreOffice.
  - Kwpolska 3y ago
    You could certainly read "libreboot" as "LibReboot" when the project started.
catboybotnet 3y ago
Functional code is better than non-functional code. What good is libreboot if you can't use it? You're more than welcome to use the now-maintained notgnuboot.vimuser.org or libreboot censored if you hate binary blobs, and are also more than welcome to try to find hardware that doesn't have closed source blobs built in. I love free software, and will never stop, but "Libre" is only great in a vacuum.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > Functional code is better than non-functional code. What good is libreboot if you can't use it? Some people believe that the absence of antifeatures is more important than the presence of features. That's... honestly one of GNU's big controversial ideas, for decades now.
- opan 3y ago
  I have come around on the driver blob issue a bit in recent years. Something using software blobs can be RE'd and become fully free someday, but is not FSF-approved until it is. Burn the same blobs into the hardware where they can't be changed and the FSF approves because "it's as good as it can get", however they're really about equal levels of freedom, and the software one can become better later on, so it starts to seem silly. I don't want to imply people should stop fighting the fight, more like grabbing some of the FSF-approved hardware feels like giving up on the fight actually. Saying this as someone who has replaced and removed WLAN cards in laptops that need blobs, and used FSF-approved distros long-term. Somewhat related, I think the Apple Silicon MacBooks will end up replacing many people's old ThinkPads someday thanks to the work from the Asahi team. (A bit early right now, especially if you have one newer than an M1.)
  - phh 3y ago
    > Somewhat related, I think the Apple Silicon MacBooks will end up replacing many people's old ThinkPads someday thanks to the work from the Asahi team. (A bit early right now, especially if you have one newer than an M1.) That sounds a bit weird to me: reading Asahi blog posts, it sounds like Asahi are doing little hardware drivers, rather a lot of RPCs, because most hardware features are behind some other CPU running proprietary firmware. (Loaded by bootloader stages before Asahi if I followed correctly)
raverbashing 3y ago
In the end I agree, I wouldn't want to promote an association that is still pledging to "Defend Richard Stallman" But the amount of Drama in this is over the top Also, what was the last relevant project launched under the GNU Umbrella? Gneural network had the momentum of a damp toilet paper ball and I see that it was now discontinued https://www.gnu.org/software/gneuralnetwork/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gneuralnetwork/
slim 3y ago
[flagged]
- LukeShu 3y ago
  Leah created Libreboot in 2014. Leah stepped away from Libreboot in 2016, after some drama between her and the FSF. Two Libreboot community members, Andrew and Sebastian, became the Libreboot maintainers. In 2021, after Andrew and Sebastian managed to go 5 years without doing a release, Leah forcefully took the project back over in order to get releases going again. Leah also started a "sister project" to Libreboot, Osboot, which had a different (non-FSF-friendly) firmware/microcode policy in order to support more hardware. It is my understanding that on all hardware that can be supported without binary blobs that Osboot still did not include any and was equivalent to Libreboot. In November 2022, Leah merged Osboot into Libreboot, adopting Osboot's firmware/microcode policy for Libreboot. In response to this policy change, two other community members, Denis and Adrien, forked libreboot.org as libreboot.at, and claim to be the "genuine" Libreboot. Neither Denis nor Adrien were Libreboot contributors before that (edit: Denis contributed 2 documentation patches in 2019). libreboot.at is a snapshot of pre-osboot-merge Libreboot; there are not any new releases there. In June 2023, Denis and Adrien decided to start work toward doing new releases under the name "GNU Boot". They have not yet done a release of GNU Boot. In July 2023, Leah posted an "Unofficial GNU Boot 20230717 release" to libreboot.org. Adrien sent Leah the "C&D" about using the "GNU Boot" name. Leah removed the release from libreboot.org, and instead put up https://notgnuboot.vimuser.org/ https://notgnuboot.vimuser.org/ . Adrien sending that message is ironic, given that Adrien and Denis are trying to steal the Libreboot name from Leah.
  - slim 3y ago
    She said Denis is an early contributor
    - LukeShu 3y ago
      My apologies. Denis contributed 2 documentation patches in 2019. That said, he is a Coreboot contributor, so it's not like he's a total outsider.
jezze 3y ago
This guy made a video about this. https://youtu.be/vMolA5H39IE https://youtu.be/vMolA5H39IE
- snvzz 3y ago
  A pretty good summary, too.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cookiengineer 3y ago
There were some harassment threads popping up over the last couple months, both on /g/ and /pol/ where the chans started to doxx her again. So I would be careful in reading into this. Of course no evidence because by the time it appears here, most threads and comments have been deleted already and the desuarchive-like websites almost never contain all comments. That's how 4chan works after all. My comment: Leah has been very helpful when I started to debug my old T440p at the time, both in regards to disassembly, flashing, debugging and pointing me in the right direction. There are some snarky comments down here which seem to be from chans, and they seem to imply that Leah never shipped her libreboot flashed Thinkpads (implying fraud), which AFAIK didn't happen. There were too many orders at some point for a single person to handle, and she caught up with those later; and communicated that clearly. Leah, if you are reading this: Don't feed the trolls, they gonna get bored if you ghost them. Treat them like the 5 year olds that they behave like, and don't read too much into this shitstorm. I'm very thankful for your very appreciated work!
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  Sure are an unfortunate number of trolls here. Edit: I just love finding that communities I participate in have a non-negligible amount of bigotry that goes completely unchallenged and unmoderated. In fact I would not be surprised at this point if moderation somehow found me in violation of the rules. God forbid anyone try to defend marginalized groups. Like that’s some affront to free speech or an inherent dog whistle to my “fellow SJW’s”.
- Dah00n 3y ago
  You want people to look away because it might be baseless accusations based on your baseless accusations? I never go to such crap places as *chan, but I have seen enough Leah drama to know it is absolutely possible the blame is at least 50/50. How about you do better than what you complain about and add proof? So far the only comment I have seen here that looks like throwing baseless accusations is yours.
  - cookiengineer 3y ago
    > You want people to look away because it might be baseless accusations based on your baseless accusations? I never go to such crap places as *chan, but I have seen enough Leah drama to know it is absolutely possible the blame is at least 50/50. > How about you do better than what you complain about and add proof? So far the only comment I have seen here that looks like throwing baseless accusations is yours. Where does all the sudden hostility towards me come from? Regarding proof: Just go to desuarchive and search for "tranny"+"libreboot" and you'll find a couple of threads.
Erlangen 3y ago
I thought libreboot applied to rejoin GNU project long time ago. I remember reading it on /r/reddit. What happened afterwards? https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/66tpiy/proposal_for_libreboot_rejoin_gnu_community/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/66tpiy/proposal_for_...
dmvdoug 3y ago
I mean, first of all, that was not an actual cease-and-desist letter. It was a fairly gentle reminder that she doesn’t have the right to use their mark. And they were right about that and she was wrong to do it even if she tried to immediately clarify by saying “just kidding it’s unofficial.” Also, with “supporters” like her, who needs enemies? But hey, as an outsider, I enjoy watching the petty mudslinging back and forth, so carry on, folks.
veave 3y ago
[flagged]
Kwpolska 3y ago
Why is there so much drama around libreboot? I would prefer the software responsible for booting my machine to be trustworthy and boring, all this drama certainly doesn’t make it so. Perhaps more resources should be spent on supporting hardware newer than ~10 years instead of infighting?
guilhas 3y ago
When I hear Libre... I expect the project to not include any blobs without code. That I can change or build all myself In that sense I think libreboot should rename to something else since they decided now to include blobs, for whatever good reason that was We need to keep projects that continues to push for fully open hardware

295 points by codingcoyote 3y ago

While their complaints are legitimate, it seems to go against the spirit of the GNU Boot project.

Libreboot is one of those projects I have a tough time following because there’s always some toes they are stepping on. I don’t understand why this project has so many people problems.

DANmode 3y ago
Sources to get the reader started? Seems like the type of project that, originating out of defending against user-hostility or user-negligence, would have some (possibly overly?) passionate people behind it.
- housemusicfan 3y ago
  Just Google "libreboot drama" and make sure to clear your schedule for the evening.
  - ShamelessC 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - Zuiii 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - Capricorn2481 3y ago
        What if someone just said it, period?
    - supazek 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - marsven_422 3y ago
      [dead]
    - zogrodea 3y ago
      From my own memory, trans topics had hardly any coverage in the news (= my best indicator for popularity/acceptance) 7 years ago in 2016[0]. I think widespread acceptance is a very recent thing and it somewhat seems like the T in LGBT is somewhat in its nascency. I'm willing to bet many of the people there have developed different views with the societal shifts in what's accepted as moral in the past 7 years. All of the events that first come to mind when I think of the movement are very recent, after 2016. Like a UK teacher refusing to use a student's preferred pronouns in 2022, JK Rowling catching heat for her views in September 2019 and Canada judging a lawsuit by a trans person) when that person's identity is relevant) in 2019 too. There wasn't any mainstream news coverage about them (whether positive or negative) in 2016, and I think the increasing news coverage since then (whether positive or negative) is a sign that they've started to gain acceptance. Negative news about a movement would only be published if those part of the movement are relevant. I just think we can try to be more understanding of the recent past. We didn't always have the same views we do now... [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54by6w/comment/d80uuqw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54by6w/comment/d80uu...
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - FireInsight 3y ago
    Wow, it's been a while since I heard so much use of "SJW". I think Leah's actions here seemed defensible. You can easily understand how a trans person would feel uncomfortable being part of or under a project that they find as hostile to their own identity.
    - jokethrowaway 3y ago
      [flagged]
- MilnerRoute 3y ago
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2017-01/msg00001.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2017-01/msg00001...

zeroCalories 3y ago

Haha, I can't deny that I love the catty drama that happens around the free software community. While I do wish people would get along better for the health of the project, I also suspect that these strong characters are why the movement hasn't been completedo taken over by corporate interests.

artyom 3y ago
I'm 100% with you on that. Strong free software leadership (e.g. classic Torvalds), despite all its problems, is naturally anti-corporation. Anyone with a real job in a moderately Big Co. can tell you that.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Is it really though? Look at the who's who of the Linux foundation and it's all the big tech lackeys deciding everything. Even very questionable companies like Huawei are highly represented. I don't call that anti-corporate.
  - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
    Cue gratuitous eye roll. The Linux foundation is not equal to Linux. The entire point of the Linux foundation is to interface with the rest of the world's beuracracies, corporations included. Anyone can be represented by putting in the work and putting up the cash. Ultimately corporate garbage rarely leaks into the kernel proper. Most of the filth is off in driver land, which isn't even that bad given it's always going to be a vendor landfill.
    - artyom 3y ago
      Yup, exactly the point. Corporate garbage not making it into the kernel is solely the outcome of Torvalds-like style of saying "this is garbage and you're an *diot", where it's very rare that any processes or governance bodies would do anything about it.
  - bombolo 3y ago

eschaton 3y ago

Just use port and use SmartFirmware, a BSD-licensed IEEE-1275 Open Firmware implementation. It even includes a C to OF bytecode compiler for ease in porting drivers.

wmf 3y ago
As much nostalgia as I have for my Power Mac, Open Firmware doesn't solve anything in 2023. It doesn't natively boot any OS and it doesn't solve the blob "problem".
- eschaton 3y ago
  Open Firmware can boot an ELF image obtained in a variety of ways, and supply the booted image with both arguments and a device tree, it doesn’t need to do more to boot an OS. It can also be extended straightforwardly to provide boot security/attestation. As for “solving” the “blob “problem,”” it provides a reasonable architecture for implementing drivers that are both platform- and architecture-independent; an OS can even choose to just use the drivers supplied by the firmware, by providing an equivalent environment. In other words, it essentially solves the “How should an arbitrary system boot and pass control to an operating system, including how to interact with arbitrary devices?” problem. What more does anyone need?

teddyh 3y ago

GNU Boot seems to have sent it not for anything in Libreboot itself, but to adress a web page with self-proclaimed “unofficial” GNU Boot releases. They wanted it to stop proclaiming to be “unofficial GNU Boot” releases. Understandable, if a bit antagonistic. EDIT: Courtesy of user jbit¹, this is the aforementioned web page: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot.org/news/gnuboot.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot...> 1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927233>

lodovic 3y ago
How can they object to "unofficial" releases of Free (tm) software when anyone can pull the code and build it.
- dcow 3y ago
  Because trademarks still exist. But yeah, IDK why a true free (as in culture) software advocate would care.
  - filmor 3y ago
    Because they'll get the bug reports. It's very annoying having a bunch of "unofficial" releases floating around for a project one maintains.
- slim 3y ago
  it's not even the same code
  - whstl 3y ago
    Well, it is GNU Boot code but rebased from newer versions of Libreboot. GNU Boot seems to be Libreboot with very minor differences (mainly documentation) + removal of binary blobs. Check https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-03/threads.html https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-0... and https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-04/threads.html https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/libreboot-devel/2023-0... to see the patches. There is also a Savannah repository but history does seem to have been deleted: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuboot.git https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuboot.git

willcipriano 3y ago

Friends, not only is there room for two boots in the world, we need that many if we want to get anywhere.

alexhsamuel 3y ago
Thank you. I laughed out loud. Also, this is true.

saghm 3y ago

Obviously we don't have the full context of prior communication, but the message screenshot is super passive aggressive ("just a little reminder you're not a maintainer" when obviously both parties are aware, "you're welcome to send us patches that we will review if we want to" very implying that the patches might just be ignored). It's possible the libreboot author also wasn't communicating professionally either, but I don't think that really warrants a response like that either. If you actually want to convince someone to cease doing something, it seems better to just to stick to cold, formal language; writing something like this makes it seem more like an attempt to rile someone up rather than an attempt at legal enforcement.

Atotalnoob 3y ago
A maintainer shouldn't be directly sending a C&D, they'd likely have their lawyers do it. GNU will probably back pedal
- Atotalnoob 3y ago
  Actually, it is likely the libreboot person is in the wrong, she has been involved in a lot of drama
- ysavir 3y ago
  But this isn't really a C&D letter. It's just a request to stop using their name. Feels like Rowe is assigning it the C&D label, probably since it makes things sound more dramatic, when it really isn't.
whstl 3y ago
The fact that the person who sent the C&D email allegedly tried to "take over" the Libreboot name (according to TFA) is also not a good look. I found this: https://libreboot.at https://libreboot.at > Who are we? Denis ‘GNUtoo’ Carikli and Adrien ‘neox’ Bourmault. We created this and maintain it. > take a stand for fully free software is to change URLs across the web from <libreboot.org> to <libreboot.at>, and to let people know that no other version of Libreboot is reliably free software

chrismsimpson 3y ago

[flagged]

EgregiousCube 3y ago
GNU is somewhere between a non-profit software outfit and a cult in a way that is greater than either. I don't agree with all of the positions that GNU takes in specific, but in aggregate I think the movement has been a huge force for good because of its cultlike unbending adherence to its philosophy. It would be bad if GNU stomped out all other philosophies of developing software and products, because it would remove the commercial incentive to innovate. On the other hand, we'd be much worse off without all the work that its philosophy has produced. I get your frustration, though - GNU will never be what you want it to be, internally, unless you're 100% on board.
- chrismsimpson 3y ago
  > but in aggregate I think the movement has been a huge force for good because of its cultlike unbending adherence to its philosophy Cringe. I will only participate in communities with meaningful codes of conduct.
- themerone 3y ago
  It would be bad if GNU stomped out all other philosophies of developing software But this is the aim of the FSF, they clearly believe that all software should be copyleft.
  - teddyh 3y ago
    The FSF may believe that copyleft is the best way to achieve their aim, but they will not actively oppose any other licenses which are compatible. They see proprietary software and its ilk as the opposing force, not anyone else. The FSF looks at MIT and BSD licenses, etc. and think, “Oh, those are some people who might in theory be doing more to support us, but at least they’re not opposing us in any way.”. Some, even many, people has somehow got it into their heads that the FSF is equally opposed to anything which is not copylefted, and this is decidedly not the case.

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

Why is Libreboot always in the middle of drama? Is the maintainer just that kind of person?

LukeShu 3y ago
There was the spat of drama in 2016, and the view of "always in the middle of drama" is IMO confirmation bias since then (the financial trouble in 2020, then Leah's return to libreboot in 2021.) Today's drama is part of larger culture wars going on in the community: - The pro-RMS vs anti-RMS thing going on since RMS's removal from the FSF in 2019, much amplified by his reinstatement in 2021 (the latter of which lead to most of the FSF staff walking out). Is RMS still fit to lead the FSF? Has the FSF lost its way? - The thing about whether or not "the FSF's/RMS's RYF and FSDG policies regarding firmware and microcode are misguided and harmful". libreboot got pulled in to that when in November 2022 it merged osboot, adopting osboot's firmware/microcode policies, which are at odds with the FSF's policies. So then some folks "forked" https://libreboot.org https://libreboot.org as https://libreboot.at https://libreboot.at and claim to be the "true" libreboot. I put "forked" in quotes because there wasn't any new libreboot development going on there; it was just a snapshot of the pre-osboot-merge libreboot releases. Then, more recently, the libreboot.at folks decided to resume development of an FSF-friendly coreboot distribution as "GNU Boot". So yeah, I guess you can say this drama is Leah's fault in that she has taken a clear stance against the FSF's firmware/microcode polices, but so have a lot of other folks in the community.
- k_roy 3y ago
  > The pro-RMS vs anti-RMS thing going on since RMS's removal from the FSF in 2019 it's been going on MUCH longer than that. No matter what he's done for free software, he's also a super-creep based on some of his comments
  - LukeShu 3y ago
    I mean, yes, but it was brought to a crest then. It went from a bunch of folks in the community separately saying "yeah, he's kinda problematic..." to a bunch of folks standing together and saying "he's problematic!" So of course it had been going on a while if more than 3000 people were "suddenly" willing to sign the open letter against him.

evasb 3y ago

Isn't Leah the person that sold ThinkPads on behalf of Libreboot, didn't send it, then put the blame on her mental issues? Then she abandoned the project and let the contributors take over, after some time she booted them with fake accusations, banned them from their IRC channel and took over the project. The contributors complained that she didn't even have the decency of contacting them, but she was adamant of taking the Libreboot name for her again to sell used Laptops. This was also the moment that she began to add binary blobs to Libreboot. They founded the GNU Boot project and she, not satisfied, created another "GNU Boot" just to say that their project is "inferior" and now she complains about a "cease and desist" of a person that rightfully don't like her. EDIT: LukeShu corrected me below. I just said here what I remembered. Upvote him.

torstenvl 3y ago
I don't know about past actions. But my understanding is she didn't create "another GNU Boot," she made a GNU Boot release of Libreboot to allow them to rebase their fork off something that wasn't from 2021. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying the C&D was wrong. Trademarks must be actively defended and I'm not offended that they did so. I just remain unconvinced that Leah Rowe was trying to create another GNU Boot project.
- evasb 3y ago
  This is highly personal, and it is pretty sad that the GNU project name is being involved in this drama that doesn't have much to do with them. They (GNU Boot) don't want her help, and I understand why they don't like her. The fact she is making more drama from it is more proof that she is not trustworthy. EDIT: I was wrong
  - whstl 3y ago
    > They (GNU Boot) don't want her help, and I understand why they don't like her. The fact she is making more drama from it is more proof that she is not trustworthy. Everyone is still free to fork GNU Boot, even if the maintainers don't "want help". Also Leah seems to be the upstream maintainer. Reusing the name for a fork is of course not the best thing to do, but it was promptly changed when requested. And publishing a C&D is not really making drama. Transparency is important. EDIT: Also have to point out that the sender of the C&D wasn't among those expelled from Libreboot in 2021, they merely object to the inclusion of binary blobs, as per http://libreboot.at http://libreboot.at , so there isn't "personal drama" in this.

tamimio 3y ago

That kind of attitude in open source communities is why it took them years to fix the thumbnail bug lol, but I enjoy it!

slabity 3y ago

> I did this release for them Did I miss something? Over the past 7 years the Libreboot project has been extremely aggressive towards the FSF. Going so far as to say the GNU project shouldn't exist and throwing insults at individuals in the organization. The emphasis on the whole, "I did this release for them" honestly doesn't pass the sniff test and kind of feels like they're intentionally trying to create drama. The "why didn't they contact me" has a completely obvious answer based on past interactions. So here's a better question, why didn't Libreboot contact GNU before trying to publish their own GNU Boot release? Why did they try to impersonate them?

torstenvl 3y ago
No. The better question is, why didn't FSF contact Leah before trying to publish their own Libreboot releases at libreboot.at? Why did they try to impersonate Libreboot? Whatever you may think of Leah publishing an unofficial GNU Boot release for them to rebase off of, she didn't try to impersonate them by buying a confusingly similar domain. Compare her single reference to an "unofficial GNUBoot release" to this: https://libreboot.at/ https://libreboot.at/
- evasb 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - torstenvl 3y ago
    The OP link is a trademark enforcement action for an FSF-owned trademark. A project cannot enforce FSF-owned trademarks if the FSF "has nothing to do with it." I suspect you know very well that what you said is false.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - whstl 3y ago
    Happy to be corrected, but according to these two websites [1] [2], the maintainers that were booted were Andrew Robbins and Sebastian Grzywna, and that happened two years before Adrien Bourmault and Denis Carikli created libreboot.at. Libreboot.at itself seems to be a reaction to binary-blobs, not to this other drama. [1] https://www.andrewrobbins.info/libreboot.html https://www.andrewrobbins.info/libreboot.html [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210331005023/https://libreboot.org/news/resignations.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210331005023/https://libreboot... Unless there was a third "abandonment" and a "takeover" after that, I don't see how those events are related. Once again, happy to be corrected.

jbit 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot.org/news/gnuboot.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot... For context, this is the page the cease and desist was referring to.

bubblethink 3y ago

Completely pointless drama, but there is a real issue here in that people (phoronix) mistook the unofficial one for the real one (https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Boot-20230717 https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Boot-20230717). This is their way of interjecting.

KirillPanov 3y ago
This is the piece of this story most people commenting here are missing. I wish this were higher up. I can see why the situation is very confusing to somebody who doesn't know this.
FireInsight 3y ago
This is kind of the fault of phoronix, as Leah's release was always marked as unofficial.
- BeefWellington 3y ago
  It's still a trademark problem if I go around calling my site Unofficial Facebook. I'm struggling to see how there's an argument either party are in the right here for trying to squat on each other's names.
- pmontra 3y ago
  This highlights why trademarks exist, to avoid confusion. I don't know the history of the project but once somebody starts calling some software Libreboot anybody else should stay clear of that name.
Fnoord 3y ago
I'm still not sure I understand it correctly. So we have Libreboot (pronounce 'LibreBoot'), and we have an unofficial GNU Boot (pronounce 'NewBoot') both by Leah Rowe (from UK, good coder, also a drama magnet). With the unofficial GNU Boot being more up to par with Libreboot, and being 'completely FOSS' whereas the other one made concessions. Then we have Coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) on which Libreboot is based, and we have an unofficial Libreboot, and an official GNU Boot. What is the purpose of the unofficial Libreboot and official GNU Boot? They're both lagging behind the other versions by Leah Rowe. I'm all for forks but why do we have these people who seemingly unable to collaborate with each other, and then create all this drama? I used LinuxBIOS once. On an old ThinkPad T61. I replaced the proprietary BIOS with LinuxBIOS, and my goodness it was fast compared to the slow, proprietary BIOS. But it was also risky to replace the BIOS if I didn't want to physically touch the device, fiddling with soldering and the like. So for too long, I did not dare to. Which is why Leah offers this service to other people: second hand, physically clean and proprietary firmware stripped devices. Old devices. Which require various microcode fixes but once these are active (and an up-to-date Linux distribution takes care of that) they should be secure. In the end I brought my ThinkPad T61 to the dump. The battery and backup battery were both dead, the SSD was dying, the case was a bit damaged and some screws were missing, and I couldn't bother to update the slow machine. That I could've sold it or have someone patch it up and resell it didn't tilt in my mind. I was relocating and needed to get rid of a lot of stuff so it is hindsight 20/20 that would've been the best option.

fortran77 3y ago

Trademarks need to be actively defended. Even if they liked the project, the owners need to show that they made an effort to protect their mark. This is a nothingburger. But nothing has happened yet other than a “stop it” email! I flagged this because the screenshot shown in the article is not a “cease and desist” letter. Nothing here is interesting.

Dwedit 3y ago

Libreboot is such an unfortunate name, as you could also read the name as a library dedicated to rebooting a computer.

p0d 3y ago
I didn't downvote you by the way, was someone else. I am in holiday in Spain and surrounded by the use of the word Libre regarding libraries and books. So the same thought as your own also crossed my mind.
- genezeta 3y ago
  > the word Libre regarding libraries and books That's not really "libre", but either libro (book) or librería (bookshop). You may see libre on parkings [0]. [0] https://www.burguet.es/fotos/cartel_vinilo_retroiluminado.jpg https://www.burguet.es/fotos/cartel_vinilo_retroiluminado.jp...
  - p0d 3y ago
    Thank you
- bombcar 3y ago
  I think they were going for "lib reboot" like "lib c" or "lib x11"
DANmode 3y ago
It made perfect sense at the time it started. Hell, even the OpenOffice fork was called LibreOffice.
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  You could certainly read "libreboot" as "LibReboot" when the project started.

catboybotnet 3y ago

Functional code is better than non-functional code. What good is libreboot if you can't use it? You're more than welcome to use the now-maintained notgnuboot.vimuser.org or libreboot censored if you hate binary blobs, and are also more than welcome to try to find hardware that doesn't have closed source blobs built in. I love free software, and will never stop, but "Libre" is only great in a vacuum.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> Functional code is better than non-functional code. What good is libreboot if you can't use it? Some people believe that the absence of antifeatures is more important than the presence of features. That's... honestly one of GNU's big controversial ideas, for decades now.
opan 3y ago
I have come around on the driver blob issue a bit in recent years. Something using software blobs can be RE'd and become fully free someday, but is not FSF-approved until it is. Burn the same blobs into the hardware where they can't be changed and the FSF approves because "it's as good as it can get", however they're really about equal levels of freedom, and the software one can become better later on, so it starts to seem silly. I don't want to imply people should stop fighting the fight, more like grabbing some of the FSF-approved hardware feels like giving up on the fight actually. Saying this as someone who has replaced and removed WLAN cards in laptops that need blobs, and used FSF-approved distros long-term. Somewhat related, I think the Apple Silicon MacBooks will end up replacing many people's old ThinkPads someday thanks to the work from the Asahi team. (A bit early right now, especially if you have one newer than an M1.)
- phh 3y ago
  > Somewhat related, I think the Apple Silicon MacBooks will end up replacing many people's old ThinkPads someday thanks to the work from the Asahi team. (A bit early right now, especially if you have one newer than an M1.) That sounds a bit weird to me: reading Asahi blog posts, it sounds like Asahi are doing little hardware drivers, rather a lot of RPCs, because most hardware features are behind some other CPU running proprietary firmware. (Loaded by bootloader stages before Asahi if I followed correctly)

raverbashing 3y ago

In the end I agree, I wouldn't want to promote an association that is still pledging to "Defend Richard Stallman" But the amount of Drama in this is over the top Also, what was the last relevant project launched under the GNU Umbrella? Gneural network had the momentum of a damp toilet paper ball and I see that it was now discontinued https://www.gnu.org/software/gneuralnetwork/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gneuralnetwork/

slim 3y ago

[flagged]

LukeShu 3y ago
Leah created Libreboot in 2014. Leah stepped away from Libreboot in 2016, after some drama between her and the FSF. Two Libreboot community members, Andrew and Sebastian, became the Libreboot maintainers. In 2021, after Andrew and Sebastian managed to go 5 years without doing a release, Leah forcefully took the project back over in order to get releases going again. Leah also started a "sister project" to Libreboot, Osboot, which had a different (non-FSF-friendly) firmware/microcode policy in order to support more hardware. It is my understanding that on all hardware that can be supported without binary blobs that Osboot still did not include any and was equivalent to Libreboot. In November 2022, Leah merged Osboot into Libreboot, adopting Osboot's firmware/microcode policy for Libreboot. In response to this policy change, two other community members, Denis and Adrien, forked libreboot.org as libreboot.at, and claim to be the "genuine" Libreboot. Neither Denis nor Adrien were Libreboot contributors before that (edit: Denis contributed 2 documentation patches in 2019). libreboot.at is a snapshot of pre-osboot-merge Libreboot; there are not any new releases there. In June 2023, Denis and Adrien decided to start work toward doing new releases under the name "GNU Boot". They have not yet done a release of GNU Boot. In July 2023, Leah posted an "Unofficial GNU Boot 20230717 release" to libreboot.org. Adrien sent Leah the "C&D" about using the "GNU Boot" name. Leah removed the release from libreboot.org, and instead put up https://notgnuboot.vimuser.org/ https://notgnuboot.vimuser.org/ . Adrien sending that message is ironic, given that Adrien and Denis are trying to steal the Libreboot name from Leah.
- slim 3y ago
  She said Denis is an early contributor
  - LukeShu 3y ago
    My apologies. Denis contributed 2 documentation patches in 2019. That said, he is a Coreboot contributor, so it's not like he's a total outsider.

jezze 3y ago

This guy made a video about this. https://youtu.be/vMolA5H39IE https://youtu.be/vMolA5H39IE

snvzz 3y ago
A pretty good summary, too.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cookiengineer 3y ago

There were some harassment threads popping up over the last couple months, both on /g/ and /pol/ where the chans started to doxx her again. So I would be careful in reading into this. Of course no evidence because by the time it appears here, most threads and comments have been deleted already and the desuarchive-like websites almost never contain all comments. That's how 4chan works after all. My comment: Leah has been very helpful when I started to debug my old T440p at the time, both in regards to disassembly, flashing, debugging and pointing me in the right direction. There are some snarky comments down here which seem to be from chans, and they seem to imply that Leah never shipped her libreboot flashed Thinkpads (implying fraud), which AFAIK didn't happen. There were too many orders at some point for a single person to handle, and she caught up with those later; and communicated that clearly. Leah, if you are reading this: Don't feed the trolls, they gonna get bored if you ghost them. Treat them like the 5 year olds that they behave like, and don't read too much into this shitstorm. I'm very thankful for your very appreciated work!

ShamelessC 3y ago
Sure are an unfortunate number of trolls here. Edit: I just love finding that communities I participate in have a non-negligible amount of bigotry that goes completely unchallenged and unmoderated. In fact I would not be surprised at this point if moderation somehow found me in violation of the rules. God forbid anyone try to defend marginalized groups. Like that’s some affront to free speech or an inherent dog whistle to my “fellow SJW’s”.
Dah00n 3y ago
You want people to look away because it might be baseless accusations based on your baseless accusations? I never go to such crap places as *chan, but I have seen enough Leah drama to know it is absolutely possible the blame is at least 50/50. How about you do better than what you complain about and add proof? So far the only comment I have seen here that looks like throwing baseless accusations is yours.
- cookiengineer 3y ago
  > You want people to look away because it might be baseless accusations based on your baseless accusations? I never go to such crap places as *chan, but I have seen enough Leah drama to know it is absolutely possible the blame is at least 50/50. > How about you do better than what you complain about and add proof? So far the only comment I have seen here that looks like throwing baseless accusations is yours. Where does all the sudden hostility towards me come from? Regarding proof: Just go to desuarchive and search for "tranny"+"libreboot" and you'll find a couple of threads.

Erlangen 3y ago

I thought libreboot applied to rejoin GNU project long time ago. I remember reading it on /r/reddit. What happened afterwards? https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/66tpiy/proposal_for_libreboot_rejoin_gnu_community/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/66tpiy/proposal_for_...

dmvdoug 3y ago

I mean, first of all, that was not an actual cease-and-desist letter. It was a fairly gentle reminder that she doesn’t have the right to use their mark. And they were right about that and she was wrong to do it even if she tried to immediately clarify by saying “just kidding it’s unofficial.” Also, with “supporters” like her, who needs enemies? But hey, as an outsider, I enjoy watching the petty mudslinging back and forth, so carry on, folks.

veave 3y ago

[flagged]

Kwpolska 3y ago

Why is there so much drama around libreboot? I would prefer the software responsible for booting my machine to be trustworthy and boring, all this drama certainly doesn’t make it so. Perhaps more resources should be spent on supporting hardware newer than ~10 years instead of infighting?

guilhas 3y ago

When I hear Libre... I expect the project to not include any blobs without code. That I can change or build all myself In that sense I think libreboot should rename to something else since they decided now to include blobs, for whatever good reason that was We need to keep projects that continues to push for fully open hardware