Goodbye to GNU Libreboot
lists.gnu.org
lists.gnu.org
- 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.
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.
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.
Probably just one person, and she was fired for it (or, more likely, them).
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:
So you don't know anything about the project beside that their main/core maintainer accuses GNU project to have fired a trans person and therefor she doesn't want to work there anymore.
Call me SJW or Gutmensch but if that makes you 'easily say' that she is 'apparently toxic', you are a prime example for what is going wrong in tech.
>Call me SJW or Gutmensch but if that makes you 'easily say' that she is 'apparently toxic', you are a prime example for what is going wrong in tech.
I don't even know what SJW means anymore. There are too many definitions floating around. But it doesn't matter, because I don't care what you are, and I'm not interested in insulting you. That's pointless. While I may not always succeed at doing so (staying detached is hard!), I would rather attack ideas than people.
The thing is, whether or not what Leah did was right, how she went about it was entirely wrong. If she doesn't want to work for the FSF, and if she wants to fight the FSF over its actions, I don't care. But her lack of professionalism is unacceptable. That's why I would call her toxic (although I haven't done that yet).
Original email that sparked the controversy: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00036...
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.
Quite possible, and sadly seems to be happening more and more within the FOSS world.
The first one does not look like it was proof read. I don't always proof read everything, but important ones I don't leave with an obvious typo.
Anyhow free software will carry on.
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.
In this case, I don't think it's quite a fair ask to unilaterally imply the existence of a troubling conflict, taking a moral position in the name of a different allegedly aggrieved party, force people to pick a side, then punish them for their choice. It seems many other people feel the same way, which they express in varying tones.
At this point, that's a big if.
In any case, I do a lot of gaming, so my perspective may be warped here, but I would blame Reddit's one-sidedness on KotakuInAction/GamerGate. After people like Anita Sarkeesian and that particular kerfuffle, anybody involved in that scene (even tangentially) is going to want very strong evidence before believing any claims of persecution (and if you feel like talking Anita and GamerGate themselves, rather than whether or not you think that it contributed to the atmosphere I'm describing, please don't. I don't want another flame war). Claims of persecution that I find rather improbable. The FSF, say what you will about them, have never been the sorts to persecute based on race and gender.
Note that this doesn't require that the people who fired her are bigots so to speak - you can fully empathise with someone and still decide that it's easier/cheaper for the company to fire them than to deal with the problem, and without strong worker protections, that's possibly a perfectly rational thing to do. The FSF isn't particularly special in regards to the rights of minority groups and I'd expect it to behave the same as many organisations of a similar size. But the result is an organisation which tends heavily towards discrimination against people outside the cultural norm (who're more likely to be targeted and harassed, and so cost additional time/money/risk to employ), and that's something some people feel quite strongly should be fought against.
Rowe herself says (https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-not-a-hero):
> The trans person who was fired, I had already lost as a friend, and was deeply upset at the time. I had started to say nasty things to this person, over a disagreement, which was also my fault. I thought that exposing the FSF for their discriminatory practises would redeem me and possibly make that person be my friend again.
She got in a fight with a friend, accused the FSF of misdeeds partly in hopes of winning that friend back, and outed a person who did not want to be outed. Between the parties involved and the circumstances, I'm inclined to give the FSF the benefit of the doubt. I am willing to be proven wrong! But until then, I see no reason whatsoever to believe those accusations.
Stallman did the right thing I guess.
In what way?
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?
Also, more generally, I maintain that there's more nuance to the question of professional behavior than whether your communication includes common swear words.
If I read the FSF statements correctly, there were very good reasons for taking some time, which I found quite convincing.
For instance, they were looking for a new maintainer of this GNU project, especially since GNU projects belong to GNU/FSF, not to the individual maintainers. The maintainers are free to step down and let other maintainers continue a project.
Would it have been more professional if they had thrown away their management process for GNU projects in this single case?
The only documentation that I see[0] about this just says "The program remains a GNU package unless/until the GNU project decides to decommission it.", but that's not a legal document. Assigning the copyright to the FSF would be a good indicator, but is not actually required to be a GNU package. So unless they have some other document to sign, then this seems to be a mutual contract which can be terminated by either party at any time. I don't know if that document exists (if it does, you'd think they'd link it on that page so people could review it), but if it doesn't, then I don't see any reason why the original submitter can't revoke GNU package status, like any other business relationship.
In this case though it's nice that the project is detached given it's not all that important and does not worth the burden.
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 - 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.
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."
The libreboot website says that they left GNU to protest transgender discrimination at the FSF.[0]
[1] https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-statement
Neither side wants to put up any substantial verifiable information about it, so there is nothing to talk about on that front.
https://libreboot.org/gnu/#leah-not-a-hero
Speaks to the motivation for this whole situation.
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.
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.
If you are a software developer and don't think about the social impact of what you do then you're being irresponsible.
That seems a bit egotistical.
If I'm trying to make some in-house enterprisey thing run twice as fast, chances are there isn't much in the way of societal impact for me to think about.
If I'm building a sub-sub-component of some new system, chances are I don't have enough information to even start guessing at the overall effects of the complete system as it will eventually end up being used.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/28/2...
She's the Digital Minister of Taiwan now. Well deserved.
I always get a chuckle out of his soap boxing. He's not wrong, just amusing.
"you aren't allowed your freedom because <incomprehensible jibberish>" from people who advocate software freedom is a total headfuck
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.