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+% Open Letter to the Free Software Community
+%
+% 2 Apr 2017
+
+To the free software community:
+
+Over the past six months, the Libreboot project has been in a state of discord.
+After an issue with a transgender employee at the FSF escalated, Libreboot
+publicly left GNU with little consultation from the community. Relations with
+so many people were strained. Friendships broken, lines of code never written:
+the chaos needs to come to an end.
+
+A series of organisational issues with Libreboot enabled this fallout to occur.
+We have since corrected them:
+
+Previously, the libreboot repository and the website could only be modified by
+the project leader, Leah Rowe. This setup created a single point of failure,
+with little leeway for dissenting contributors. Since then, I have joined the
+project as the sysadmin. Along with another contributor, Sebastian "Swift Geek"
+Grzywna, direct access to the code and servers is shared. Though the project
+cannot yet be completely decentralised, this change is a win for transparency.
+
+Previously, most of libreboot.org, including public statements such as those
+regarding GNU, were issued by Leah herself. The rest of the team and the
+community were not consulted. As Damien Zammit, a former contributor noted, the
+word "we" on old Libreboot notices meant "Leah". But alas, there is no room for
+the "royal we" in democracy.
+
+Finally, on a personal note, Leah was at the time struggling with gender
+dysphoria and substance abuse. Since then, she has been managing these issues.
+She agrees that her behaviour was rash and is determined to find a unifying
+solution. 
+
+With all of this in mind, were the allegations against the Free Software
+Foundation true? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this point, it doesn't matter.
+Indeed, it is unlikely that Libreboot will ever rejoin GNU, but feuding in an
+already fragmented community helps nobody. The world of free software is
+shrinking and under attack. Though the FSF may make mistakes from time to time,
+so do we. We do not need another divide.
+
+Similarly, we would like to work closely with librecore, another project
+working to deblob coreboot, whose team includes Damien Zammit. Once librecore
+matures, libreboot plans to switch to librecore in lieu of our current
+deblobbed fork. That is, there will be less duplication of effort; instead of
+competing with librecore, libreboot will complement it.
+
+As a technical update, we are currently working on a Libreboot port to
+the X220. Leah and Swift are investigating ways to disable the ME on
+Sandybridge hardware, which potentially means more modern Intel hardware may be
+supported. Additionally, Paul Kocialkowski has been working on supporting
+several new Chromebooks with ARM chips; these ports will also be available in
+an upcoming release.
+
+No more "royal we". No more notorious surprises. No more late night
+"typofixes".
+
+Transparency and collaboration are the way forward.
+
+~Alyssa Rosenzweig
+
+### A message from Leah, to further complement Alyssa's submission:
+
+I acknowledge that what I did was wrong. Although I felt justified at the time,
+I ended up hurting a lot of people, most of whom were uninvolved with any of
+the relevant events. At the time of taking Libreboot out of GNU, I was going
+through intense personal difficulty in my life, and I was highly unstable.
+Presented with a similiar situation, I likely won't respond the way I did
+before. I've changed a lot, and I promise this type of thing won't happen
+again.
+
+What I'd like the most, is to simply focus on Libreboot as I've always done,
+and to forget about what happened in the past and move on.
+
+I sincerely hope that the FSF, GNU project and others who I have hurt, can do
+the same. My only goal at present is to continue improving Libreboot, and to do
+everything in my power to make libre hardware a reality for everyone, as is the
+goal of the Libreboot project.
+
+I will remain in my place as a developer in this project, but everything that I
+do from now on will be the result of open collaboration with others in the
+project. I very nearly single handedly destroyed this project, and caused a lot
+of damage to the entire community, damage which I now wish to repair. I love
+Libreboot, Free Software and the community, and my only wish is to see it
+thrive.
+
+I wish well any and all outreach organisations that do work with the FSF; e.g.
+Outreachy, who are working to do what they can to improve conditions for women,
+LGBT people and other minorities in the sphere of computing and engineering
+fields, related to Free Software.
+
+I hope that any damage I caused to the community is not permanent.
+
+I'm deeply sorry for the damage and upset that I caused. I will not repeat the
+same mistakes twice. To a very specific person, who cannot be named in the
+interest of their privacy, but for whom context will allow that person
+to know this is for them: I'm especially sorry for the damage that I did to
+you during those months, and I sincerely hope that you get what you are
+currently seeking. I fully support you in your endeavour, and if I could help
+you, I would. You still mean a great deal to me.
+
+I'm especially sorry to John Sullivan and Ruben Rodriguez of the FSF, both of
+whom I publicly slandered on the Libreboot website. They did not deserve any of
+that. I was being highly abusive towards you both.
+
+I would also like to express my sincerest apology to those GNU maintainers
+whose emails I published on the Libreboot website, when all of that chaos was
+underway.
+
+I'm sorry to all the other Libreboot maintainers at the time, some of whom felt
+like they had no choice but to quit the project because of my actions. Doubly
+so for Damien Zammit and Timothy Pearson, both of whom I let down in various
+ways afterwards aswell.
+
+I would like to sincerely apologize to Timothy Pearson of Raptor Engineering
+in particular, for the damage that I caused with Libreboot's exit from GNU,
+while you were running your TALOS workstation campaign. Although I do not know
+whether the campaign would have succeeded without all that chaos, my own
+actions certainly did not help.
+
+Finally, I would like to once again apologize to the community as a whole, for
+the damage that I caused. I hope that I can prove to you all that I do wish to
+make amends for the damage, and to improve, and to re-build bridges with the
+community, and to once again work with the community in bringing Libreboot and
+Free Software forward, into the future.
+
+~Leah Rowe