465 lines
20 KiB
Markdown
465 lines
20 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Project contributors
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x-toc-enable: true
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...
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This list does not necessarily reflect who is currently working on the project,
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but it lists some people who have contributed to the project in meaningful ways.
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If we forgot to mention you here, let us know and we'll add you. (or if
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you don't want to be mentioned, let us know and we'll remove your
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entry)
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Information about who works on libreboot, and how the project is run, can
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be found on this page: [who.md](who.md)
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You can know the history of the libreboot project, simply by reading this page.
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It goes into detail about all of the major contributions to the project, and in
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general how the project was created (and who helped create it).
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Leah Rowe
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---------
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**Founder of the Libreboot project, and currently the lead developer.** Leah
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works on all aspects of libreboot, such as:
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* General management. Leah handles all outside contributions to libreboot,
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reviews pull requests, deals with bug reports, delegates tasks when necessary
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or desirable. Leah controls the libreboot.org server infrastructure, hosted
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in her lab.
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* Leah has the final say on all decisions, taking input via discussion with
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members of the public, mostly on IRC. Leah oversees releases of libreboot,
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and generally keeps the project going. Without Leah, there would be no Libreboot!
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* The build system (lbmk, short for libreboot Make). This is the automated build
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system that sits at the heart of libreboot; it downloads, patches, configures
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and compiles the relevant components like coreboot, GRUB and generates
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the libreboot ROM images that you can find in release archives.
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* Upstream work on coreboot, when necessary (and other projects that libreboot
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uses). This means also working with people from outside of the libreboot
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project, to get patches merged (among other things) on the upstream projects
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that libreboot uses
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* Providing user support on IRC
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Caleb La Grange
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---------------
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**Secondary developer, number two to Leah.** Caleb is a full time libreboot developer
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with a narrower focus. Caleb focuses on several areas of development:
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* Build system. Caleb is responsible for improving and fixing the libreboot Make build
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system. Specifically: binary blob management, automation, and reproducibility.
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* Hardware modification. Caleb has a passion for hardware alteration; soldering,
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desoldering, and testing libreboot software on the resulting hardware.
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* Board porting. Anything supported in Coreboot can be ported to libreboot, Caleb
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will test and port any board he can get his hands on. Additionally, anyone can
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contact Caleb to generate libreboot roms for testing on their board.
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* Documentation. Caleb actively maintains documentation on the above areas of
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interest. Additionally, Caleb is responsible for disassembly guides with his own
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pictures and diagrams for several boards.
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* User support. Caleb is active on irc and willing to help any user interested in
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using libreboot or in need of help.
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* Project goals. Caleb collaborates with Leah on determining project goals.
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Leah has the final say in every decision.
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External projects
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=================
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Coreboot project
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----------------
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Without coreboot, the libreboot project simply would not be possible.
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The people and companies that work on coreboot are numerous, and they make the
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libreboot project what it is. The libreboot project makes heavy use of coreboot, to
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provide hardware initialization.
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GRUB
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--------
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GRUB is the bootloader used by libreboot. It goes without saying that the GRUB
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developers enable libreboot, through their work.
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SeaBIOS
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-------
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The libreboot firmware provides SeaBIOS as a payload option. SeaBIOS provides a
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legacy x86 BIOS implementation.
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U-Boot
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------
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Libreboot uses U-Boot as the coreboot payload on supported ARM Chromebooks.
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Contributors in alphabetical order
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==================================
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Alper Nebi Yasak
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----------------
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Contributed the build system integration and documentation for using
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U-Boot as payload, and initial Libreboot ports of some ARM Chromebooks
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based on that.
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Alper also does upstream development on U-Boot, e.g. continued an almost
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complete port of the `gru-kevin` board and got it merged upstream.
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Alyssa Rosenzweig
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-----------------
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Switched the website to use markdown in lieu of handwritten HTML and custom
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PHP. **Former libreboot project maintainer (sysadmin for libreboot.org).**
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Alyssa wrote the original static site generator (shell scripts converting
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markdown to html, via pandoc) for libreboot.org. This static site generator has
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now been heavily modified and forked into a formal project, by Leah Rowe:
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<https://untitled.vimuser.org/> (untitled is Leah's work, not Alyssa's, but it's based on
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Alyssa's original work on the static site generator that Libreboot used to use;
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the Libreboot website is now built with Untitled)
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Andrew Robbins
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--------------
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Worked on large parts of Libreboot's old build system and related documentation.
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Andrew joined the Libreboot project as a full time developer during June 2017,
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until his departure in March 2021.
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I, Leah Rowe, am very grateful to Andrew Robbins for his numerous contributions
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over the years.
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Arthur Heymans
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--------------
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Merged a patch from coreboot into libreboot, enabling C3 and C4 power
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states to work correctly on GM45 laptops. This was a long-standing issue
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before Arthur's contribution. Arthur also fixed VRAM size on i945 on
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GM45 systems, allowing maximum VRAM allocation for the onboard GPUs on
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these systems, another longstanding issue in libreboot.
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Arthur also did work on the Libreboot build system, when he was a member of the
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project. He still works on coreboot, to this day, and Libreboot greatly
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benefits from his work. His contributions to the coreboot project, and Libreboot,
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are invaluable.
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Damien Zammit
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-------------
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Maintains the Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L coreboot port, which is integrated
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in libreboot. Also works on other hardware for the benefit of the
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libreboot project.
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Damien didn't work directly on Libreboot itself, but he worked heavily with
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Leah Rowe, integrating patches and new board ports into Libreboot, based on
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Damien's upstream work on coreboot.
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Denis Carikli
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-------------
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Based on the work done by Peter Stuge, Vladimir Serbinenko and others in
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the coreboot project, got native graphics initialization to work on the
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ThinkPad X60, allowing it to be supported in libreboot. Denis gave
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a lot of advice and helped found the libreboot project.
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Denis was a mentor to Leah Rowe in the early days, when she founded the
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Libreboot project. A lot of the decisions taken, especially with the
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Libreboot build system (lbmk), were inspired from talks with Denis.
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Denis taught Leah about registers used by Intel GPUs for backlight control. In
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the early days, the ThinkPad X60 and T60 laptops in Libreboot did not have
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backlight control working, so the brightness was always 100%. With Denis's help,
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Leah was able to get backlight controls working by reverse engineering the
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correct values to write in those registers. Based on this, a simple fix was
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written in coreboot; however, the fix just wrote directly to the register and
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didn't work with ACPI based brightness controls. Others in coreboot later
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improved it, making ACPI-based backlight controls work properly, based on this
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earlier work.
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Ferass El Hafidi
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--------
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Added cstate 3 support on macbook21, enabling higher battery life and cooler
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CPU temperatures on idle usage.
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Also has a series of extensive improvements to the entire Libreboot system;
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for example, Ferass made the entire build system use POSIX `sh`, removing
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bashisms that previously plagued it.
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This is IRC nick `f_` on Libreboot IRC. Cool guy!
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Jeroen Quint
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------------
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Contributed several fixes to the libreboot documentation, relating to
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installing on Arch-based systems with full disk encryption on libreboot
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systems.
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Joshua Gay
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----------
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Joshua is former FSF staff.
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Joshua helped with the early founding of the Libreboot project, in his capacity
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(at that time) as the FSF's licensing and compliance manager. It was his job to
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review products sent into to the FSF for review; the FSF has a certification
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program called *Respects Your Freedom* (RYF) where the FSF will promote your
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company's products if it comes with all Free Software.
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I, Leah Rowe, was initially just selling ThinkPad X60 laptops with regular
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coreboot on them, and this included CPU microcode updates. At the time, I didn't
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think much of that. Joshua contacted me, in his capacity at the FSF, and asked
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if I would be interested in the FSF's RYF program; I was very surprised that the
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FSF would take me seriously, and I said yes. This is what started the early
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work on Libreboot. Joshua showed me all the problems my products had, and from
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that, the solution was clear:
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A project needed to exist, providing a fully free version of coreboot, without
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any binary blobs. At the time (and this is still true today), coreboot was not
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entirely libre software and shipped with binary blobs by default. In particular,
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CPU microcode updates were included by default, on all x86 machines. Working
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with Joshua who reviewed my work, I created a fully free version of coreboot.
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At first, it wasn't called Libreboot, and the work was purely intended for my
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company (at that time called Gluglug) to be promoted by the FSF.
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Joshua used his media connections at the FSF to heavily promote my work, and
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on December 13th, 2013, the Libreboot project was born (but not called that).
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Joshua made sure that everyone knew what I was doing!
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A few months later, the name *Libreboot* was coined, and the domain name
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*libreboot.org* was registered. At that point, the Libreboot project (in early
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2014) was officially born. Once again, Joshua provided every bit of help he
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could, heavily promoting the project and he even wrote this article on the FSF
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website, announcing it:
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<https://web.archive.org/web/20171222063358/https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/replace-your-proprietary-bios-with-libreboot>
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Klemens Nanni
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-------------
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Made many fixes and improvements to the GRUB configuration used in
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libreboot, and several tweaks to the build system.
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Lisa Marie Maginnis
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-------------------
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Lisa is a former sysadmin at the Free Software Foundation. In the early days of
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the project, she provided Leah with a lot of technical advice. She initially
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created Libreboot IRC channel, when Leah did not know how to
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use IRC, and also handed +F founder status to Leah for the channel. As an FSF
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sysadmin, it was Lisa's job to maintain a lot of the infrastructure used by
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Libreboot; at the time, mailing lists on the Savannah website were used by
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the Libreboot project. When Paul Kocialkowski was a member of the project in
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2016, she helped him get help from the FSF; he was the leader of the Replicant
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project at the time, which had funding from the FSF, and the FSF authorized him
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to use some of that funding for his work on Libreboot, thanks to Lisa's
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encouragement while she worked at the FSF.
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Lisa also stepped in when Leah Rowe missed her LibrePlanet 2016 talk. Leah was
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scheduled to do a talk about Libreboot, but didn't show up in time. Lisa, along
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with Patrick McDermott (former Libreboot developer, who was present at that
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conference) did the talk in Leah's place. The talk was never recorded, but the
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Free Software Foundation has these photos of that talk on their LibrePlanet
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website (the woman with the blue hair is Lisa, and the long-haired dude with the
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moustache is Patrick):
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<http://web.archive.org/web/20170319043913/https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/session-02-c-mws-png-libreplanet-2016-sessions/>
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<http://web.archive.org/web/20170319043915/https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/session-02-c-wide-png-libreplanet-2016-sessions/>
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Fun fact: Patrick is also the lead developer of ProteanOS, an FSF-endorsed
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embedded OS project: <http://proteanos.com/> (uses BusyBox and Linux-libre)
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Leah Rowe ran *2* LibrePlanet workshops; one in 2015 and another in 2016, while
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visiting Boston, MA, USA on both occasions to attend these conferences. These
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workshops were for Libreboot installations. People came to both workshops, to
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have Libreboot installed onto their computers. As FSF sysadmin, at that time,
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Lisa provided all of the infrastructure and equipment used at those workshops.
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Without her help, those workshops would have not been possible.
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When the ASUS KGPE-D16 mainboard (high-end server board) was ported to Libreboot,
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Leah, working with Timothy Pearson (the one who ported it), shared patches back
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and forth with Lisa around mid 2016, mostly raminit patches, to get the board
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running at the FSF offices. This work ultimately lead to a most wonderful
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achievement:
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The FSF and GNU websites now run on
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Librebooted ASUS KGPE-D16 based servers, on a fully free GNU+Linux distro. This
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means that the FSF now has full software freedom for their hosting infrastructure.
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The FSF also provides access to this infrastructure for many other projects
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(besides GNU projects); for example, Trisquel uses a D16 provided by the FSF
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for their development server used for building Trisquel releases and testing
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changes to the Trisquel GNU+Linux distribution. Trisquel is a fully free
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GNU+Linux distribution, heavily promoted by the FSF.
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Lisa was a strong supporter of Libreboot in the very early days of the project,
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and her contributions were invaluable. I, Leah Rowe, owe her a debt of gratitude.
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Marcus Moeller
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--------------
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Made the libreboot logo.
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Nicholas Chin
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-------------
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[Ported Dell Latitude E6400 to Libreboot](news/e6400.md).
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Patrick "P. J." McDermott
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---------------------------
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Patrick also did a lot of research and wrote the libreboot FAQ section
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relating to the [Intel Management Engine](../faq.md#intelme), in addition
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to making several improvements to the build system in libreboot. **Former
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libreboot project maintainer.**
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In 2016, Leah Rowe ran a Libreboot installation workshop at the FSF's
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LibrePlanet conference. Working alongside Leah, Patrick helped run the workshop
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and assisted with installing Libreboot onto people's machines.
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Paul Kocialkowski
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-----------------
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Ported the ARM (Rockchip RK3288 SoC) based *Chromebook* laptops to
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libreboot. Also one of the main [Replicant](http://www.replicant.us/)
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developers.
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Paul Menzel
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-----------
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Investigated and fixed a bug in coreboot on the ThinkPad X60/T60 exposed
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by Linux kernel 3.12 and up, which caused 3D acceleration to stop
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working and video generally to become unstable. The issue was that coreboot,
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when initializing the Intel video chipset, was mapping *GTT Stolen Memory* in
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the wrong place, because the code was based on kernel code and the Linux kernel
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had the same bug. When Linux fixed it, it exposed the same bug in coreboot.
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Paul worked with Libreboot on
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this, sending patches to test periodically until the bug was fixed
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in coreboot, and then helped her integrate the fix in libreboot.
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Peter Stuge
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-----------
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Helped write the [FAQ section about DMA](../faq.md#hddssd-firmware), and provided
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general advice in the early days of the project. Peter was a coreboot developer
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in those days, and a major developer in the *libusb* project (which flashrom
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makes heavy use of).
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Peter also wrote the *bucts* utility used to set Backup Control (BUC) Top Swap
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(TS) bit on i945 laptops such as ThinkPad X60/T60, which is useful for a
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workaround to flash Libreboot without using external hardware; on this machine,
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with Lenovo BIOS present, it's possible to flash everything except the main
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bootblock, but Intel platforms have 2 bootblocks, and you specify which one is
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to be used by setting the TS bit. You then boot with only one bootblock flashed
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(by the coreboot project's bootblock on that machine), and afterwards you reset
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bucts before flashing the ROM again, to flash the main bootblock. Libreboot
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hosts a copy of his work, because his website hosting bucts is no longer
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responsive.
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Riku Viitanen
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-------------
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Added support for HP Elite 8200 SFF desktop PC to Libreboot. You can read
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about this in the hardware page:
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[HP Elite 8200 SFF](docs/hardware/hp8200sff.md)
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Steve Shenton
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-------------
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Steve did the early reverse engineering work on the Intel Flash Descriptor used
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by ICH9M machines such as ThinkPad X200. He created a C struct defining (using
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bitfields in C) this descriptor region. With some clever tricks, he was able to
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discover the existence of a bit in the descriptor for *disabling* the Intel ME
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(management engine) on those platforms.
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His initial proof of concept only defined the descriptor, and would do this:
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* Read the default descriptor and GbE regions from a Lenovo X200 ROM (default
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firmware, not coreboot)
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* Disable the ME, by setting 2 bits in the descriptor
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* Disable the ME region
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* Move descriptor+GbE (12KiB in total) next to each other
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* Allocate the remaining flash space to the BIOS region
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* Generated the 12KiB descriptor+GbE region, based on this, to insert into a
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coreboot ROM image.
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In the early days, before Libreboot supported GM45+ICH9M platforms such as
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ThinkPad X200/T400, you could use those machines but to avoid the Intel ME you
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had to flash it without a descriptor region. This worked fine in those days,
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because the ME only handled TPM and AMT on those machines, and the system would
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work normally, but that Intel Flash Descriptor also handles the Intel GbE NVM
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region in flash, which is used for the Intel Gigabit Ethernet interface.
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So you either had Intel ME, or no ethernet support. Steve figured out how to
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disable the Intel ME via 2 toggle bits in the descriptor, and also how to
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remove the Intel ME region from flash.
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Based on his research, I, Leah Rowe, working alongside Steve, also reverse
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engineered the layout of the Intel GbE NVM (non-volatile memory) region in the
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boot flash. This region defines configuration options for the onboard Intel
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GbE NIC, if present.
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Based on this, I was able to take Steve's initial proof of concept and write
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the `ich9gen` utility, which generates an Intel Flash Descriptor and GbE NVM
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region, from scratch, without an Intel ME region defined. It is this tool,
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the `ich9gen` tool, that Libreboot uses to provide ROM images for GM45+ICH9M
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platforms (such as ThinkPad X200/T400/T500/W500), with a fully functional
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descriptor and functional Gigabit Ethernet, but *without* needing Intel
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Management Engine (ME) firmware, thus making those machines *libre* (the ME
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is fully disabled, when you use a descriptor+gbe image generated by `ich9gen`).
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With *my* `ich9gen` tool (Steve's tool was called `ich9deblob`), you didn't
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need a dump of the original Lenovo BIOS firmware anymore! I could not have
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written this tool, without Steve's initial proof of concept. I worked with him,
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extensively, for many months. All GM45+ICH9M support (X200, T400, etc) in
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Libreboot is made possible because of the work he did, back in 2014.
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Swift Geek
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----------
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Contributed a patch for ich9gen to generate 16MiB descriptors.
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After that, Swift Geek slowly became more involved until he became a full time
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developer. Swift Geeks contributions were never really in the form of *code*,
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but what he lacked in code, he made up for in providing excellent support, both
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to users and other developers, helping others learn more about technology at a
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low level.
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When Swift Geek was a member of the project, his role was largely providing
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user support (in the IRC channel), and conducting research. Swift Geek knows a
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lot about hardware. Swift Geek also did some upstream development on GRUB.
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Swift Geek has provided technical advice on numerous occasions, to Leah Rowe,
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and helped her to improve her soldering skills in addition to teaching her
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some repair skills, to the point where she can now repair most faults on
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ThinkPad mainboards (while looking at the schematics and boardview).
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Swiftgeek left the project in March 2021. I, Leah Rowe, wish him all the best
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in his endeavours, and I'm very grateful to his numerous contributions over the
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years.
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Timothy Pearson
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---------------
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Ported the ASUS KGPE-D16 board to coreboot for the company Raptor
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Engineering of which Timothy is the CEO.
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Timothy maintains this code in coreboot,
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helping the project with the libreboot integration for it. This person's
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contact details are on the raptor site.
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**D16 support was removed on 19 November 2022. You can still use older
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revisions of Libreboot, and older release versions.**
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Vladimir Serbinenko
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-------------------
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Ported many of the thinkpads supported in libreboot, to coreboot, and
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made many fixes in coreboot which benefited the libreboot project.
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Vladimir wrote a lot of the original video initialization code used by various
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Intel platforms in Libreboot, when flashing it (now rewritten
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by others in Ada, for libgfxinit in coreboot, but originally it was written in
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C and included directly in coreboot; libgfxinit is a 3rdparty submodule of
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coreboot).
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