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GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

libreboot.org

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Re: GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

#41

Post by LukeShu »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #18

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

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 as 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.

Re: GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

#42

Post by torstenvl »

evasb wrote: post #40
torstenvl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: ht…

[flagged]

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.

Re: GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

#43

Post by whstl »

evasb wrote: post #40
torstenvl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: ht…

[flagged]

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

[2] 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.

Re: GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

#47

Post by [deleted] »

teddyh wrote: post #36
torstenvl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 proj…

If you look at the web page in question: https://web.archive.org/web/20230719185342/https://libreboot... > then you might agree that GNU Boot may have a point that the web page is (or was) using the name “GNU Boot” confusingly. Accordingly, they asked it to be changed, albeit somewhat confrontationally and brusquely.

[deleted]

Re: GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

#48

Post by howinteresting »

evasb wrote: post #28

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 taki…

I'd like to read more about this, but I will say that https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html is right on the merits.

Re: GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

#49

Post by causality0 »

evasb wrote: post #28

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 taki…

[flagged]

Re: GNU Boot sent a cease and desist to Libreboot

#50

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

wkat4242 wrote: post #37
artyom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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