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 This port was originally made in Coreboot by someone, so work mostly goes to them, but as for adding support for Libreboot, my name is completely left out.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 I was only given a week and was literally told to wait during that time period, so I was kind of manipulated into waiting so that Leah could get the board herself and add it without ever including my name.
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. I’m just ranting 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 made this port.
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.
It was stolen though, I feel like I was manipulated into waiting just so that they had enough time to do it themselves. I will admit that both sides on communication was bad, but still, that’s work that I did and just to have it taken like that is a bit of a slap in the face. I didn’t just test the board, I added it into lbmk myself independtly. Leah never looked at my patch that worked and refuses to see it. We literally got the .ROM file to work off of my orginial patch after Leah had reconfigured the GBE and IFD region.
No, you say repeatedly that “you feel” it was stolen, “you feel” manipulated — and that’s fair, but would it stand up in court?
I see no evidence for your claims, only your feelings. Nowhere do you show how your unique code is used in the released patch that Rowe wrote. I’m sorry man, as I see it ATM there just isn’t any “there” there.
They made me wait a week, that’s why I didn’t submit it. I already had a functioning patch, but they told me to wait a week so I did, but then guess what? They closed off my patch ‘accidently’ and added it themselves. Why was I expected to submit a patch if they made me wait?
I’m kind of confused. What work did they take? From the communications, it looks like you wrote some code, it wasn’t accepted, and Leah wrote their own implementation, from scratch. Is that not true? Unless they based their work off your code somehow, I don’t see how anything was stolen, potential dickishness from the maintainer aside.
They took the port that I was making for this board, they told me to wait a week, and then closed off my patch and took all the credit. The OG patch that I made was a WIP, we were looking over it to see what was wrong and I noted down what was wrong and fixed it in my next patch, which never got submitted because they told me to wait a week. They recreated the patch that I made from scratch once they got their hands on the board and submitted it.
If they recreated it from scratch though, I don’t see what was stolen. Unless they incorporated your implementation somehow, I can’t see how this rises to stealing. There can be many competing implementations towards the same spec, and using one over the other is not necessarily theft.
They stole the credit for the port though, I already had my own functioning patch but I was told to wait a week twice. So I did, and my patch was closed off ‘accidently’ and they submitted the patch themselves, after making me wait for no reason. This gave them enough time to do it themselves and remove my name from ever being there.
But was the code they wrote substantially identical to yours? Was what they claimed credit for your work just modified, or did they write an entirely new port that only bears resemblance?
If its the latter, you got the exact amount of credit you deserved. I’m not going to argue that their conduct was professional (though, neither was yours), but they don’t have any obligation to credit you further.
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.
Best comment. Rowe has a lot of toxic history, and it is best to work in a separate lane rather than bolstering something like this.
OP’s testimony should serve as a lesson and a record for other firmware developers.
Libreboot is actually not a GNU project anymore due to a dispute between Leah Rowe and the FSF.
Leah has said some dumb stuff but I think this particular separation from the GNU project was the correct decision. The dogmatic no blobs approach wasn’t working, it is better to reduce/minimise the binary blobs and support more devices imo. Don’t agree with their previous actions though.
Ironic
I am aware of that, but I should have phrased that better. What I meant was organizations related to GNU/FSF in some way or the other.
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.
They told me to wait a week, I waited, and my patch was closed off and they had added it themselves and gave me basically no credit. That’s the main issue, I was told to wait, and I had a functioning patch, but due to Leah’s miscommunication, all the work I did is now meaningless. Why was I expected to submit another patch if I was told to wait?
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.
The patch was a WIP, we were going over it to see what was wrong, which I fixed in my next patch. Leah had ‘accidently’ closed off my patch and added it themselves. I was told to wait, hence why I didn’t submit another patch.
okay, still, she didn’t steal anything from you. She didn’t use your patch, that’s all that happened. That’s not stealing.
My credit was stolen though, they closed off my patch after telling me to wait and they’re basically I don’t deserve any credit because I took too long, when the reality is that they’re the ones who kept me waiting.
There are countless patches that are never merged for one reason or another, sometimes just because the maintainer doesn’t like the implementation even if it works, so they implement it themselves.
If no code was used, no credit is necessary. She did credit you for testing, which a lot of projects don’t bother crediting. So take that and continue with your life.
I literally had a patch that was functioning but again, I was told to wait so why was I expected to submit the patch during that time? I was waiting for Leah but they held me up twice, and then closed off my patch for ‘being too slow’ when in fact, they’re the ones who told me to wait.
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.
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.
I was literally given one week:
Yikes.
Yeah, looks like she think your work is not a big deal and aren’t worth the fuzz about it. Sadly this attitude is pretty common. The maintainer didn’t think they do anything wrong (it’s just a small config!), not realizing the work they think was easy and not worth the credit might not actually that easy for new contributors and perhaps warrant some credit or acknowledgement to encourage future contributions.
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.
Go back to reddit and bootlick GitHub dev trackers with emoji reactions
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
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.
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.
“let’s just forget what happened and move on” is easy for them to say when they’re the one who benefited from your work.
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.
I’m not, I just want to publicize this so other people don’t get their work stolen. This was my first port, and just to have it taken from me like that, is just unethical. I mean, I’m not denying that you have the right to do that in FOSS, I’m really just showing people what Leah does to people who object to take that kind of shit from them.
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.
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 :/
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. 🤷
It was a WIP, I submitted it to show where I was at so we could work on it together. We went through what was wrong and I corrected it in my next patch which didn’t get submitted because Leah had closed off my patch and added it themselves.
Exactly. According to their replies to you on Mastodon, Rowe found a fix of their own that solved the problem faster than going through the process with you.
Your work wasn’t stolen, it wasn’t even used
There is an obvious disconnect between your perception of the work process and Rowe’s, and that probably led to the miscommunications. You saw the collaboration as an informal deal that your work would be nursed through debugging to a workable version. Rowe, being the project lead, wanted any solution that would run on the device; found one and wrote it themself. To them the focus is not on helping make your personal contribution work, it’s on shipping LibreBoot with device patches that do.
I’m not a developer but I’ve been in both positions as a volunteer, a freelancer, and as a project manager. Sometimes you get passed over, sometimes you have to let contributors go who either don’t deliver the expected results or don’t deliver on time.
And yes, I’ve had to field long conversations, sometimes public ones, with people frustrated that their work has been rejected. Frankly, that’s not the reason anybody gets into project management. It drains energy you’d rather pour into the actual work.
The way you’ve brought this to Rowe on IRC, then on Mastodon, and now to Lemmy as a public grievance after they made it clear that they wouldn’t engage with your complaint any more — I don’t blame them for blocking you. It’s clear that you’re more concerned about your bruised ego than about the larger project, its importance to open computing — and the fact that there is now a functioning patch for your device.
I’m trying to put this nicely because, as I said, I’ve been in your position too (or similar), but I wouldn’t work with someone who reacts this poorly to rejection. Coming out with baseless accusations against Rowe about stealing your work is a huge red flag to potential collaborators that you’re the problem in the equation.
Yes, but the patch that I made after that didn’t go through because they closed off my original patch. I don’t think I have a bruised ego for just wanting proper credit. How are you going to tell me its okay for someone to just make someone wait a week, close off their patch, and take all the credit? This was intentional from Leah and it’s pretty obvious. I do care about the project and open computing, the only reason I said I wanted this to go on my resume is because I literally have no job and am looking for a career in IT.
I do feel sorry for you but not for the reasons you seem so obsessed about. I’ve been unemployed and trying to make opportunities for myself that didn’t come through. I’ve felt like I burned my one and only chance, several times. It’s rough pulling yourself up by the small hairs and trying again, but trust me. This isn’t the way.
This was intentional from Leah and it’s pretty obvious.
It’s obvious to you in your current situation, I’m sure, but take a breath and distance yourself just a moment. You’re clearly hurt but this is the makings of a paranoid delusion. Is the lead of an open source project intentionally persecuting and exploiting random volunteers, or just you specifically? Is that lead of an open source project with us in the room now?
Look, counterpoint: It’s fairly clear to me that you put a lot of expectation and hope on this opportunity to ship a working patch, and you saw the collaboration with Rowe as a sort of mentoring relationship where they’d coach your patch through to a working state. And after that you’d have that on your CV and all the doors to employment would open.
However, your work was (not stolen but) rejected — and you have been given clear explanations why the project lead chose not to use your work, not least that it bricked the device it was made for.
You need to acknowledge two things, both of them starting with “this isn’t all about you”: 1. Rowe had a different understanding of your collaboration, where they as a project lead were more concerned with shipping a working patch, any working patch, than with tutoring your process; and 2. The fault is with you for expecting Rowe to delay shipping and not use a fix they came up with themself in favour of your work. You handed in a patch that didn’t work and Rowe looked for other solutions as any good project manager should. End of.
You’ve seen an opportunity fall away and, although that is always a blow to someone starting a career, you need to move on. At this point you’re just tilting at windmills and making up reasons that somebody else is to blame. Nobody stole your work (not in a way that you seem willing to prove), you were given credit to the extent that your work was useful to the project.
Now do what you would have done if your work had been accepted: put the credit on your resume, keep looking for work and — I hope — more voluntary software work.
They made me wait that’s what the problem is, I had a functioning patch, and they closed off my original patch and added it themselves. I just really don’t think its fair for someone to do that. I mean, them telling me to wait a week just so they can close off my patch and take most of the credit? I think that’s wrong.
Yes, I saw the lines you repeated over and over again. I’m starting to see why Rowe blocked you.
Your next big project should be to step away from the keyboard and get the fuck to work on yourself. Your egomania is the problem here, nobody owes you anything.
Almost all of the code I can find around the Optiplex 9020 seems to be based of this coreboot patch from a few years ago. I find it difficult to see the code you added, though, as the tar.gz on Codeberg seems to be a complete copy of libreboot.
Do you have a side-by-side of the code that you contributed versus the code Leah contributed?
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
Leah told me to wait a week during that time frame, so I waited for them. They then ‘accidently’ closed off my patch and added this themselves. I was told to wait for them on two separate occasions, so I basically waited two weeks. I don’t know why they expected me to submit a patch if I was basically told to wait for them.
It appears as if the original developer was told to wait for weeks
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 personally think that this merely a miscommunication on Leah’s part. If I were you, I would just let it go. From what I understand, Leah remade the patch herself so no work was stolen?
Sure you might feel wronged for being told to wait for a week and that’s natural! But as I stated, this was just a miscommunication in my opinion.
This situation is not worth stressing yourself over. You’re salty over Leah calling your work “shit”? Work/study harder and improve upon yourself. If I were you, this is what I would gather from all this.
Also, Leah saying “Accepy my authority” is pretty ironic for someone in the FOSS community.
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Its pretty easy to remake a patch when a rough draft was previously created by someone else; so I’m not sure the point is valid in stating Leah didn’t steal any work. Can you prove that claim?
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As easy as it is for them to “let it go” it would be just as easy for Leah to add them as a contributor…
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I’d be pissed too. Not really anything I can do but let me know if I can help.
