Hello,
There was a recent port that was made to Libreboot for the Dell Optiplex 9020 MT, and I was not properly credited for the work that I did. I made a pull request on Codeberg with my patch (github basically) and labeled it as ‘WIP’. Leah and I were working on this together during that time, and I was told to wait a week, so I did. Time passes and guess what? They closed off my patch and added it themselves a week later with no credit given to me.
I made the .ROM files for the 9020 MT motherboard, I tested them, and they didn’t work until Leah came in and resized the IFD and GBE regions. That was all that they did. Everything else, I did on my own, I added the entries in /vendor/sources for MRC/ME, and added it to lbmk. Leah is now refusing to accept my patch that’s fixed.
I’m not trying to steal all the glory from them, they did help, I just want partial credit for utilizing the port from coreboot gerit. This port was originally made in Coreboot by Mate Kukri, so work mostly goes to them, but as for adding support for Libreboot, my name is completely left out. I just feel wronged because now they’re saying that I don’t deserve to have my name on this because I was too slow, when the reality is I was literally instructed to wait for them during that time period. I believe I was manipulated into waiting so that Leah could get the board themselves and add it without ever including my name. They also told me to wait a week on two seperate occasions, so in total I waited two weeks.
I spent a week working on this, and I let them know how significant this was to me, only to have my work shitted on and not properly credited. I’m now banned from IRC and Libreboot for talking about this on Mastadon. Leah claims that I was bullying/harassing them, but I was just exerting frustration, and if it was bullying, I apologize then.
Leah told me on Mastadon to ‘respect their authority’ and ‘yield to their authority’ and not to make a peep about this. I’m just ranting about this now because I feel like my work was just stolen. This is the most powerful desktop supported by Libreboot and now I’m left in the back pages where no one can see my name, which says ‘Provided testing hardware for the 9020 MT’ when I did much more than just testing. I was the one who added support for this desktop. I’ve been a fan of the Libreboot project for 4 years, this just makes me really sad to see it end like this.
I’m sorry to hear about this, do you have some links to your GitHub and the interactions?
EDIT: I checked Leah’s Mastodon, found this interaction: https://files.catbox.moe/6dftac.png https://mas.to/@libreleah/111997718668105706 And here’s the IRC interaction: https://av.vimuser.org/lorenzo.txt
https://libreboot.org/contrib.html#lorenzo-aloe
I haven’t taken the time to read all of this fully, simply trying to share info that is not supplied by either parties.
EDIT: Taking more time to read it, it seems so far:
OP’s code was buggy and bricking boards. Leah requested a patch to solve the known problems. OP took too long, and when Leah got a personal copy of the same computer/board, she worked on her patch and implemented it. OP is still listed on the site. https://libreboot.org/contrib.html#lorenzo-aloe
Provided hardware testing for the Dell OptiPlex 9020, also provided testing for proxmox with GPU passthrough on Dell Precision T1650, confirming near-native performance; with this, you can boot operating systems virtually natively, performance-wise, on a Libreboot system in cases where that OS is not natively supported.
All round good guy, an honest and loyal fan.
I personally have not written any code nor submitted anything to Libreboot, but it seems OP is still credited despite the claims of being stolen. I can’t confirm if any code was used by OP or if Leah used 100% original code, as that’s not my expertise. And even then, I’m not sure if the GPL/whatever license Libreboot uses is cool or uncool on that.
Feel like this should be included here. I’m pretty sure I found the original pr. I couldn’t find an associate issue so I’m not sure where the miscommunication about waiting happened.
Look, from the exchanges between you and Rowe that Queue posted it seems that you did a lot of voluntary work that unfortunately wasn’t accepted or used. Rowe makes it pretty clear in the Mastodon conversation that your patch didn’t work and they decided they could make their own quicker. You did however get credit for testing.
I do understand the disappointment that hours of work didn’t prove successful but you may need to accept that and move on. I only see poor communication here, on both parts, not appropriating credit for others’ work.
Making wild claims that your work was stolen is… not a good look and just shows an inflated perception of your part in the process, tbh.
Some maintainers on large open source projects really think credit is not a big deal and sometimes apply the changes sent to them as their own commit if they think it’s not too significant. I think this is wrong though. Even small contribution should be properly attributed or it’ll discourage future participation.
I just feel wronged because now they’re saying that I don’t deserve to have my name on this because I was too slow when I was only given a week and was literally told to wait during that time period.
This is very concerning if true.
What’s even more ironic is that a contributor was banned. Under the GNU and FSF sibling organization, it is very difficult to get fellow developers to work on your project. Terrible communication skills on their part.
I felt like I knew this name “Leah Rowe” somewhere from my memory, until I realized that this person has a lot of online beef. If their past actions point out to them being rude, toxic and disingenuous, I think you should not stay in that company.
Think of the ban as a blessing, and focus your energy on some other project where you are valued.
What a fucking rollercoaster. I don’t see why someone would ban someone that added a lot to a project. Stealing credits is incredibly low and sad.
I’m sorry this happened to you :/
So far, it seems:
OP made a patch, it was bricking a system and was told to fix it, but was slow to submit a fix. Leah then got the board, made her own patch, and then tested it without any bricks. OP is still listed in the credits. https://libreboot.org/contrib.html#lorenzo-aloe
It appears as if the original developer was told to wait for weeks
I don’t see why someone would ban someone that added a lot to a project
No, exactly. Someone wouldn’t, and there is not a lot to show that OP added more than a lot of code that didn’t work. 🤷
If what Leah writes is correct, they didn’t steal your work because they created their own patch from scratch.
It seems they wanted to get the 9020 working as quickly as possible, probably because they seem to be selling these machines with Libreboot pre-flashed on their minifree.org website.
But Leah could’ve just fixed whatever didn’t work yet with your patch if they didn’t want to wait for you to get around to fix these apparent issues yourself. That’s how I usually experience how contributions go. Make a pull request, and if something is still blocking it from getting merged, someone (either the PR author (you in this case), a project maintainer (Leah in this case) or whoever) fixed outstanding issues so it can be merged. Both authors usually get credited in this case.
If your code was so messy - and I’m in no way trying to say it was, I didn’t even look at it, but if it was - that redoing the work was easier than fixing your work, then it isn’t actually your contribution that’s in the production codebase after all. So, technically, you’d be correctly credited.
You should let it go either way to be honest. It’s not a good look for either of you. You’re harassing them via IRC and Mastodon (not personally attacking them, but constantly nagging), and Leah eventually writes they’ll ignore you, but then just straight up starts to insult you or your code like it was worthless all along.
I wouldn’t work with them again. Move on.
I understand the frustration get how annoying it is but I also can see it from leah perspective. Honestly I think this is a misunderstanding and I don’t think anyone is trying to be toxic (at least not initially. The your work was shit comment is rude af)
This may not be what you want to hear but I think you should consider whether all this argument and feeling bad is worth the potential upside. What happened was shitty but you shouldn’t let this ruin your day.
Having had my work appropriated by others before, I can feel you. I’d like to hope that this is all a big misunderstanding, but that would be naive of me. Hopefully this doesn’t stop you from contributing to other things in the future.
Since the content on codeburg is user owned and managed I’m afraid you don’t have much recourse there.
Just know that you are heard.
Reading Leah’s comments, you’ve been credited for what you did, testing. Your patch didn’t work, she didn’t use it and wrote a solution herself.
Nothing was stolen because she didn’t use your patch.
I’d be pissed too. Not really anything I can do but let me know if I can help.
If I’m completely honest, after reading both your account and theirs, I don’t really understand why you’re this hung up about it.
It’s almost like you care more about credit than a port that actually works. I know you weren’t done/that it was a WIP, and they told you to wait, but at the end of the day it’s open software, and literally anyone could have beaten you to it.
I don’t think you’re wrong to feel that your efforts should have been represented more, but I honestly would have backed off like 10% through that conversation and just started working on something else. It’s not worth it man. I hope you can feel better about this whole situation soon.
Kinda embarrassing how few people consider that Leah, though rude, may have ever had any kinda point. Like, apparently this person spent eight hours harassing them on IRC (which is mentioned in this thread, no need to actually go check anything for oneself before demonizing somebody!) but ohhh noooo getting banned from the IRC channel is horrible how could they do that! What a monster!
Meanwhile, looks to me like everyone involved admits that, despite the libellous thread title, Leah Rowe did not steal this person’s work.
tl;dr: In this thread people skim a rant from one of two sides, call the other a monster. Grr.
2024-02-26 18:33:38 lorenzo i had went out of my way to buy that board, let you know about that this was what i wanted to do
2024-02-26 18:33:49 lorenzo i really wanted to see my name on adding this boardThey literally said they wanted to see their name by adding the board. It feels quite selfish to me to snatch the work a new contributor was doing just because they are ‘taking too long’ without contacting them first.
Read the irc fully after writing that and it seems there was already communication between them, so it’s even weirder that such miscommunication occurred.
On masto the maintainer wrote that op was harassing them and gave the irc log for proof, but the irc chat is peaceful until the end where the maintainer flips out about the masto post and accuses op of harassing on masto??
The end of the irc log:
2024-02-27 05:04:04 leah you have 2 choices
2024-02-27 05:04:25 leah * stop going online and publicly harassing me - delete all posts about it. and i’ll delete my replies to your mastodon just now
2024-02-27 05:04:48 leah * stop contributing to libreboot - i will refuse all patches from you, and i’ll ban you from #libreboot if you even raise a peep
2024-02-27 05:05:02 leah i’ve tried to be nice but it ends here, and i will listen no further. i won’t have you harassing me.
2024-02-27 05:05:11 leah yield to my authority, or fuck off. it’s your choice.
2024-02-27 05:06:17 leah i could give in to you- whet you’re asking for is unreasonable, and the manner in which you ask is more like a threat than a request. if i give in to you now, you will try to harass/abuse me again in the future.
2024-02-27 05:06:27 leah it’s your choice now. submit, or fuck off.It bites me that they call op harassing, threatening and abusive while threatening them of being banned if they talk publicly about it in the same breath. More adjectives from mastodon:
Your kind of bullying, coercive and controlling behaviour is unwelcome either in my life or in my communities.
Maybe ‘nagging’ could be an appropriate criticism, but the maintainer just looks out of it here. It’s also funny that they say “if i give in to you now, you will try to harass/abuse me again in the future” without realising that’s likely what op is also thinking at the moment
You deserve credit for work you did do, it’s especially important yet all too easy to overlook in the FOSS space.
Sorry to hear this happened to you.
Brother, that’s where the beauty of open source shines, if you wanna continue then fork their code and build upon it, remember tachiyomi or newpipe or vanced situations, they were just forked and continued, yeah, it’s not proper comparison since libreboot is still active but examples was discontinued, well… I have better example then, cataclysm: dda and it’s fork cataclysm: bn
I can understand a miscommunication from their part, but the latter treatment on Mastodon is not an attitude that a large FOSS project should have towards another person.
While I won’t pretend that I was ever going to contribute to Libreboot, if a project I loved treated contributors this way, at best I would never contribute, and at worst seriously reconsider using said project. Leah absolutely needs to apologise for this, and Libreboot needs to update its community standards.
You can sue them if the work is not public domain or 0BSD, MIT no attrib,…
no, because Leah didn’t use any OP’s code. Leah simply rewrote the patch because it wasn’t working. OP is just mad because he was expecting to get it to work and be merged into the project, but Leah did it first.
Or issue a DMCA takedown if they violate OP’s copyright. Much cheaper, much faster.
But very much illegal if OP’s copyrights aren’t being violated.
