
Goodbye to GNU Libreboot - apetresc
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2017-01/msg00001.html
======
AdmiralAsshat
E-drama aside, this is probably for the better, given the following:

\- The developer has sole commit rights against the repo and hence no further
would could be done on it without forking.

\- The developer's continued trashing of the FSF poisoned the well for any
number of people who might have wanted to work on Libreboot, GNU-version or
otherwise. The fact is, no one wants to be part of a "contentious" fork.

It's a pity that it came to this, because I think the project would likely
have received much more support as a GNU package. On the other hand, the lead
developer made it very clear that she no longer wished for it to be a GNU
package, and she seems to have devoted considerable time and resources
(monetary included) to the project.

So it goes. I say good on Stallman for not using the GNU's muscle to maintain
ownership of the project.

~~~
LukeShu
_she seems to have devoted considerable time and resources (monetary included)
to the project._

For a bit more context: Her full-time job is Minifree, a company she founded
that sells computers with Libreboot pre-installed. Minifree has then
contracted other developers to work on support for more hardware.

~~~
gkya
Well reading the front page it seems to mee that all they do is to _deblob_
coreboot and combine it with GRUB and another package.

~~~
kebolio
Libreboot also disables Intel ME and other such unwanted gubbins, which
Coreboot doesn't do (or doesn't expose a means to configure it to do so).

------
gkya
This is from
[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00036...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00036.html)

 _LR > I'm declaring here and now to the whole world that Libreboot is no
longer LR> part of the GNU project. I do not believe that the FSF or the GNU
project LR> deserve to exist._

Mistakes are everywhere and are done by everybody. A mistake was done by some
people in FSF, the reaction is exaggerated to say the least. Furthermore, it's
not clear whether or not the fired person was fired for being a trans. In fact
in an email in the thread Stallman says:

 _The dismissal of the staff person was not because of her gender. Her gender
now is the same as it was when we hired her. It was not an issue then, and it
is not an issue now._

Whatever the case is, even though I know null about the project, I can easily
say that Leah Rowe, whoever she might be, is apparently toxic for the project.
Hopefully, given that it's free software, the other maintainers can get rid of
her.

~~~
djsumdog
It's very difficult to classify people by e-mails. I worked with so many
people who were very nice to me. We'd discuss requirements. I'd even type up
timelines and e-mail them docs.

Next day, a thread with every manager in the planet saying our team was
stonewalling everything, being unhelpful, etc. etc.

My boss would come up to my cube and say, "Stop e-mailing these people! Why
are you e-mailing them? Pick up the phone and call them!"

I hate to rush judgement, but looking at the statements that are out, I am
really unhappy with her approach, her statements and her totalism. Just
because you don't agree with a policy doesn't mean the FSF shouldn't exist.
Pulling your project feels reactionary.

I'm guilty of reactionary anger too. I'm human, we're all human. We feel like
we've been wronged often by our neighbours or our landlords or police. This
might have just been a bad week for her and some rushed decision making. But
if she's always like this and doesn't learn from it, then she'll find herself
alone in other communities in the future.

Just a side note, there was a good video by School of Life on anger. I don't
actually agree with all of it. Their premise is weird, but it would actually
put her reaction to the FSF in a different light:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coiCkmcKjX8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coiCkmcKjX8)

~~~
laumars
In one of her latter posts she confesses that the person who was fired was a
close friend of hers. So I think this is a case of her being too close to the
subject matter to be objective. In fact I think she came to realise this
herself but not until it was too late for her and the project:

[https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-not-a-hero](https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-
not-a-hero)

~~~
gkya
Well that does not justify any of this trouble she caused, indeed, it only
makes it worse. Even the fired person herself has finished their frienship
with her.

~~~
laumars
I wasn't justifying her actions but at the end of the day witch hunts like
this happen all too frequently online. It's way to easy for people to
overreact and to a wider audience than ever before. The smart thing we can do
as 3rd party observers is just ignore the fighting rather than participating
in the outrage. Let the offended individuals vent and then let the argument
disappear into obscurity. The alternative is escalation and we've seen how
badly that can turn out (remember the grim Adria Richards Python conference
saga which resulting in multiple job terminations and threats of sexual
assault and death?).

------
dijit
Context:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54agii/richard_stall...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54agii/richard_stallman_and_gnu_refused_to_let_libreboot/d80ifar/)

Original email that sparked the controversy:
[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00036...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00036.html)

~~~
DashRattlesnake
Is the reddit user "BaronHK" the same person who posted
[http://zammit.org/libreboot-screwup.html](http://zammit.org/libreboot-
screwup.html) or just someone quoting it? My sense is he's the latter, but I'm
not 100% sure.

In any case, the zammit.org statement _sounds_ like it's a more believable
reflection of the libreboot community. All the libreboot.org stuff reads too
much like one perhaps-toxic person getting up on a soapbox.

~~~
digi_owl
> one perhaps-toxic person getting up on a soapbox.

Quite possible, and sadly seems to be happening more and more within the FOSS
world.

------
discordianfish
Looking at how one-sided the discussion here but especially on reddit is
should be worrying.

Not saying it's the case, we all don't know, but if the accusations are right,
it's absolutely reasonable to not want to work with these people. You can say
all you want about being professional and not having politics influence your
technical decisions, but that's easy to say if it's not your life style
choices that are discriminated against.

~~~
digi_owl
The only person that can set the record straight, the person that was let go
by the FSF, have been silent the whole time.

~~~
ww520
It seems the person would rather not be part of the drama. Leah was having a
heated argument with this person. As a way to get back/appease (??) to this
person, Leah blew up on FSF, against the wish of that person.

[https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-not-a-hero](https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-
not-a-hero)

~~~
digi_owl
Dear deity...

------
niftich
These situations are awkward because any other resolution would've made GNU
look like an aggressor. This response acknowledges that GNU isn't a fan of the
maintainer's choice, but all other outcomes are sub-par, and they don't want
to fork or engage this topic further. The maintainer wins by default.

------
maglavaitss
All due respect for Leah Rowe and her work on libreboot, but this kind of
drama only hurts the OpenSource (regardless of the name you like to use)
initiative.

Stallman did the right thing I guess.

~~~
ben0x539
I don't think it's fair to lay the blame for the drama at her feet. The FSF
could have handled this more professionally from the beginning.

~~~
josteink
What are you talking about? FSF handled it 100% examplary from the get go.

Leah Rowe however was the toxic and crazy drama queen who couldn't keep a
civil tone, and even her initial email included the word "fuck".

To top it off, she had zero proof for her allegations, and the person she
claimed to represent specifically didn't want her to raise those allegations
in her name.

In the rest of the world, we refer that as slander and libel. She should be
happy nobody bothered to sue her. On either end.

Given Leah's behavior, I cannot see how on earth the FSF could have acted more
level headed, reasonable and professional.

Seriously... what did they not do right?

~~~
chickenfries
I don't have much to add to this discussion... but historically the FOSS
community loves sharing Linus' nastygrams... I find people having a problem
with this developer's tone somewhat sexist and irrelevant.

------
ben0x539
Seems like a good call by rms to drop the matter instead of insisting on a
permanent feud over a project that GNU is apparently not very interested in.

------
diaz
I'm aware of the original problem and was reading before about it and even if
this was all handled very badly publicly by some sides at least I read this
email and all that is there is perfectly reasonable, is written in a good tone
and leads to an acceptable conclusion. Stallman did what he could with this
decision to stop the e-drama. I'm all happier for it.

Afterwards I read the comments here, people saying that Minifree is actually
her job, which I find amazing because it provides things I care about and I
want to see it growing up.

Finnaly I clicked on the link someone posted -
[https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-not-a-hero](https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-
not-a-hero) \- and got surprised and kinda annoyed ( I may even say it pissed
me off, when usually nothing I read on the interwebs provokes those kind of
feelings in me ) by the fixed overlay currently there on the page:

"It took the GNU project 4 months to finally honour Libreboot's decisions, but
on 5 January 2017, RMS formally acknowledged it - his reasoning is flawed.
They should have immediately honoured Libreboot's decision to leave GNU, but
instead they arrogantly resisted it for months, and the only reason they gave
up was because they realized that all of Libreboot's core developers were OK
with leaving GNU and still preferred to work with Leah Rowe. This page
explains why no project should ever join GNU."

This is just so bad and putting more wood to the fire for no reason at all
than e-drama. I was hoping people were a little more grown up, but as usual I
got disappointed.

------
brudgers
My hope is that the project continues irrespective of its relationship to
other organizations. It's pretty damn important.

~~~
dijit
I don't necessarily agree. Coreboot is important. Libreboot is nice to have.

~~~
DashRattlesnake
Is that because there is very little original development occurring in
Libreboot (it's my understanding that it's basically Coreboot with some binary
blobs removed but not actually replaced).

~~~
LukeShu
Libreboot and other projects with a similar relationship to upstream suffer
from a paradox: It appears that no original development is happening there,
because all of the original development is sent upstream. The work done by
developers hired to work on Libreboot looks like work done on Coreboot,
because Libreboot cooperates with Coreboot and sends their work upstream.

------
Fnoord
TL;DR

Quote: "Reasons: (1) it had not been a GNU package for very long, (2) she was
the developer who had originally made it a GNU package, and (3) there were no
major developers who wanted to continue developing Libreboot under GNU
auspices."

------
ejcx
Sounds like half the story.

The libreboot website says that they left GNU to protest transgender
discrimination at the FSF.[0]

[0] [https://libreboot.org/](https://libreboot.org/)

~~~
RubyPinch
more near a 10th of the story

Neither side wants to put up any substantial verifiable information about it,
so there is nothing to talk about on that front.

~~~
untog
Not sure why this has been downvoted. Neither party in the firing dispute with
FSF has gone public, so drawing any conclusions based on the minimal amount of
information we have right now is not wise.

------
jwtadvice
Having seen a number of 'libre' projects disappear or radically change
management (sometimes under unlitigated accusations of harassment or
misconduct), I hope that important projects to the freedom of computer use
continue to exist.

Recently TrueCrypt has disappeared, TOR got new management (a bunch of suits),
etc.

Personal spats aside, these projects are bigger than the organizations and
people who sacrifice so much to contribute to them.

I might recommend to the FSF and GNU that these sorts of projects need to be
given special attention with regard to their continued existence, the
happiness and healthiness of the contributors, the transparency of internal
activities, and the thwarting of intelligence/infiltration activity.

The continued, healthy existence of free software depends not only on the code
but on the institutions and the people who provide, advertise, decide and
distribute that code.

------
debatem1
So, is there any truth to the accusations of discrimination and harassment
over at FSF?

Either way this kind of drama would seem par for the course for people who
view software development through political and philosophical lenses, but from
a practical perspective it makes her mic drop seem a lot more noble if she's
right.

~~~
davexunit
>Either way this kind of drama would seem par for the course for people who
view software development through political and philosophical lenses

If you are a software developer and don't think about the social impact of
what you do then you're being irresponsible.

~~~
wongarsu
You can even generalize that statement to "If you don't think about the social
impact of what you do then you're being irresponsible."

~~~
iopq
You can further generalize it to "If you don't think then you're not being
responsible."

------
em3rgent0rdr
Finally some resolution to this e-drama!

------
yuhong
Personally I think the FSF ideology taken too far is pretty ridiculous anyway.

------
bridge55
(off topic) Since the transgender topic was mentioned, I just was curious what
Audrey Tang has been up to lately:

[http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/28/2...](http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/28/2003654031)

She's the Digital Minister of Taiwan now. Well deserved.

------
cptskippy
> Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

I always get a chuckle out of his soap boxing. He's not wrong, just amusing.

------
jheriko
The attitude that comes across in this message... this is the problem with GNU
and that whole sector of the OSS community that seems to follow the 'Stallman'
way.

"you aren't allowed your freedom because <incomprehensible jibberish>" from
people who advocate software freedom is a total headfuck

~~~
apetresc
What freedom is being withheld by the FSF in this message? They're granting
the maintainer's wishes to a T. The maintainer even explicitly requested that
the FSF make a public announcement about it.

~~~
jheriko
its the tone and attitude, not the literal interpretation of the statement nor
what has happened. 'once your project is under the GNU aegis its there for
life' \- its fair enough to make that decision, but the result here is not
respecting the ideal that very many people have about having a freedom to do
what you want with 'your stuff', and what constitutes 'your stuff'

if you don't particularly care for ideals of ownership or materialism then
this isn't so objectionable. it makes a lot of sense, because then you don't
even see the project as 'yours' and doing so is obviously counter to the
ideals of the GNU project and FSF.

however, the sad practical reality of the world is that most people care a
great deal about these kinds of things - its a part of why there is so much
proprietary software, and also why many places i have worked forbid GPL
dependencies, often in a list of "free software licenses we can't allow in
dependencies" along with some statement about why - which is usually about how
its 'infectious' nature means that it can't be used without forcing other
parts of a product to be made into GPL software - an unacceptable price to
pay, because the freedom to keep things private is considered as being so
valuable.

"you can use our free (as in speech, not beer) software freely, but provided
that you sacrifice your freedom of ownership on your own software"

this is another one of those kinds of statements i generalised as with "you
aren't allowed your freedom because <incomprehensible jibberish>"

i don't think its a big leap to consider that sort of statement mind boggling
from a philosophical standpoint - you want to advocate freedom with something
that curtails freedom?

its the same principle with the idea that GNU projects are somehow owned by
GNU, and that this is irreversible. again, its trying to advocate the
philosophy by doing something that is counter to it.

now, i don't consider the maintainer in this case to be in the right. they
should have been aware that this is the nature of GNU projects. i also
consider her attitude to be so far out of touch with reality and overly-self-
entitled that it is a little disturbing... but back to the point, i don't roll
in these circles and even i am aware of this philosophy for GNU projects...
but aside from that leah should have learned what her decision would mean
before making it.

