127 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
127 lines
6.3 KiB
Markdown
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% Open Letter to the Free Software Community
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% Alyssa Rosenzweig and Leah Rowe
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% 2 Apr 2017
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To the free software community:
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Over the past six months, the Libreboot project has been in a state of discord.
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After an issue with a transgender employee at the FSF escalated, Libreboot
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publicly left GNU with little consultation from the community. Relations with
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so many people were strained. Friendships broken, lines of code never written:
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the chaos needs to come to an end.
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A series of organisational issues with Libreboot enabled this fallout to occur.
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We have since corrected them:
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Previously, the libreboot repository and the website could only be modified by
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the project leader, Leah Rowe. This setup created a single point of failure,
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with little leeway for dissenting contributors. Since then, I have joined the
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project as the sysadmin. Along with another contributor, Sebastian "Swift Geek"
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Grzywna, direct access to the code and servers is shared. Though the project
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cannot yet be completely decentralised, this change is a win for transparency.
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Previously, most of libreboot.org, including public statements such as those
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regarding GNU, were issued by Leah herself. The rest of the team and the
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community were not consulted. As Damien Zammit, a former contributor noted, the
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word "we" on old Libreboot notices meant "Leah". But alas, there is no room for
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the "royal we" in democracy.
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Finally, on a personal note, Leah was at the time struggling with gender
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dysphoria and substance abuse. Since then, she has been managing these issues.
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She agrees that her behaviour was rash and is determined to find a unifying
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solution.
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With all of this in mind, were the allegations against the Free Software
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Foundation true? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this point, it doesn't matter.
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Indeed, it is unlikely that Libreboot will ever rejoin GNU, but feuding in an
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already fragmented community helps nobody. The world of free software is
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shrinking and under attack. Though the FSF may make mistakes from time to time,
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so do we. We do not need another divide.
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Similarly, we would like to work closely with librecore, another project
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working to deblob coreboot, whose team includes Damien Zammit. Once librecore
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matures, libreboot plans to switch to librecore in lieu of our current
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deblobbed fork. That is, there will be less duplication of effort; instead of
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competing with librecore, libreboot will complement it.
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As a technical update, we are currently working on a Libreboot port to
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the X220. Leah and Swift are investigating ways to disable the ME on
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Sandybridge hardware, which potentially means more modern Intel hardware may be
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supported. Additionally, Paul Kocialkowski has been working on supporting
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several new Chromebooks with ARM chips; these ports will also be available in
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an upcoming release.
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No more "royal we". No more notorious surprises. No more late night
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"typofixes".
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Transparency and collaboration are the way forward.
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~Alyssa Rosenzweig
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### A message from Leah, to further complement Alyssa's submission:
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I acknowledge that what I did was wrong. Although I felt justified at the time,
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I ended up hurting a lot of people, most of whom were uninvolved with any of
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the relevant events. At the time of taking Libreboot out of GNU, I was going
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through intense personal difficulty in my life, and I was highly unstable.
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Presented with a similiar situation, I likely won't respond the way I did
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before. I've changed a lot, and I promise this type of thing won't happen
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again.
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What I'd like the most, is to simply focus on Libreboot as I've always done,
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and to forget about what happened in the past and move on.
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I sincerely hope that the FSF, GNU project and others who I have hurt, can do
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the same. My only goal at present is to continue improving Libreboot, and to do
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everything in my power to make libre hardware a reality for everyone, as is the
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goal of the Libreboot project.
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I will remain in my place as a developer in this project, but everything that I
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do from now on will be the result of open collaboration with others in the
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project. I very nearly single handedly destroyed this project, and caused a lot
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of damage to the entire community, damage which I now wish to repair. I love
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Libreboot, Free Software and the community, and my only wish is to see it
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thrive.
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I wish well any and all outreach organisations that do work with the FSF; e.g.
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Outreachy, who are working to do what they can to improve conditions for women,
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LGBT people and other minorities in the sphere of computing and engineering
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fields, related to Free Software.
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I hope that any damage I caused to the community is not permanent.
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I'm deeply sorry for the damage and upset that I caused. I will not repeat the
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same mistakes twice. To a very specific person, who cannot be named in the
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interest of their privacy, but for whom context will allow that person
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to know this is for them: I'm especially sorry for the damage that I did to
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you during those months, and I sincerely hope that you get what you are
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currently seeking. I fully support you in your endeavour, and if I could help
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you, I would. You still mean a great deal to me.
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I'm especially sorry to John Sullivan and Ruben Rodriguez of the FSF, both of
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whom I publicly slandered on the Libreboot website. They did not deserve any of
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that. I was being highly abusive towards you both.
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I would also like to express my sincerest apology to those GNU maintainers
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whose emails I published on the Libreboot website, when all of that chaos was
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underway.
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I'm sorry to all the other Libreboot maintainers at the time, some of whom felt
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like they had no choice but to quit the project because of my actions. Doubly
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so for Damien Zammit and Timothy Pearson, both of whom I let down in various
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ways afterwards aswell.
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I would like to sincerely apologize to Timothy Pearson of Raptor Engineering
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in particular, for the damage that I caused with Libreboot's exit from GNU,
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while you were running your TALOS workstation campaign. Although I do not know
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whether the campaign would have succeeded without all that chaos, my own
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actions certainly did not help.
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Finally, I would like to once again apologize to the community as a whole, for
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the damage that I caused. I hope that I can prove to you all that I do wish to
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make amends for the damage, and to improve, and to re-build bridges with the
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community, and to once again work with the community in bringing Libreboot and
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Free Software forward, into the future.
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~Leah Rowe
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