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Leah Rowe 2021-09-20 00:44:28 +01:00
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@ -21,8 +21,6 @@ rms.ru.md
rms.tr.md
rms.vi.md
rms.zh.md
resignations.md
libreboot202104xx.md
libreboot20160907.md
libreboot20160902.md
libreboot20160818.md

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% New Libreboot release, ETA late April 2021 / early June 2021
% Leah Rowe
% 30 March 2021
Rapid progress is being made towards a new Libreboot release. It should be done
by late April or early June 2021. Many new boards will be supported, with lots
of bugs fixed, new features added and the latest coreboot/GRUB/SeaBIOS versions
used on all boards. The Libreboot website will be massively overhauled.
I, Leah Rowe, have re-taken full control of the Libreboot project after 4 years
delay in bringing out a new release. Long story short, Libreboot began a new
and ambitious re-write of its build system in 2017; as of 2021, that build
system is still not ready; the design is fundamentally flawed and the code is
unmaintainable so I have scrapped the rewrite entirely. The work will be
preserved, for reference, but it has otherwise been abandoned.
I, Leah Rowe, was not responsible for that re-write. The design of that
re-written build system is fundamentally flawed, and it has too many bugs. The
people working on it kept adding too many new features without fixing
fundamental issues. I have revoked all of their access to project
infrastructure; Libreboot is now lead by me. I have a completely different idea
for how to run the project and what a *coreboot distro* should be.
I, Leah Rowe, stepped down from Libreboot development in 2017. Since late 2020,
I've been actively developing Libreboot again. I have been working on another
project, forked via Libreboot 20160907 build system `lbmk` but on documentation
from December 2020. That project is: <http://osboot.org/> - if Libreboot seems
dead to you right now, it's because I've been doing the work exclusively in
osboot, with the intention of adapting that work back into Libreboot.
osboot has very different goals than Libreboot, but the build system there is
vastly improved. I have focused on adding all *libre-friendly* boards to osboot
which means anything that Libreboot does support, or can support. I am
presently using a version of coreboot from December 2020, with patches applied
on top to improve certain functionality on specific boards.
osboot *does not comply* with Libreboot policy; it permits binary blobs. The
purpose of osboot is to provide support for coreboot targets that aren't
yet easy to support in Libreboot, for those who wish to use such hardware. This
is because in many cases, such people will insist on using what hardware they
already have, or they have a need for newer hardware. The coreboot software has
support for lots of hardware. In my opinion, these people will likely not just
install upstream coreboot with a payload; they will want something pre-built
for them that is easy to install, with user-friendly instructions and support.
In other words, they want a *coreboot distro* like Libreboot. In the name
of *harm reduction*, I provide the osboot project precisely for such people, so
as to reduce the amount of non-free software they use; the idea is that osboot
is better, for those people, than using a *completely* non-free machine. osboot
also contains support for most libreboot targets at this point, and the rest
will be added soon; on *those* (and all other x86 machines), microcode updates
are included by default. *Most* boards that coreboot supports do still require
binary blobs; the ones that Libreboot supports represent a small minority of
coreboot targets! This is a sad reality, which has limited the Libreboot
project's possibilities for years.
I wanted to start something like osboot for a long time. Well, I'm nearly done
adding all *libre-friendly* x86 boards to it; in addition to ones already in
Libreboot, I've added others such as the ThinkPad R500. More will be added
soon. I have made vast improvements to the build system (compared to Libreboot
20160907), so all I need to do now is add all the configs for those libre
friendly boards and ensure that adequate documentation is provided. I can then
provide a release with pre-compiled ROM images and full source code.
As soon as this is ready, I will *fork osboot* to create `osboot-libre`. This
will be FSF-endorseable and comply with the same criteria as Libreboot. The
reason is because I want to create a source-based, rolling release coreboot
distro with configurability similar to what you'd find in emerge and the
OpenWRT build system. However, that's for much later:
osboot-libre will be used as a reference to then create a new Libreboot release.
The *source-based coreboot distro* aspect will not be implemented in osboot or
osboot-libre until the new Libreboot release is ready.
Aside from specific board support, here are some nice improvements currently
in the osboot build system compared to Libreboot 20160907:
* Generally it is much more cleanly written, and more modular
* You no longer have to manually run individual commands within lbmk (in osboot
it's called osbmk. osboot-make): each command checks if previous commands
required were run, and runs them if not. **This means you can just type a
single command to build a ROM image if you wish!**
* Makefile included, making the build system even easier to use. The Makefile
contains no logic, it just runs osbmk (osboot-make) commands
* Vastly improved `grub.cfg`: un-hardcodes a lot of functionality, improved
usability on i945 targets such as X60/T60/macbook21, USB HDD support out of
the box
* GRUB module missing errors fixed; all standard GRUB modules now included
* LUKS2 now supported in the GRUB payload.
* Geli now supported in the GRUB payload. (FreeBSD encryption thing)
* The documentation is much cleaner
* Tianocore payload supported, for UEFI
* SeaBIOS now included as standard, on all ROM images; on images with the GRUB
payload, SeaBIOS is an option in the boot menu.
* The build system is *much* easier to use when adding new board configs
* Each `board.cfg` for each board defines what payloads it is to use, what
architecture, etc. Coreboot trees are now handled on a directory basis,
instead of creating multiple branches in a newly initialized Git repository;
this is less efficient on disk space, but it is simpler to maintain, so now
the priority is to minimize how ever many coreboot revisions are used.
* Boards can link to other boards; for example, X200 could use the same setup
as T400. However, in this case the specific board would still have it's own
specific coreboot configuration files.
* Build system highly optimized; unnecessary steps are skipped. If you just
want to build for 1 board, you can! Only the things necessary for that board
will be compiled by osbmk, at least automatically that is!
* In general, it is a *much more automated* automated build system!
Check the hardware support compared to Libreboot:
<https://osboot.org/docs/hardware/> (NOTE: some of the machines listed there
cannot be added to Librbeboot, but you can see that a lot of Libreboot-friendly
hardware is already present in osboot. Only those targets that can run blob
free will be in Libreboot, and coreboot supports of lot more of such hardware
nowadays).
Plans:
* Scrap libreboot.git
* Split build system into `lbmk.git`
* Split web/docs to into `lbwww.git`
* Split images into `lbwww-img`
* Split utils into separate repositories e.g. `ich9utils.git`
This splitting of the repositories will make each part of Libreboot much more
easily maintainable by contributors. This splitting up of the repository has
already been implemented in osboot!
**The entire `libreboot.org` website will be -->nuked<-- from orbit.**
Stay tuned! The new site and new project will be much better.
PS:
Code of Conduct abolished
-------------------------
Libreboot has abolished its Code of Conduct. I no longer believe that a CoC is
effective; in reality, it does not prevent bad behaviour and it discourages
people from joining the project. CoCs are ultimately counter-productive. It's
obvious when someone is behaving badly; common sense will prevail!
All I want is code. Your code.
Just try to behave yourself on IRC, OK?

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% swiftgeek and Andrew Robbins removed from the Libreboot project
% Leah Rowe
% 30 March 2021
Introduction
============
As the title suggests, Andrew Robbins and swiftgeek (Sebastian Grzywna) are no
longer a part of the Libreboot project. While I am sad to see them go, I say
one thing freely: I wish both of them well. I'm extremely grateful for the work
that they have done over the years; their passion, their burning desire to help
others and their energy for Free Software is inspiring. Swiftgeek in particular
has given me a lot of advice on things over the years. I *hope that they do*
continue their work, and I've already told swiftgeek that I will provide him
with the money/resources if he needs it, to help him set up physical hosting
infrastructure for a new project forked from Libreboot. I will do it without a
moment's hesitation.
I also told swiftgeek that I would be happy to continue working with him, if
he wished. So far I have not yet spoken to Andrew, but he learned of my recent
decisions and has now denounced me on his website; I am not angry with him for
this, in fact I would be angry if I were him. I will address his article later
in this post. Unfortunately, Andrew's article means that I do not wish to talk
to him anymore.
Their work that they did in Libreboot is now archived. It will be preserved, in
the Git repository, for historical purposes. If they wish to continue with the
development on their version of libreboot, they may do so; in fact, I would not
want to stop them! I merely disagreed on a lot of technical levels with the
way their *build system* (the Paper build system) was implemented. Their build
system is, as of today, an unfinished re-write of Libreboot that began in 2016
by PaulK when he was a Libreboot project member, then continued in 2017 by
Andrew Robbins under the guidance of swiftgeek.
On 28 March 2021, I decided that I was nonetheless unhappy with their progress;
they had failed to produce a release in the last few years, and my gut instinct
told me that they would not make a new release at all for at least another few
year. They would have kept being awesome, implementing all kinds of cool
whacky features but their *Paper build system* (which is what it's called, the
version they worked on) would have only got endlessly more complex. I did not
want their code in Libreboot anymore.
In [my last post earlier today](libreboot202104xx.md) I announced the
extensive amounts of work that I've done on coreboot and related software, in
preparation for a new Libreboot release; in that post, I described all of the
major improvements and what is left to be done for the next Libreboot release
ETA late April 2021 / early June 2021. I only started this work in early
December 2020; I scrapped the re-write (Paper build system) and continued where
I left off back in September 2016, continuing development
of *lbmk* (libreboot-make). lbmk is much simpler and easier to maintain than
Paper, and my argument to swiftgeek has always been that it could easily
implement all of the advanced features Paper has (Paper is badly designed,
but has nice features). I will indeed be doing this! For example: uboot
integration in Libreboot, for ARM devices.
In 5 months I've made a lot of progress; I am
mere *weeks* away from having a totally new Libreboot release ready.
Nothing has changed since that last post, in fact it's even still the same day,
and the above is merely a summary, but a development has happened:
Andrew's article
----------------
Andrew Robbins is rightly angry at me right now. I do not expect his
forgiveness ever, but I would like to address some of the points he has made in
an article about me. The article is here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20210330215036/https://www.andrewrobbins.info/libreboot.html
The only point I wish to address is:
Yes, I made an arrangement with Andrew to set up an LLC for himself in
USA (LLC = limited liability company). I told him that I would be shipping him
laptops that I buy from USA suppliers, then he would install libreboot on those
and ship them to my USA customer, and I would pay him 75% of the additional
profits generated (because it's sales I wouldn't otherwise get: the 25% would
cover my admin fees and overheads, while he gets the lion share of the profit).
In Andrew's article, he says that I was *stringing him along* so let me be
clear: although Andrew clearly no longer trusts me, I am still willing to do
this with him. I told him in the beginning that it had nothing to do with his
position in the Libreboot project; it just made good business sense, and it
still does. I would not reduce my workload by doing this with him: I would
keep my workload the same while giving *him* a workload for him to make his
own money.
Many months ago on IRC, I also proposed to swiftgeek that we start a repair
company. Similar to Louis Rossman's macbook repair company, but for Thinkpads;
swiftgeek has great knowledge of ThinkPad repair, and I could find him
customers.
I understand Andrew's anger, and fully expected it. I did not take the
decisions I made in Libreboot lightly; I made those decisions because I think
they were (are) the right decisions to make, for the good of the project.
When I bring that new release out, I will be re-opening the Libreboot
infrastructure for new outside contributors, including those who wish to have
review/push/pull access.
Needless to say, I reject Andrew's calls for me to hand over control of the
Libreboot project. I'm back, and I have great plans for the project. I intend
to implement them all, fully.
Closing remarks
---------------
I will say once again:
I wish swiftgeek and Andrew all the best, in whatever they choose to do.
Sadly, I know all too well that Andrew and Swiftgeek will never trust me; such
is even stated in Andrew's article.
Their work in Libreboot's Git repository will be fully preserved. They are free
to continue their work, and I hope they succeed! Another coreboot distro can
only be a good thing!
I have nothing else to say. I wasn't sure whether I should address any of this
at all, but I think I made the right choice.