Libreboot

[Bbb23sucks]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libreboot

It was nominated for deletion at the end of last month resulting in a massive fight, but they ultimately kept. Now someone nominated it again and there is an even bigger fight, allegations of sockpuppetry, Bbb23, and the page was ECP'd.

[ericbarbour]

Normally no one would care about people on an open-source sw project editing its WP page. Wikipedia would not exist without open-source code.

But this is excessive. Sometimes nerds fight to the DEATH over the strangest things. I have never seen this "PhotographyEdits" creature before. If he/she/it is so fond of photography, why the rage-fighting with IP addresses? One of the first things PE did on Wikipedia was this useless hunk of trivia.

[oranges33]

This is shrapnel from at least one of multiple efforts to "cancel" the FSF, and introduce binary blobs into software previously designed to avoid them entirely. 'Binary blobs' refer to software which isn't meant to be publicly audited. FSF refers to an organization dedicated to fighting binary blobs. 'Libreboot' was originally a way to run a BIOS without binary blobs on popular, non-free consumer hardware like Lenovo Laptops.

User:Libreleah, aka Leah Rowe claims to be the creator of libreboot.org, which they also claim is the 'original libreboot'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Libr ... e_involved

They are a transgender software developer who once boycotted the FSF for allegedly firing a transgender friend of theirs.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26646524

Leah has had fluctuating opinions on her peers, and once defended Stallman from the smear campaign against him during October 2022
https://archive.is/X1nhf
Shortly after, they replaced their defense with a cryptic post possibly reversing their defense, and with 2 selfies of herself in the site header
https://archive.is/hbrVF

Leah owns a hardware reselling company that includes their own version of libreboot on various old laptops called Minifree Ltd
https://minifree.org/. This is all they link to for hardware on their libreboot site. Notably, not linking other resellers which claim to do the same.

Leah claims User:Yae4 was gaming the Wikipedia Libreboot article to be in favor of a 'more FSF-approved' version of libreboot at libreboot.at

An FSF board candidate and coreboot/linux contributor named Denis Carikli announced libreboot.at as a version of libreboot without proprietary blobs. He announced this at an FSF event. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fro ... anet-day-2
He co-runs libreboot.at with Adrien Bourmault.
They point out (as does Leah), that Leah changed policy and began including binary blobs in Leah's version of libreboot, seemingly rejecting the whole purpose of libreboot. However, Leah claims there is a 'blob reduction policy'.

Libreboot.at links to multiple, seemingly separate hardware resellers to have libreboot preinstalled, including tehnoetic and vikings.net. However, many of these resellers appear worn-down and are near being defunct. https://trisquel.info/en/forum/libreboot-forked

Complicating matters, libreboot.at appears to be a defunct? project, their github is down. FSF projects have been half-hearted since "free software pragmatists" (read: allows binary blobs) tried to "cancel" Stallman and the FSF. Alleged Libreboot.at fans might simply be trying to "cancel" the "pro-blob" people back, even if they don't feel like maintaining actual existing products or code. It's also possible libreboot.at just wants to link multiple manufacturers instead of just Leah's single company.

Neither AFD appear to be a 'massive fight'. They were pretty clean keep votes by people who want to bury the drama, and remove links to both sites.

[oranges33]

I don't like pretending people aren't the creators of small or open-source projects. And generally think creators of small or open source projects should have the right to retain ownership of a brand, while letting others fork it. If Leah's indeed the creator, an accurate lede would read something like:

"Libreboot is a software package with the stated goal of reducing the amount of proprietary software in the BIOS of old consumer computer hardware. The project used to have close ties to the FSF, an organization devoted to rejecting proprietary software entirely. Since the early 2020s, the original Libreboot at libreboot.org parted ways from the FSF and became more friendly to proprietary software. Libreboot.org also now uses libreboot as a way to promote a commercial venture called minifree LTD, by removing links to other resellers of hardware which comes pre-packaged with libreboot."

But I don't know if she's creator, co-creator, or just a nominal founder. if she was't the sole creator, the lede should read different imho.

Everything I can find so far *points* to her being at least a co-creator and the main contributor to the project. This includes a git tree which starts at release 6 and the release 6 commits made by Leah and Michał Masłowski. I don't see Michael asking for credit in any of these flame wars (unless I'm missing something), nor are most initial commits authored by him. Nor do I see anyone else asking for credit as creator. I don't see much issue in naming Leah "main contributor", "project lead", and at least a co-creator label. I also don't see any definitive primary source proof.

[oranges33]

User:Yae4 is pointing out that there probably aren't enough WP:GNG passing sources present in the article to establish any version of libreboot as notable. Taking only rules into consideration, and if no more sources are added, he/she's correct and the article should probably be deleted or merged into coreboot.

But per WP:IAR Leah is probably an original maintainer and libreboot is about as known as coreboot is. Probably just another AFD where people posture as caring but don't actually follow through with sufficient mainspace edits to resolve rule issues.