134

Leah Rowe, the creator of Libreboot, stole my work. (lemm.ee)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by lemmylem@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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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 This port was originally made in Coreboot by Mate Kukri, so work mostly goes to them, but as for adding support for Libreboot, my name is completely left out.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.

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[-] queue 109 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

[+] lemmylem@lemm.ee 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

[deleted]

[-] IHeartBadCode@kbin.social 55 points 8 months ago

when I was really just frustrated

Buddy that all reads as harassing. The IRC logs are especially a bad look for you, because you said:

im looking to add this board to my resume

And now that entire chat log is tied to it.

I'm not sure why you thought hounding someone and harping about it for nearly eight hours on IRC was a good idea. But now you've come to the Fediverse to find some absolution or something.

You can be frustrated, that's fine, but when that frustration turns into that long of a hanging on the bell that's evident in that chat log and then two hours later you came here with this, that is past frustration.

Leah also indicated:

if i give in to you now, you will try to harass/abuse me again in the future.

And Leah has a point. You've shown no sign of taking a moment to collect yourself. I get you are upset. Sometimes the best way to handle upset is to just shut up for a day or two. And trust me, I struggle with doing that myself.

Like everything you've done in your frustration, I've been down that road. And I'm pretty sure in your head you are telling yourself, but the difference is that...... because that's exactly what I'd say to someone telling me this. That my situation is different somehow and that I must rectify this injustice immediately!

and if it was bullying, I apologize then.

What you need to do is two things. One, learn from this so that in the future you can do... Two, chill out. I think you'll find in more professional environments sorry is okay, but I have learned from my mistakes and will do better is more preferred.

This whole thing could have been max three messages on IRC. "Why wasn't I credited? What was wrong with my submission? How do I improve going forward?" The end.

I think the biggest thing here for me is that in open projects, leads are fielding multiple people and working on their stuff. Every message you send is "Hey stop what you are doing and pay attention to me!" So you really want to be respectful of their time by really trying to be succinct on whatever is bugging you.

And you are on the contrib page.

All round good guy, an honest and loyal fan.

And I think you're wondering how "testing" vs "developed" looks on your resume? But that chat log is now going to be front and center no matter what's said on the contrib page. It really doesn't matter if you got "developed" pasted on the contrib page.

All of this Mastodon interactions and IRC logs isn't a good look. It's not the end of the world. I think everyone has felt frustration like this before, like there's some magical set of words to say that'll fix everything. But you've got to let it go. You're just digging down with posts like this. And you don't have to let it go forever, just you've really added a lot of friction to have this go surface of the sun warm. You need to let it cool, come back refreshed, and maybe see if you can repair the relationship you have with the team.

But you've got to understand. Your post here paints one picture and your interactions with Leah on Mastodon and IRC are something else. And that difference between the is especially not good as it comes off as a lot of sour and bitterness on this "slight" that you perceived as such an injustice.

And hell's bells. If you sit on this for seventy-two hours and you still feel massively wronged, go fork you a project and call it FOSSITboot or whatever and show everyone your prowess. If you've got skills to pay the bills, then if you build it they will come.

Lots of love for you, but just take a moment from everything. I assure you, it'll do you wonders to decompress.

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[-] TwinTusks@bitforged.space 14 points 8 months ago

I know nothing of coding.

From pictures, I get that you submit a code, which didn't work. You were told that you have a week to fix the code, and in the meantime they closed your patch and a fix was used.

Issue here is that you claim the fix was still your code ... and they said its their own code.

How to prove that?

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[-] Borger 26 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

[-] RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social 14 points 8 months ago

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.

[-] Lojcs@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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 board

They 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

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[-] halm@leminal.space 26 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

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[-] Yuki@kutsuya.dev 23 points 8 months ago

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 :/

[-] queue 38 points 8 months ago

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

[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 8 months ago

It appears as if the original developer was told to wait for weeks

[-] halm@leminal.space 7 points 8 months ago

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. 🤷

[+] lemmylem@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

[deleted]

[-] halm@leminal.space 27 points 8 months ago

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.

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[-] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

[-] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 15 points 8 months ago

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.

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[-] blotz@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago

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.

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[-] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

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.

[-] sturlabragason@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

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.

[-] Alk@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

I'd be pissed too. Not really anything I can do but let me know if I can help.

[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 points 8 months ago

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.

[-] EnderMB@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

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.

[-] spez_@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

You are? I doubt you did this work

[-] bruhduh@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

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

this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024

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