Canoeboot 20231026 Released As Another Fork Of Coreboot-Downstream Libreboot

[Britoid]

Just going to add even more confusion to the how GNU Boot/LibreBoot/CoreBoot which will make it harder for users and potential contributors.

[George99]

We are getting nearer to the point of singularity with more variants of Coreboot than supported mainboards.

[skeevy420]

Now we have finally "canoeboot" which is effectively renaming of non-GeNUine boot, which is the rename of "unofficial" GNU boot, which is just libreboot with the GNU boot policy, and entirely exists to make GNU boot effort unneeded. If you listen to GNU's pronunciation ( https://www.gnu.org/gnu/pronunciation.en.html ) it's pronounced "gah-new", which rhymes with canoe. I don't think that's a coincidence at all.

It's pronounced gə-,nü

gah-new sounds like a variation of Klingon gagh. We will feast on gagh'new before battle. Today is a good day to die.

[Draget]

I really openly support and am very happy about existing forks of projects that try to avoid binary blobs, un-reviewed code and potential freedom impairing components.

While I understand how some people find it pointless to have a potentially less-working version just because of some freedom believe, there is the ability to 'just not give a fuck' and stick with the upstream project. Perfectly fine with me. And people who do care, can have an option and help pushing the idea of open source even further down to the tiniest binary blobs.

But my preferred way is to have a project that closely follows upstream, merging changes into their version and basically just keeping a patchset/branch of removed blobs and functions. Porting those to each and every release might be difficult, so some delays are expected. And it should clearly distinguish itself from the upstream project, not confusing users.

But that stupid mess they built up there is just frustrating! I honestly hope that some people who were responsible for coming up with names similar to other projects, not clearly drawing a line, read this: You drive nails into the very believe you are working for! Messing up other project, even with mocking names, causes user frustration and confusion. Get you shit together or leave this community alone, really.
I know it is not always black and white and sometimes these disagreements even come so far that one part of the developers think 'they are the real project' (BTC vs BTH, ffmpeg vs libav, HackMd vs CodiMd etc.) and want to take the name with them. But if you want to do something actually good for the users, you put personal shit aside, come to an agreement and make clean cuts (or develop a way to integrate… why not have one "boot project that hosts different spins that collaborate with different rules on what they accept and what not?"

Sorry for the rant…

[jindam]

* anyone or everyone create fork_ no issues
* most important_
* upstream as much as possible
* not interested anymore, merge into existing fork or other fork, but **dont** abandon

[chocolate]

"unofficial" GNU boot -> non-GeNUine boot: libreboot maintainers catch wind of the GNU effort, and attempts to cut them off, creating a new fork of libreboot using GNU's policy. Because it was called GNU boot (with the "unofficial" label), the GNU project though that would create confusion and asked them to stop, hence the rename to non-GeNUine boot.

This claim that Rowe's GNU Boot served to undercut GNU developers needs to substantiated. As I understand it, Rowe's unofficial GNU Boot release would have allowed GNU developers to officialize it under the actual GNU umbrella, without the need to fork it, as it would have been a Libreboot downstream. In other words, Rowe appeared to be okay with GNU having its own GNU Boot, and wanted to gift GNU a properly maintained downstream. This was in response to GNU developers creating another, conflicting Libreboot (dot at) when Rowe's version became non-libre.
Now, GNU developers supposedly perceived it as an affront, and are going their own way (?). Canoeboot is Rowe's response for those who want a libre version still deriving from her Libreboot.
All relevant links seem to be condensed in the first paragraph at this page.
Yes, this is becoming increasingly hard to follow and increasingly silly as well.

[fitzie]

This claim that Rowe's GNU Boot served to undercut GNU developers needs to substantiated. As I understand it, Rowe's unofficial GNU Boot release would have allowed GNU developers to officialize it under the actual GNU umbrella, without the need to fork it, as it would have been a Libreboot downstream. In other words, Rowe appeared to be okay with GNU having its own GNU Boot, and wanted to gift GNU a properly maintained downstream. This was in response to GNU developers creating another, conflicting Libreboot (dot at) when Rowe's version became non-libre.
Now, GNU developers supposedly perceived it as an affront, and are going their own way (?). Canoeboot is Rowe's response for those who want a libre version still deriving from her Libreboot.
All relevant links seem to be condensed in the first paragraph at this page.
Yes, this is becoming increasingly hard to follow and increasingly silly as well.

I specifically don't want to get into the personalities and drama of the history. I didn't say "undercut" but said "cut them off" which I thought was more neutral.

But for those wanted to understand why I still support that, is because:

1) all these efforts were done by the libreboot maintainers in reaction GNU boot
2) the first writeup about gnuboot here (not the sanitized version on canoeboot.org) https://libreboot.org/news/gnuboot.html
3) The fact that this effort was not adopted by GNU boot, yet this "fork" continues to exist.

I'm not going to quote the libreboot maintainers, because is touching upon the parts of the history I said in my original comment I will not discuss, so I effectively concede the debate, but people can look at the link I provided. Sadly you may find yourself in the same regret as I did.

As for the libreboot.at domain, this was a fork of the libreboot project from the point it was last free and was the site they created when they announced the plan to start working on a libre version of coreboot again. However, this domain is just a stale representation of libreboot from that point in time two years ago, and the GNU boot project never used that domain for their effort. I don't see any evidence there was any release of a forked image under the libreboot.at domain, and that it was just the first step to revive a free coreboot distribution from the most recent starting point. By the time "unofficial" GNU /non-GeNUine boot was announced, GNU boot was clearly the brand of this effort, and had zero connection to the libreboot.at domain.

But I stand by my contention that no one wins by looking into this further. accept your fate all who digs into this rabbit hole.

[Developer12]

16 comments and counting and nobody's realized this is just Leah clowning on the GNU libre software chumps. Libreboot no longer adheres the the FSF's braindead RYF policies and so a bunch of people decided to (incompetently) make their own fork of an old copy of libreboot. Leah clowned on them by making an actually-competent version but got hatemail for using the same name, so this is that competent version released under a new name.

[blackiwid]

Well I have to be careful around the person that doing that, but I try to be as diplomatic as possible the rates of mental illnesses around this condition she has, is high.

Why do I say that, because she releases a fork with a website a own, not just a other version with a different name on her main website, to conquer to divide.

I can't see any other reason, to make that effort to push a fork with a version and license that you 100% disagree on. She does believe that the GNU's definition of freedom is less positive, so it can't be to promote that project as better version to her main project.

Probably to keep the state before GNU Boot was out or because of petty revenge because of the attack on her attempt to steel the name GNU/Boot another extremely aggressive and even probably illegal therefor she backed out of it and claimed it was a joke. This doubling down proofs to me that it was not "just a joke".

She likes the confusion, many people including me linked libreboot or libre with a GNU project with the GNU definition of freedom. So depending on how you wanna take it completely free of blobs or in a way that they are considered harmless / defacto-hardware or stuff like that.

Even I read the story if you then months later read that your notebook is suddenly supported you forget about that.

I think she wants that, to this day I don't even understand what the licensing disagreements are with Coreboot or if she is just not able to work with them and needs therefor her own project.

She goes out of her way similar to something Nvidia would do or other nice companies, to attack the brand before it get's established first by trying to steel the name then by adding more names and websites out there, so that people that are not deep into that project never figure out what it is and fall for ohh this cool libreproject with the nice features must be the GNU project.

And yes for such acting there are 2 ways of seeing that either some DSM diagnoses or not yet diagnoses or being a hyper competitive ashole that knows no limits to win some battles with their elbows.

But because this is something supposed to be good like funding food for some poor country, it's a good cause it's like try to make competition with some human rights organization that wants to build hospitals in some poor countries.

I mean this is the 3rd fight over the naming:
1. taking the naming with them against the will of the GNU Project, they gave it to her after a while, somebody normal would take that as win and move on.
2. her attempt to copy their new name.
3. making another fork with a similar name and a own website despite disagreeing with the values behind this fork.

[phoron]

Careful each one with one's own deep hatred. Let's don't talk about other people health issues, which we neither know nor need to know.

I don't know. I thank @fritzie for the explanation, I understand how as an outsider as myself it can feel frustrating, but I also understand human relations may be complex and keeping projects synchronized and goals aligned is not that easy. The hoarders only have to discuss about the size of their piece of the pie, but those fighting for any values are always subject to disagreements and schisms.

This situation may be less that straightforward, but is not the end of the world, and I blame it on hardware vendors who refuse to document and free their firmware, not on citizens trying to help themselves and their neighbours work around abusive circumstances.