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kaspaar wrote

Ooooh Leah, happy to see you, really :)

Actually I've got a lot of questions, pretty sure most of them you won't be comfortable to answer, so I won't ask...

I'll reluctantly limit myself to the following: Are you still working on the X220 or is it out of reach?

Not quite sure if this is the right place to ask this, but while you're here: I for myself am working on an exhibition about gender identity, would you be okay with a painting of you to be shown there? In case you're fine with it, wanna choose the photo I work with yourself? Maybe some text in addition to that?

I'd be really glad to have you in. Actually the for me more than disturbing public response (outspoken, I still don't want this to be true) about the actions you took -even if you don't like that to be discussed anymore, are kind of "guilty" for that exhibition to happen.

You've got a lot of time to think about that, it will take me about a year to get everything done :) If you're interested, can I email, pm or jabber you about details?

Regardless of your decision about that one, I really want to take the chance to thank you for founding libreboot, which is one of my favourite free software projects and your work on it, some other things and honestly hope that you'll be happy in your personal life after all. Or one day. Or so. But happy.

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libreleah OP wrote

I haven't had time so I've put sandybridge work on hold. I make no promises.

Sure, you can use a picture of me if you'd like. My photo is on minifree.org and there are some on vimuser.org too, my personal site. Feel free to use whichever one you like.

The incidents which you refer to are now buried. I made peace with the community, after another person (Alyssa) in the libreboot project convinced me that it was the correct thing to do. In the end, it didn't even matter whether my accusations were correct; the chaos just needed to end. One must always choose their battles wisely, and that battle was not worth it under the circumstances of the time.

What sort of project are you interested in? Your statements are somewhat vague. What sort of thing do you want to do, which you want my help with? You can email me the details. For non-trivial matters, email is best: my contact details are on minifree.org

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kaspaar wrote (edited )

Thank you for your positive reply,

I didn't mean to criticise you by any means and I had no intentions to discuss the "incidents", blame my poor English if I came around like this. I followed closely and already got you here -I think. I just mentioned it because this whole ordeal brought up a lot of emotion in me and as a result I felt the need to make gender identity a subject at all and I wanted you to know as to why I'd be glad when you're okay with me making a painting of you in particular as well. I'm aware that I can use a photo of you without your consent, I just prefer to ask, it's a matter of respect...

I'll email you.

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kaspaar wrote (edited )

Follow up question about porting the X220: In case your time issue is related to money rather than a matter of priorities in life and you still enjoy the work on it, ever thought of making some kind of kickstarter?

Related to that, as someone whose abilities are clearly more analogue to put it very, very milldly, why is it that one can't donate to libreboot directly to give those without any technical talent whatsoever an easy way to give something back nonetheless? Bureaucratic hurdles? Philosophy? Organisational issues?

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libreleah OP wrote (edited )

Not money related. I don't need money to work on X220, just time.

If time were legal tender, I'd be running a budget deficit.

We currently cannot accept donations, for we do not have the legal infrastructure in place to do so. The other issue is that we need a neutral third party, one that will oversee our spending. That is either:

  • FSF handling donations to Libreboot (with GNU membership - they have not yet responded to our application to re-join). This would also mean operating under GNU auspices, answering to Richard Stallman.

  • SFC (software freedom conservancy) membership. This is a separate organization to the FSF, but with the same goals, and one of its founding members is Bradley Kuhn, former FSF leader. They provide financial support to projects, and they help with fundraising. They act as a neutral third party, handling funds for projects. They have several member projects. SFC membership is not just the same as GNU membership; projects get more autonomy, and it's generally a much looser affiliation

I have no problem with money in the project. I use some of the money from Minifree sales to help fund the project..

EDIT: To clarify: I'm uneasy about Libreboot itself, as an independent project, having infrastructure of its own for donations. The probability of corruption and misuse of funds increases, under such a scenario. Further, I believe it would take valuable energy out of the project, on the part of the developers. Organizations like FSF/SFC can handle it much more efficiently than we could.

This is not to say that we in the Libreboot project are "bad". Just human. SFC/FSF are operated by humans too, but they're less biased, and more likely to be impartial and do what's best for the project. If Libreboot itself set up its own independent infrastructure, then there is less of an obstacle to corruption.

I'm not arrogant enough to say that I'm perfect, or naive enough to say that anyone else is. All people on this planet are imperfect, and capable of corruption. Corruption/bias is a big problem when handling public donations. The concept of "oversight" was invented, to mitigate this, but that is also not perfect.

EDIT2: and we've discussed this extensively in #libreboot IRC before, amongst ourselves. The above insight is based on those discussions.

EDIT3: There are other organizations too, but FSF/SFC are the ones that I'd trust. I'm on good speaking terms with Bradley at SFC (or at least, we're both friendly to each other when we talk), and I'm currently on neutral terms with the FSF. Both organizations have libreboot's goals (100% free software) in mind, at heart and in principle and in practise.

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ghkjl wrote

Aye, out of curiosity how were y'all looking into free'ing Sandy Bridge.
I thought it was nearly impossible......

I think it would be very interesting if y'all made a blog post about what you do. Most people don't understand how the heck y'all figured out how to remove ME and whatnot.

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