Talk:Libreboot/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

New fork -- LibreCore

According to https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecore-Formation a conflict between Leah Rowe and several of the contributors resulted in release of yet another blob-free CoreBoot fork, LibreCore, focusing on non-x86 hardware. Please, reflect that in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.220.29.185 (talk) 01:30, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Update history

See https://libreboot.org/news/unity.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arzg (talk • contribs) 06:52, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 April 2017

Change repository URLs from https://notabug.org/vimuser/libreboot to https://notabug.org/libreboot/libreboot 151.51.216.154 (talk) 11:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 11:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

There are more wrong links to fix in the page. Not all wrong links have been replaced!

These are now fixed. Arzg (talk) 21:51, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Rewording the History section

The "History" section only discusses one thing, namely a series of public accusations made in 2016 by a single person who was at the time "struggling with gender dysphoria and substance abuse".[1] That person has now apologised.[2][3] I don't know what BLP says about this but I'm guessing we are advised not to give excessive weight to something that exposes someone's personal problems and where the level of detail isn't necessary for the subject of the article/section.

So I'm going to condense it and change the order so it no longer presents controversial accusations at the start and waits until the end to mention that it's all over now.

I hope someone can expand the section in general to be more representative of the project's history. Great floors (talk) 14:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

It would be nice if there was other info about history of the project but to my knowledge these events are the only noteworthy things. I would be careful of undermining their importance as they did cause a very big impact on how the project public image. Keyakakushi46 (talk) 15:27, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Ok. I'm nearly finished my edit. Most of the details are still there. I removed the names, but they're in the references so nothing's being covered up. I'll save my changes in a few minutes. Let me know what you think. Great floors (talk) 15:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I made one pretty minor correction to the wording, otherwise this seems good. Keyakakushi46 (talk) 15:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Great. Great floors (talk) 16:06, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

"Open Source" wording

I know it's a mouthful, but if you search the libreboot project webpage, there's almost no mention of "open source" without "free and open source" or "free/libre and open source." I think this article should avoid the use of the term "open source" without the "free" qualifier, because it indicates an important (although debatable) philosophical difference between the two terms.

47.187.168.176 (talk) 12:30, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Libreboot and Minifree Websites are offline

Archives can be found here https://web.archive.org/web/20190809073647/https://www.libreboot.org/

and here https://web.archive.org/web/20190824082232/https://minifree.org/

Vbachem (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

"Security concerns" section

How is that related to Libreboot itself, except for the fact its members suspected them? K4rolB (talk) 18:14, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Upstream

@Nemo bis: ... "upstream kernel" was already used in 1998. And that's only what I could find with a 2 minute search." What are you objecting here? The term isn't new, but in the context of git it bears some technical meaning which should be clarified. The GIT glossary has some details on specifics. --AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 21:09, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources, alternative proposal

I do not think the Libreboot article should be merged with coreboot. Instead, the Libreboot article should be improved. Find more reliable sources (there are plenty), and cite them in the article.

Earlier, it was suggested that the FSF would not be a reliable source because Libreboot was once a GNU project, but this is ridiculous. Libreboot made a clear and unprecedented attack against GNU in 2016, and Leah went pretty nuts. If you ask Leah (libreboot founder) about it, she'll tell you nowadays that she made up, but that's just her word for it. If you actually analyze the FSF since 2016, they have barely helped promote Libreboot and have instead promoted individual companies selling Libreboot systems, but they have largely sidestepped Libreboot itself. One of the citations in the Libreboot article was an FSF tweet, but it was just that, a tweet. FSF didn't issue a press release or anything. Libreboot and the FSF have almost nothing to do with each other nowadays.

I regard PhotographyEdits's edits earlier as vandalism, but I do agree that the Libreboot article needs improvement. I think we should be discussing ways to improve that instead. I reverted all of PhotographyEdits's edits, but do agree that the Phoronix citation links should be removed again. I don't object to those being removed, but PhotographyEdits has used those and one or two other sources as justification to redirect the entire article, without first proposing to search for other sources.

Please help improve the Libreboot article, instead of destroying it. Thanks.

You don't know me. I'm anonymous. Don't answer me, just answer my counter-proposal. Thanks.

The above unsigned comment was by a now blocked IP editor 92.40.171.213 on 09:39, August 26, 2021

Next time, please don't boldly remove some merge proposal template. Just answer it and I might have removed it myself after your objection. Thanks. There is some misunderstanding, I did not argued that the FSF is unreliable. It is a primary source because Libreboot was a GNU project. Primary sources can be used, but should be limited as much as possible. Before I started working on this article, there were 12 references to fsf.org, I don't think that's particularly minimal. I'm open to further discussion, but don't call things like this vandalism. They are in line with the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Fellow Wikipedian @Arzg: was positive about the work I did on this article. PhotographyEdits (talk) 12:25, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources

I see User:PhotographyEdits has been cleaning up the primary sources and undue information -- this is great.

I notice the article relies on unreliable sources. 15 of 30 refs at the time of writing are to Phoronix, which Wikipedia considers generally unreliable. Another 7 or so are from self-published primary sources. This may raise notability and undue weight questions. It might make sense to move the information to the libreboot section on coreboot.

As an aside "Libreboot made possible the required modifications for completely free software variants of some... Chromebook... laptops" is POV at best... The RK3288 chromebooks in question already shipped with coreboot. Libreboot objected to Google's branding embedded in the firmware (the Chrome logo), not the software itself.

(COI disclosure: I was briefly involved with Libreboot in 2017.) -Arzg (talk) 13:20, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Arzg, good to know, I wasn't aware of WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_281#Phoronix. I think that it still meets the notability bar with Linux Journal, Linux Magazin and Hackaday. But merging might be better. I will open a merge proposal, then we can hopefully reach some consensus on what is the best option. PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:37, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

@Arzg See: Talk:Coreboot#Merger_proposal PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:46, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm looking for additional reliable sources that aren't used in the article yet. Here are some links to work from:

Vaughan-Nichols, Stephen (30 Sep 2015). "Taurinus X200: Now the most 'Free Software' laptop on the planet". ZDnet. Red Ventures. Retrieved 26 August 2021.

Hoffman, Chris. "The Free Software Foundation loves this laptop, but you won't". PCworld. IDG Communications, Inc. Retrieved 26 August 2021.

WP:RSP warns against using techcrunch indiscriminately, so this one is limbo https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/11/the-minifree-libreboot-t400-is-free-as-in-freedom/

I considered https://www.tomshardware.com/news/purism-notebooks-avoid-intel-amt,32576.html but rejected it for use on this article -- This is a quote from Leah about the AMT. There is a trivial mention of Libreboot, but just to contextualize who Leah is in an article otherwise unrelated to Libreboot.

Everything else I found scrolling through Google News is either already cited here or not considered reliable. In particular there were a number of results from Hackaday, which seems to be frowned upon Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_281#Hackaday Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_296#RfC_Revisiting_Hackaday

I would add the relevant ZDnet citation, though I don't want to create revision conflicts. Nevertheless the relevant text is:

"The Tarurinus X200, which is based on the older Lenovo ThinkPad X200 sub-notebook, has had all its original low-level firmware and operating system software replaced. Instead it uses the free-software boot system, Libreboot. No trace of ME has been left on this laptop.

To do this, Libreboot developers reverse engineered Intel's firmware. They then created a small software utility to produce a free firmware image that conforms to Intel's specifications. Finally, to install their firmware on the device, they used a serial peripheral interface (SPI) flasher. This is then used to completely overwrite the proprietary firmware with Libreboot and GNU GRUB 2."

. -Arzg (talk) 13:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Arzg, thanks for the links. Let's not be too strict about WP:RS and allow Hackaday until there is consensus that it is unreliable. PhotographyEdits (talk) 12:15, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Sure, I don't see any need to remove the hackaday sources already cited. But given there are already to 2 refs and the source is in limbo, I skipped hackaday articles when looking for sources to expand the article with. Arzg (talk) 14:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Should a notable users section exists and should Richard Stallman be included?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus was reached to delete the Notable users section. Yae4 (talk) 18:21, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

---

Should a notable users section exists and should Richard Stallman be included?

1. No to both
2. Include Stallman in a different section
3. Yes

PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:58, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

• No to both or Different section if there is a reliable secondary source. It is currently WP:UNDUE by using his primary website. PhotographyEdits (talk) 14:02, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

  @PhotographyEdits: I observe you've gone from "Let's not be too strict about WP:RS and allow Hackaday..." above in August 2021, and having a "Inclusionist" label[4] on your User page, to removing a lot of content from this article. Has your approach changed that much, or is it something about this article that makes you a stickler for secondary sources here? I agree with not including personal stuff, especially about non-notable people, but it seems the History has been gutted, and there is avoidance of even mentioning involved people? -- Yae4 (talk) 14:18, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  Note that I did not removed the Hackaday refs, you did that (and I thanked you for it). Since it did not resulted in removal of content, I'm fine with removing Hackaday sources in this case and I would not oppose adding them back either. I removed a lot of content from this article that was based on unreliable self published sources indeed, and that is mainly enforcing Wikipedia policies. In general, I prefer adding more content to Wikipedia, unless some other users that prefer deleting content. That is what makes me an inclusionist in my view.

  Also I don't see the point of including coreboot history in this article, which is already included in the coreboot article. Including the history about libreboot sources from a book is a great addition. Adding a sentence of information on the GNU split based on a mailing list post is not acceptable in my view. The libreboot.at information should also not be added as long as it's only based on primary sources. Same applies to Stallman their usage of Libreboot. I agree with @SWinxy this can be classified as WP:FANCRUFT. PhotographyEdits (talk) 14:31, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe it should be water under the bridge, but I was referring to a series of edits in August 2021, which gutted the article.

  A brief mention of Coreboot introduces the History of Libreboot. It would look like a brief mention if the history of Libreboot hadn't been entirely gutted, and is now in rebuild mode. As said above, "I agree with not including personal stuff, especially about non-notable people,"

  These are the same kinds of primary AND self-published sources used without objections[5][6] IMO a presentation at a conference by a known expert, Carikli, is a better source than self-published mailing list postings, or self-published website postings at libreboot org, still in the article, which tend to disappear or change. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  >used without objections

  Yes, for the name of the software. That is a reasonable use. Using it for writing complete sentences or paragraphs, not so much.

  >known expert, Carikli

  According to Wikipedia policy, we need to verify that and make sure this person has sources published in the relevant field in reliable sources. PhotographyEdits (talk) 18:44, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  Carikli presentation is not self-published; and is secondary for libreboot org, or primary for libreboot at. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:00, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

• 3. Yes, include a list, for now, and consider adding more info. Example, Kyle Rankin (software) may not be wiki-notable, but could be listed as a user who wrote a lot about Libreboot. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:29, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
• No, imo it's WP:FANCRUFT. Doesn't add to the article. SWinxy (talk) 23:53, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

  @SWinxy: Flaws in your position: WP:FANCRUFT is more about articles, not lists in articles; Many articles include lists of notable users;[7] The Richard_Stallman article talks about libreboot and wiki-links to this article. This article is a stub and a lot of information has been removed since the peak History content around August 2021.[8] If this article is not to remain a stub, and have anything approximating an accurate history on the subject of Libreboot, Stallman will be mentioned. In the meantime, I don't care too much whether the list is called Notable Users, or the more wiki-standard, See also, but related articles should be wiki-linked somewhere, probably including Alyssa_Rosenzweig based on comments farther above in this talk. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:03, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Yae4 Based on the number of secondary, reliable, independent sources that is available on this subject, I think that a stub is a reasonable article length for this subject. The article lenght at its peak used way too much primary and self published sources. Including possible defamatory statements regarding the event in March 2021 described in that version, based on a blog post. That is completely unacceptable. PhotographyEdits (talk) 14:36, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  As said above, "I agree with not including personal stuff, especially about non-notable people". Selected use of primary sources is OK for basic, non-controversial stuff, like existence of a fork, which this article should not ignore. Compared with Coreboot, you've over-gutted the primary sources. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:43, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  The coreboot article also needs to be cleaned up, but we're now talking about this article. See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. If you want to look for other reliable sources about coreboot, please go ahead, but currently I'm focusing on this article.

  >Selected use of primary sources is OK for basic, non-controversial stuff, like existence of a fork, which this article should not ignore.

  No, this article should not ignore the fork if there are secondary and independent sources describing it. Als long as those don't exists, it is better to ignore the fork. PhotographyEdits (talk) 18:41, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

• No, Why would we? Do we have Mac users or Samsung phone users? The fact that this is not commercial software doesn't fundamentally alter that. As Stallman has some 'expertise', his opinions might be considered worthy of inclusion, if his site is considered to be a WP:RS. Equally if some very substantial body started using it, it might be worthy of inclusion, but as framed no to both. Pincrete (talk) 07:28, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
• No because it's trivia. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:20, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  @CactiStaccingCrane and Pincrete: "Many other articles include lists of notable users. If the history section of this article had not been gutted, as discussed above, Stallman's influence on Libre boot would be covered in some detail. I agree as the article stands, it looks like trivia. -- Yae4 (talk) 16:38, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think ALL of these sections should be gutted. They don't contribute much to the article itself and is borderline promotional. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:41, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  By "these sections" I mean "Notable users" ones, not other sections of this article. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:42, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  Which articles? But even if you are right, I agree with CTC, it doesn't contribute anything very useful and is promotional. Pincrete (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  These articles? Did you miss the link above? https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?go=Go&search=notable+users&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1 This section of Manual of Style seems to agree, but how to distinguish from See also lists? -- Yae4 (talk) 17:09, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: How should the fork and libreboot.at be included?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No Consensus, but closing this for deletion discussion. Yae4 (talk) 18:38, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

---

How should the fork and libreboot.at be included?

1. Ignore it like article does now did when RfC started
2. Include basic history and info based on primary sources if independent secondary sources are not available
3. Other

Background: There is a dispute over the direction of Libreboot, and the name is now being used by two projects. The new GNU/FSF website[9][10] and project was announced in March at a Libreplanet presentation.[11] Some discussion of issues is at libreboot.org.[12]

At this article, these changes, Special:Diff/1146204066/1149329352, on April 11, added a basic statement, but were reverted and called "VANDALISM" by these changes, Special:Diff/1149329352/1152487905, on April 30.

-- Yae4 (talk) 19:50, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Let's also tag @GNUtoo who is the author of that Libreplanet presentation.

@Yae4 so far it does not seem it has been covered by independent WP:RS, so let's not mention it yet. PhotographyEdits (talk) 04:43, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I just did a thorough research and didn't find any reliable coverage, except a few trivial mentions on blogs. Given the circumstances, it is better not to include it. If the info is added, it would need to be explained, that would not be possible without any availability of third party coverage. Just mentioning facts or history is not that important, provided it has an impact, be it positive or negative.Cruzdoze (talk) 08:31, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Cruzdoze has no other edits? -- Yae4 (talk) 18:15, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Yae4, Pardon me if I did anything wrong by presenting my views. Is it against the policy to comment on RFC if there is no edit history? Please guide me.Cruzdoze (talk) 19:44, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

No problem. Noted it for anyone scanning the comments, for weighting purposes. -- Yae4 (talk) 12:47, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@PhotographyEdits: This article, a stub, now cites several primary and self-published sources including GNU.org and libreboot.org, and a mailing list post. Some secondary cites are shallow coverage or brief mentions. IMO, the cites I linked above are similar to primary current cites, and the info' should be added to the article, not ignored. I'm open to other opinions, if convincing. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:14, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

These primary / self published sources should be used for things like alternative names and numbers in infobox (which is currently the case for the other sources), not for writing an entire paragraph. Yes the list of notable users is short and I would accept it if there were several notable users where the others could be cited using secondary WP:RS, but in the current case I'd say no to this and the libreboot.at issue. I woud say to use WP:3O now. PhotographyEdits (talk) 09:49, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Hackaday is cited 4 times, but reliability is suspect: See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_296#RfC_Revisiting_Hackaday and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_281#Hackaday. That looks like a WP:DUE issue. Anyway, we should separate the discussion of sourcing and Notable users from this RfC on linbreboot.at. Already two editors, Ian_Kelling and I want to add something about libreboot.at and issues, which is why I started the RfC. -- Yae4 (talk) 12:46, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@Yae4 Thanks for fixing the Hackaday issue! Not sure if WP:DUE is really the issue here since the content can still be referenced from other sources. Though, I'm not sure about the potential COI of Ian Kelling since they work at the FSF, where Richard Stallman is on the board of directors of. I agree to split this discussion, will open a new section. PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:56, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The declared COI puts their edits in a different light, but they are not wrong in this case, IMO. Thanks. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:32, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I just found this discussion. "The new GNU/FSF website" is not the right way to describe libreboot.at. The page itself says: "Denis ‘GNUtoo’ Carikli and Adrien ‘neox’ Bourmault are the interim maintainers" Ian Kelling (talk) 18:57, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@Ian Kelling: Welcome. Tell us what is right; not what is not right. :) That said, $whois libreboot.at shows "personname: Hostmaster GNU FSF" so it seems about right to me, for Talk purposes. Also the libreboot.at page says "...motive for developing the GNU operating system and starting the Free Software Foundation" early on, so yeah. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:07, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I understand. It should be made more clear somehow. Ian Kelling (talk) 19:28, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I note that https://libreboot.at/contact.html has a link to their mailing list which is 404, along with links to their source code. So, it appears the project is not publicly active at the moment. Ian Kelling (talk) 19:03, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

404 happens. The link probably should point here, here, or here, which are functioning. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:39, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

LWN.net

@Yae4: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#LWN.net PhotographyEdits (talk) 12:30, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

AfD or Merge?

IMO an issue here is: What is "Libreboot" really? Along with that is: does and should this article serve as advertisement for Libreboot org and Minifree business, or, should this article be about efforts to have Libre booting?

Assessment of non-self-published, non-primary, presumably "reliable" sources:

• Assuming Linux-magazine is reliable, the 2018 cite " Transparency in firmware with Libreboot, Liberated"[13] covers "making firmware free as in freedom". There is coverage of "Libreboot" (org), but also "Several small international companies have emerged..." including Purism_(company). The interview of Rowe covers Librecore, coreboot, BIOS, Laptops; ...Trisquel, FSF Approval, difficulty with a T400, codecs, lots of stuff other than Libreboot org.

• Related Content from the above cite includes other articles on earlier history, preceding "Libreboot" brand and "Minifree" sales, but these are not cited here.

• The 3-part series by Kyle Rankin in 2015 and 2017,[14][15][16] are mostly very detailed, technical How-to articles. Like Linux Magazine, these cover many topics besides "Libreboot".
• ZDNET Vaughan-Nichols, 2015 "Taurinus X200: Now the most 'Free Software' laptop on the planet"[17], let's face it, is more about FSF, RYF and the hardware, with mentions of "Libreboot", but sold by Libiquity, and called Tarinux or Taurinus in different places. Used to support a "some developers..." paragraph?
• James Gray, 2017 Linux Journal " Minifree Ltd.'s GNU+Linux Computers":[18] is about Minifree and a few details on a few different products being sold, and is cited for an ASUS motherboard I didn't see mentioned in the source?
• John Biggs 2017 Tech Crunch (?), "T400 is free as in freedom",[19] is an advertisement for the refurbished T400 with passing mentions of Libreboot and Minifree.

I dislike AfDs, but this article is looking like it should go. There is too much distorted presentation of sources used, and very weak sourcing in the first place -- Yae4 (talk) 23:04, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

>I dislike AfDs

I do as well. It seems that there currently is mostly a disagreement between us, so it would be nice if we can resolve it without an AfD.

Years before I proposed to merge this article with coreboot and that was strongly opposed by some now blocked IP editor.

Something I also considered was the high number of translations. It is not really a particular good argument grounded in policy to keep an article, but usually I find it quite annoying if English is the only missing prominent language of a particular subject on Wikipedia. (this is my inclusionist side showing I guess). Back then I thought that a stub would be appropriate for some subject like this that has weak quality sourcing.

I'm not sure if the article really not meets the notability guidelines, if you feel like it should be deleted then feel free to open an AfD anyway. In that case I will vote to merge it into the coreboot article. If you want to merge this article without AfD, then I'll also assist with that.

Hopefully then we can have some more productive work by cleaning up the coreboot article :) PhotographyEdits (talk) 20:07, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Other translations seem to have easier, or minimal, sourcing requirements. English Wikipedia seems to push some, more political, articles in desired directions by banning designated "unreliable" sources, but that's a larger issue.

IMO both Coreboot and Libreboot, to varying degree, have become advertisements and link farms for selected projects and sales efforts. Neither has enough good "notability" sourcing to have articles, although I've done less looking at Coreboot. I weakly feel merging Libreboot into "Coreboot" could be a mistake. What would you think about a different article on the more general topic of efforts to replace proprietary vendor boot firmware with more "free" or open source firmware? Such an article may be able to pass AfC, and if ever Libreboot.x or coreboot has enough "good" sourcing to justify a split article, it could have one. -- Yae4 (talk) 21:20, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

For Libreboot I can agree with regards the advertising because of the Minifree company, but for coreboot? Are they selling stuff? I'm pretty sure that coreboot meets the notability requirements though. This article from Tweakers.net wrote a quite lenghty review of the project somewhat recently: https://tweakers.net/reviews/10032/de-bewogen-geschiedenis-van-coreboot-hoe-chromeos-een-bios-alternatief-redde.html

I need to look for more references but this looks pretty convincing already.

I support of the existence of a generic article, but I don't think that coreboot should be merged into that one. I created open-source firmware before, I think that one could be significantly extended.

For the merge of Libreboot, I think that a sentence or two in the coreboot article variants section would be totally fine. We don't need to list their supported machines since they only support upstream coreboot machines anyway. PhotographyEdits (talk) 08:38, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

At Coreboot I've changed a few spam external links disguised as cites recently, but more remain. It's good to see Open-source_firmware, but not so good to see 2 of 4 cites are Hackaday. Coreboot#Supported_platforms and Coreboot#Variants is where the spam link cites were most obvious. Seems we're not agreeing on the merge direction. -- Yae4 (talk) 16:29, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

>not so good to see 2 of 4 cites are Hackaday

Well it seems that the current state regarding the reliability is actually a no-consensus if I understand it correctly. I think a new post should be made to establish the consensus more thoroughly.

>Seems we're not agreeing on the merge direction.

Indeed. We could use WP:3O or an AfD, I think that the first one is the least bureaucratic. PhotographyEdits (talk) 08:19, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@Yae4 I have cleaned the article up a bit with the comments on this talk page in mind, I think the current 'characteristics' section would be well suited for merging into the coreboot article. I would like to hear your comments on that. PhotographyEdits (talk) 12:09, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@PhotographyEdits: There was no consensus to delete some things you deleted, particularly mention of Libreboot at. That said, IMO it's an OK brief Libreboot org summary paragraph, but the paragraph would fit better under Libreboot org in the Examples section of Open-source_firmware. Also, "Characteristics" as a section title seems odd for Wikipedia. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:06, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Lengthy accusations, opinions and personal attacks

Hi, I think the AfD proposal is spurious at best. Also read https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Open-source_firmware where user @Yae4 was adding links to the libreboot.at project with only primary sources, and when I removed it on these grounds, Yae4 re-added it, before I again re-deleted it for violating wikipedia citation guidelines. Yae4 has indeed posted links to libreboot.at on the libreboot article, and seems to be advocating for its removal (merge with coreboot). I could look for other examples to point to this from other people, but I strongly suspect bias against libreboot by some of the editors here, as opposed to any genuine concern for meeting wikipedia guidelines. This is simply a witchhunt against the libreboot project, for reasons I'm unsure of as of yet. I call into question the legitimacy of recent discussions surrounding the Libreboot article. The article should remain as it is, and be allowed to expand as more articles become available about it online. The project was more or less dead for years owing to a rewrite of the project that was later scrapped, so the current Libreboot project has been in development since a virtual reboot of the project about 2 years ago (and you can find articles about that online, it may be interesting to talk about in the article, indeed it's mentioned in earlier revisions of the article but they were removed due to having only primary sources). Furthermore, why is Alyssa Rosenzweig mentioned on the Libreboot article? She clearly has nothing to do with the Libreboot project, having only had brief connections with the project about 7 years ago, and there are no secondary sources anywhere to confirm her involvement regardless. The same goes for GNU and FSF links on the article, why are they there? The Libreboot article should be about Libreboot. On this same basis, libreboot.at should not be mentioned at all. It simply carries the same name, but it is a completely unrelated project. When you look at the libreboot.at website, they don't even have releases and their downloads section doesn't work. There is nothing of any consequence about libreboot.at anywhere online, so why mention it on wikipedia? libreboot.at clearly does not meet notoriety guidelines of wikipedia! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.218.255 (talk) 03:55, 1 June 2023 (UTC) — 92.40.218.255 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. To follow-up: I believe a substantial portion of editors on this article have a clear conflict of interest, going both ways. Indeed, some of the editors here seem to be biased in favor of Libreboot, while others are so in favor of FSF/GNU and libreboot.at. Reading between the lines, this seems to be the basis for recent editor wars on the Libreboot article and other spin-off articles elsewhere, such as the one I mentioned above. Conflict of Interests are clearly regulated against by Wikipedia guidelines. The edits to this article are tainted because of it. I think there needs to be serious, honest talk about it, especially after the one sided discussions on the AfD for example: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Libreboot For example, several of the edits were performed by @Ian_Kelling who has a known connection to the FSF as systems administrator: https://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board The libreboot.at domain is owned by GNU Hostmaster, as per domain name Whois data, and the GNU project is administrated by the FSF. The FSF has a connection to libreboot.at. Primary sources have been permitted for libreboot.at, and its inclusions rarely challenged, while the article for libreboot proper is being targeted for deletion. I believe these changes are hostile. FWIW I think Leah's nuts (Leah Rowe is the leader of Libreboot), an absolute piece of work, but fair's fair. Alas, I don't know what can be done to rectify it, because going back, there seem to be about 2 years worth of such hostile / biased edits to Libreboot, as of this day. 92.40.218.255 (talk) 04:08, 1 June 2023 (UTC) — 92.40.218.255 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I've not reviewed all the recent disputes, but the recent edits by Yae4 are prima facie an improvement in terms of sourcing. Given there are some ongoing developments, it makes sense to have sections focused on the past tense, as we don't necessarily have good sources for the events of the past few months. When more and better sources appear, we'll hopefully be able to describe Libreboot's connection to GNU/FSF, mention any relevant forks etc. We don't need to decide that now.

It commonly happens that an article about a software product also deals with related efforts like any forks and participating companies (see for example Nextcloud which is also about Nextcloud GmbH and mentions ownCloud, or Mastodon which also deals with forks and Mastodon gGbmH). Branding everything as "advertisement" serves little purpose.

I'd also recommend to avoid personal comments on the individuals involved. Speaking of which, I happen to be an FSF supporter and I've met Leah at FOSDEM once, but I don't think this makes me a "connected contributor". I've received some messages about the article on account of my previous edit where I removed an unsourced sentence. Nemo 16:58, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: Thanks for the comment. Sure, WP:NOTNEWS, but this article was being maintained with very misleading content, as though there was only one supplier of hardware with Libreboot, and one unified effort, led by one person. It is looking like that may have never been true. It was certainly not true in 2015, based on more independent citations, and it is certainly not true today based on the LibrePlanet 2023 conference presentation. We should not pretend otherwise, and allow this article to mislead readers about basic facts. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I have a COI, having been involved with the project briefly in 2017, so I originally wasn't going to say anything. But I think that's all the more reason for me to say something here and agree that the root problem here really is WP:COI. There's a collection of IP socks arguing for libreboot.org (really gluglug/minifree), there's an FSF editor or two arguing for libreboot.at, and since someone linked my BLP from the See also I'm on the sidelines watching the whole thing with mild interest.

Personally, I think 'libreboot' re-including blobs is a big deal since the entire point of libreboot was that it was coreboot sans blobs, and if that's been changed quietly I don't know why anybody would use/contribute to it instead of making coreboot easier to install. That this develpment hasn't been covered by a RS (only the libreboot.org primary and the libreplanet COI secondary) reflects on the marginal notability of the project itself. And the notability question would be easier to deal with without the COI/POV edits.

I don't know what should happens with the article. I'm generally an inclusionist, but the edit warring and namecalling and someone pinged me on my talk page?! are testing my patience.

Just my $2 (sorry, inflation). Do as you will. -Arzg (talk) 14:20, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Libreboot.AT, again

IMO, for saying something about GNU/FSF taking back "Libreboot" at Libreboot.AT, and why, the Carikli presentation is a WP:SECONDARY source, and reliable. Carikli presents (briefly) the results of technical analysis of what was happening at Libreboot.ORG, and the conclusions, and actions based on the conclusions. Therefore, including a summary of the what and why meet policy. I do not feel Libreboot.ORG can be considered a reliable source, partly because it is self-published; however, I feel this statement supports Carikli as someone (expert) to do such analysis. It says there, Carikli:

• gave a lot of advice and helped found the libreboot project.
• was a mentor
• taught about registers...

Lastly, Carikli is a developer of Replicant, and probably a lot more I am not aware of. -- Yae4 (talk) 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The libreboot.at page is a reliable primary source for what FSF/GNU thinks is the GNU Libreboot project. It states «Denis ‘GNUtoo’ Carikli and Adrien ‘neox’ Bourmault are the interim maintainers», which is one way of saying the project doesn't yet have a stable maintainer and is still being (re)formed.

As for the rest, there's a dispute acknowledged by both sides on where to draw the line for "libre" firmware. Nemo 05:48, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm opposed to referencing libreboot.at on the article, but if it's insisted that we do reference it, should we not also include reference to libreboot.ORG's "binary blobs reductions policy"? i refer to this article: https://libreboot.org/news/policy.html and also https://libreboot.org/freedom-status.html

It seems only fair to reference both sides of the dispute. 86.30.133.163 (86.30.133.163) 20:06, 7 June 2023 (UTC) — 86.30.133.163 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

The article mentioned libreboot.at, but has not yet "referenced" it or used it as a source. The source is a presentation at LibrePlanet 2023, and it has not yet been summarized to include why or reasoning. I'm undecided on whether to use libreboot.AT itself as a source. IMO libreboot.ORG is unreliable, self-published, and a questionable source even for about-self statements. I could be wrong. If there is a dispute to be included in the article, it needs "reliable" sourcing.

86.x, Please, if you're going to continue editing Wikipedia, spend a little time learning a few things about how to do it according to Wikipedia rules and practices, such as they are. -- Yae4 (talk) 11:01, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I believe there is a cabal of FSF-aligned editors editing the Libreboot article. Based on libreboot.at's affiliation with the FSF, this can only mean that such editors have conflict of interest. I believe there is persistent vandalism against article, by Yae4 and others. Today, 9 June 2023, another user "Taking Out The Trash" appeared to remove edits, and is from Massachussets according to the user's page - FSF is from MA.

I suspect foul play. These people usually immediately block people from editing just because they make edits they don't like.

A serious review of the editors on this article is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.219.187 (talk) 19:34, 9 June 2023 (UTC) — 92.40.219.187 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

FYI, Yae4 has never knowingly been a member of any cabal, and I am pained by seeing people get blocked. Sadly, Wikipedia shows it is sometimes the least bad option. I came to this article in October 2019 to remove a Liliputing cite, but it wasn't until I saw Carikli's presentation, and saw what a crock the article had become after Crocfarts (another WP:SPA) and PhotographyEdits editing in May 2023, I took an interest in trying to find better sources and improve the article. Suggestion: See WP:CYCLE -- Yae4 (talk) 21:03, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Name of the project

The first sentence starts with:

> Libreboot (previously marketed as Gluglug, GNU Libreboot, and Libiquity Taurinus)

Are Gluglug and Libiquity Taurinus really some of the project names and not a products and company that used Libreboot? I believe only GNU Libreboot really is a former name. Tagging @Yae4. PhotographyEdits (talk) 14:43, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

• NameS of the projectS: Caution: How one frames the questions can bias the answers, as done above.

WP:LEAD: "The lead should identify the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight."

As said above, "IMO an issue here is: What is "Libreboot" really? ... should this article be about efforts to have Libre booting?" I agree the lead needs updates. I feel "Libreboot" is a broader topic now, as the body now says, based on what sources say. Sources say there have been a few companies using a few names making contributions to "Libreboot" (and coreboot). Sources say GNU and FSF got it started with RYF, have been involved throughout, and have now started another effort, by the same name. So, I think "Libreboot (previously marketed as Gluglug, GNU Libreboot, and Libiquity Taurinus)" correctly reflects the body of the article, but am not sure if "previously marketed as" meets Wiki-Standards. IMO "is a free software project" should be changed to something like "has been free a series of free software projects" or something to better fit what the body says about the history and companies involved. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:12, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Adding: The infobox and external links are out of date, IMO, but I'm not ready yet to propose changes. It should be consistent with existence of two efforts with two repos, with two websites. When I refer to article body above, I am excluding the infobox and external links. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:22, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion. Usual COI disclaimer but trying to remain neutral, I have no horse in the race anymore.

Gluglug is the previous name of Minifree, a company selling devices with Libreboot pre-installed.

Libiquity is another company selling deivces with Libreboot pre-installed. Taurinus X200 being an X200 ThinkPad with Libreboot installed. Minifree/Gluglug sold the same.

None of these are projects. Just companies/products associated with the Libreboot projects.

IMO, none of these should be in the lead.

---

Libreboot is Leah Rowe's distribution of coreboot. Originally intended as coreboot but free of blobs and packaged for easy installation. At one point in its life it was under the GNU umbrella and known as GNU Libreboot. After parting ways it reverted to being simply Libreboot.

In response to Libreboot changing its policy on blobs, those on the GNU/FSF side forked Libreboot but kept the name as Libreboot.

For an article titled Libreboot, the question is one of "true successors". We definitely cover Libreboot in its GNU and post-GNU era. The question is, what does Libreboot refer to today? Is it libreboot.org (Leah Rowe's project, as BDFL)? Is it libreboot.at (FSF/GNU's project, as the spiritual successor following the core principles of the original Libreboot that libreboot.org now rejects)? Is it both?

The core issue is whether the project's identity is tied to its values or to its BDFL. Given we're dealing with open source projects with no meaningful governance and no trademark, there's no easy objective resolution.

The usual solution is to follow the WP:RS but I don't think any reliable sources have covered Libreboot in the post-Nov 2021 era. It isn't up to Wikipedia to decide whether Rowe's project or Carikli's project is the "true" Libreboot anymore. It is genuinely unclear to me which project users / secondary sources / the world will back in the end. For now Libreboot.org is receiving active development while Libreboot.at risks becoming vapourware. Although Libreboot.org's 180 about its blob policy is probably worth discussion independent of what happens with Libreboot.at. I am unsure what that means for the article.

But for the lead, there are only two relevant names for the project(s): Libreboot and GNU Libreboot. So far the latter name isn't used by libreboot.at. Which means, regardless of the above problems, the lead should be "Libreboot (formerly GNU Libreboot)". Arzg (talk) 20:15, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not responding to most of what was posted, because no sources were given. If you haven't recently, I'd suggest skimming Wikipedia:But_it's_true! and WP:TRUTH.

Can you list some reliable sources that use the term "GNU Libreboot", or say Libreboot was formerly known as GNU Libreboot? -- Yae4 (talk) 21:35, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not saying any of this belongs in the article, so I don't think WP:TRUTH is relevant here -- I'm just trying to give the context to help you and PhotographyEdits figure out the right approach for the article. I doubt there are WP:RS's discussing this because the project itself is only marginally notable. However, the fact of the "GNU Libreboot" name once being used is agreed by both parties of the dispute, namely

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2017-01/msg00001.html from Richard Stallman who heads the FSF/GNU.

https://lists.defectivebydesign.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00036.html from Leah Rowe on the Libreboot.org side Arzg (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

As for a few other claims. All primary sources because a big chunk of this is true but not justified to include in the encyclopaedia. As I said I don't have a horse in the race and don't have strong feelings what should end up getting put in the article (ranging from "delete" to "include absolutely everything and more"). But the current lead is misleading at best and (assuming good faith about the edits) I wanted to clear up any misconceptions there might be here about the relevant figures.

Minifree: Leah claims in linked email signature, Minifree claims to be Leah in https://minifree.org/faq/

Gluglug: "Leah Rowe of Gluglug" https://www.fsf.org/news/gluglug-x60-laptop-now-certified-to-respect-your-freedom , don't have a citation for the Gluglug->Minifree change itself but I digress

Libiquity Taurinus X200: right from their own product page https://shop.libiquity.com/product/taurinus-x200 "Right down to the fast and secure Libreboot firmware, the Taurinus X200 subnotebook runs entirely on software that anyone is free to study, modify, and redistribute" ... the firmware itself is clearly called "Libreboot", the product is "Taurinus X200", the product vendor is Libiquity

Condition of libreboot.at: the listed source repos all 404 https://libreboot.at/git.html (the notabug links are libreboot.org repos that weren't forked) as does the only release mirror that's for libreboot.at and not libreboot.org on https://libreboot.at/download.html -- this one in particular is absolutely WP:OR and is not destined to be put in the article, I bring it up only to underscore the uncertainties around the fork

libreboot.org that is seeing active development in a public source repository: https://codeberg.org/libreboot/lbmk/commits/branch/master Arzg (talk) 22:25, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the page from my watchlist since I've already said too much. You have the facts. Edit well. -Arzg (talk) 22:42, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm well aware of numerous products with Respects Your Freedom certification, and many including coreboot or Libreboot.[20] Some of these, such as tehnoetic.com aka Technoethical laptops[21] have not been mentioned in this article, because of weaker sourcing. With all due respect to those who wish to say "Libreboot" is only all about Rowe and Minifree, and their other company or marketing names, the Wikipedia-better or more independent "reliable" sources don't say that. -- Yae4 (talk) 06:50, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Following up: A good source was found and summary added to the article.[22] -- Yae4 (talk) 17:01, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Condition of hardware

Yesterday I removed three referenced sentences from the article, describing how a review of a refurbished computer with hardware certification from the Free Software Foundation had been in poor condition. I removed them, as this article is about what its opening sentence calls a "software project", and I considered the fact that the software was once installed on some damaged hardware as irrelevant. My edit summary read "remove content that's not relevant to the subject".

Yae4 has restored the sentences with the edit summary "Undo cited info' removal. Please explain how condition of reviewed refurbished hardware, as described by source, is 'not relevant to the subject'". Ok, I'll try. The article is about a software product (or software philosophy, or a set of software products – I don't think that matters for this issue). The condition of some hardware that it was once installed on has no relevance. The fact that that hardware was certified by the FSF may be relevant to an article on the FSF, but not to an article on a software product. Maproom (talk) 15:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@Maproom: Thanks for explaining. IMO, you were misled by the lead. As discussed above but not settled, the lead needs updating, and is currently misleading, IMO and in others' opinions; however, we haven't agreed how to fix it. Most of the more reliable sources are reviews of refurbished laptops sold by entities who installed the firmware on old, used hardware, and may have refurbished the hardware, before selling it. Therefore, the condition of the hardware was relevant and important to the reviewer/source, and is relevant and important to this article. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't the opening sentence specify what the article's about? Whatever, I'll be keeping out of this. Maproom (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@Maproom: It should, yes. WP:LEAD says "The lead should identify the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight." Oddly, editors don't agree what the article is about. It's somewhat evident why if you review the article history[23] or web search for sources. I will add a disputed tag to the lead as a caution to readers. -- Yae4 (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion of FossForce.com as a source

​is here -- Yae4 (talk) 18:17, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

ItsFoss, TuxMachines, and FSF and GNU as sources

PhotographyEdits, I'm trying to understand your persistent removal of info from this article, and recent objections to sources. Can you explain why you now object to the statements and sources you have recently removed (and I will be restoring)? A ranking of those sources in order by WP:RSness, as you see it, could be helpful for prioritizing discussion. FYI, here is what I've observed from looking at this article's history. It appears you wish to maintain this article as a stub, billboard.

In September 2021[24] after your edits the article was left with sources from libreboot-ORG, notabug, coreboot, GNU, lists.gnu.org, Hackaday (2), and some better cites, but the article was a stub, billboard. In March 2023[25] about the same, but a linux-magazin.de cite (with passing mention) was removed. On 2 May 2023,[26] about the same, on 3 May 2023[27] Hackaday cites increased to 3, a TechCrunch was added, and a section with "Supported hardware". On 19 May 2023[28] about the same. The persistent appearance is a stub, billboard, and no progress towards WP:GA.

So, my questions are: (1) Why do you think FossForce (now better discussed at WP:RSN), ItsFoss, and TuxMachines are not WP:RS? (2) Do you think news or official announcements (not personal mailing list posts) at FSF and GNU are WP:RS for this article, and why? -- Yae4 (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Official Links

WP:ELOFFICIAL criteria are:

1. The linked content is controlled by the subject (organization or individual person) of the Wikipedia article.
2. The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable.

Based on the more WP:RS cites/sources that allow this article to survive AfD, it is clear to me that libreboot.AT is now the official website for Libreboot, and the Libreboot-ORG infobox should be removed. Discussion? -- Yae4 (talk) 14:56, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

No, this is ridiculous. Virtually all sources in this article are about Libreboot.org and not Libreboot.at. PhotographyEdits (talk) 12:48, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, in general they talk about Libreboot as part of Respects Your Freedom, and Free Software Foundation. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:30, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

but they link to libreboot.org

ergo, libreboot.org is the official website of the project. the fact that the policy has since changed (as of november 2022) does not affect the validity of those cites, in preference of libreboot.org

in fact, the website is in a git repository:

https://codeberg.org/libreboot/lbwww

you can find the old versions of libreboot, prior to policy change, in that repository, and the software repository:

https://codeberg.org/libreboot/lbmk

so there's that too. it's not like the pre-policy-change libreboot no longer exists. git-scm keeps records of it all.

i ask that you restore libreboot.org to prominence, in the article, while also mentioning libreboot.at (such a request has also been made by me, elsewhere in this talk page). specifically: have an infobox only for libreboot.org (restore the one that you deleted), remove the libreboot.at infobox, but:

• retain the mention of libreboot.at in the history text
• perhaps expand that into a dedicated section? example: "libreboot.org vs libreboot.at controversy"
• perhaps when liberboot.at does releases and/or somehow gains widespread notability (outside of cites to FSF), then have an infobox mentioning both projects, and again have the "libreboot.org vs libreboot.at" section.

i won't lie, i'm not a fan of libreboot.at, but this is *wikipedia*. i'm attempting to be neutral here. can you extend upon me the same courtesy? Libreleah (talk) 20:36, 15 June 2023 (UTC)