April 22nd, 2017

Libreboot Wants Back Into GNU

The Libreboot saga isn’t over yet. Now the project wants back into GNU.

Early this morning, Libreboot’s lead developer Leah Rowe posted a notice to the project’s website and a much longer post to the project’s subreddit, indicating that she would like to submit (or resubmit, it’s not clear how that would work at this point) the project to “rejoin the GNU Project.”

The project had been a part of GNU from May 14 through September 15 of last year, at which time Ms. Rowe very publicly removed the project from GNU while making allegations of misdeeds by both GNU and the Free Software Foundation. Earlier this month, Rowe admitted that she had been dealing with personal issues at the time and had overreacted. The project also indicated that it had reorganized and that Rowe was no longer in full control.

The discussion on Reddit is to determine whether Rowe has community support to pursue her decision to attempt to rejoin GNU.

“Before I make this decision, as a result of democratic decision making in Libreboot nowadays, I need to see a lack of overall opposition from other maintainers (willingness to remain in the project after joining GNU, means that there is no meaningful opposition), and a substantial level of support by the public. The purpose of this Reddit thread is precisely to gauge public support for this decision, and based on that, whether to proceed. This is different than before, and reflects Libreboot’s new democratic style of decision making. It will only be done with community approval.”

Rowe also admits that “Libreboot should have never left GNU.”

The Libreboot project produces free, open source and blob-free software to replace proprietary BIOS firmware.

At this time, it’s not clear whether the GNU project would be open to having Libreboot rejoin. So far, the replies on Reddit have mostly been in support of the project seeking to return to GNU.

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