merge announcement

site/news/MANIFEST

@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+merge.md
 policy.md
 libreboot20220710.md
 usa-libre.md

site/news/merge.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+% Osboot is now part of Libreboot
+% Leah Rowe
+% 15 November 2022
+
+Long live Libreboot!
+====================
+
+The former `osboot` project, started by the same founder as Libreboot, Leah
+Rowe, has today shut down; the osboot website now automatically directly, via
+HTTP 301, to the libreboot website.
+
+Such was alluded to in the previous Libreboot release announcement:
+
+<https://libreboot.org/news/libreboot20220710.html#planned-osbootlibreboot-merger>
+
+The exact method proposed in that previous announcement has not been adopted.
+Instead, Libreboot essentially now *is* osboot, under the Libreboot name.
+
+The *binary blob minimalisation* policy of osboot has replaced the previous
+policy used by Libreboot. It is a pragmatic policy revolved around providing
+as much freedom as possible per platform, while no longer sticking only to
+those *"pure"* platforms; all platforms from coreboot can now be supported, if
+someone wishes to maintain the board in `lbmk`. The new policy is here:
+
+<https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html> (same URL as the old one, but the
+text has been updated in line with osboot policy)
+
+To understand the full nature of this merge, you should read the policy
+document linked above. Both osboot and Libreboot were largely identical, and
+basically the same project. In order to make management of the projects much
+easier, they were simply merged into one.
+
+How the merge was conducted
+---------------------------
+
+Since 2020, Libreboot (and osboot) have both been through several reboots,
+forking off each other other to keep in sync. It was starting to become too
+much of a burden, which is the main reason the merger took place.
+
+On November 14th, I (Leah Rowe) literally diffed all of Libreboot since the
+last reboot (of the Libreboot repository) and checked each one against osboot,
+adding whatever was missing from that *in osboot*. This then put the osboot
+project in sync with Libreboot, but in line with osboot and with the additional
+boards (plus scripts and so on) in osboot, compared to Libreboot pre-merge.
+
+The same was *then* applied *in reverse*: differences in osboot were ported
+back to Libreboot, carefully and methodically. All of this took place in a the
+period of 1 day, because the overall structure of both projects was largely the
+same and the build systems in both projects are extremely modular, making this
+sort of work very easy indeed.
+
+A similar process was performed with the Libreboot website and the osboot
+website, but osboot already contained all the same documentation as Libreboot,
+plus extra. The differences were therefore ported over to Libreboot.
+
+Porting of documentation (from osboot over to Libreboot) was done by
+Caleb La Grange (IRC nick `shmalebx9`), and reviewed by myself prior to going
+live.
+
+As of writing this post, one utility from osboot (for changing MAC addresses
+inside Gbe regions on Intel machines that have an IFD) hasn't been moved over
+yet, but I'm considering merging all outside utilities maintained by us (bucts,
+ich9gen and nvmutil) into lbmk, making lbmk a BSD-like *monorepo* of sorts. We
+shall see.
+
+That's it really. Osboot and Libreboot are now operating as a single, unified
+project, the way it should have been from the beginning. Quite boring news,
+actually.
+
+New Libreboot release coming soon!!!
+====================================
+
+CrOS devices re-added to Libreboot
+----------------------------------
+
+Documentation needs to be updated, to reflect this and many other things, but
+ARM-based chromebooks are now once again supported in Libreboot, using the
+u-boot payload inside coreboot.
+
+This work is courtesy of Alper Nebi Yasak (`alpernebbi` on libera IRC) and it's
+also part of the merge.