- 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.