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 This port was originally made in Coreboot by Mate Kukri, so work mostly goes to them, but as for adding support for Libreboot, my name is completely left out.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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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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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.
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.
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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.
Until someone makes you wait on purpose just so they can take all the credit for the project you were working on, bet you would feel the same way I do.
Buddy… leah took credit for their own work. Anyone could’ve contributed a better patch than you in that week. You don’t get first dibs on feature contributions and you certainly don’t get a free pass to harass Foss maintainers when they prioritise better functional code than you’re own. Take the L. Move on.
I want to clarify that the patch I submitted was a work in progress. On two separate occasions, I sought guidance regarding when to submit it and was instructed to wait for a week. The understanding was that Leah and I would continue working on it during the following week. Unfortunately, the patch got accidentally closed during that waiting period.
My communication was bad and I understand that I need to do better. The comment Leah made about being ‘too slow’ contradicts the circumstances, as I followed the guidance to wait for input during the specified timeframe.
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