[coreboot] ASUS KCMA-D8 workstation board port offer

[Merlin Büge]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:38:34 -0600
Timothy Pearson <tpearson at raptorengineering.com> wrote:

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> On 01/19/2017 07:15 PM, Merlin Büge wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 11:58:03 -0600
> > Timothy Pearson <tpearson at raptorengineering.com> wrote:
> > 
> > <snip>
> > 
> >> Sorry to revive an old thread, but as many of you are aware
> >> Minifree (Leah Rowe) contracted with us to port the KCMA-D8 and
> >> release it.  We performed this work and the KCMA-D8 continues to
> >> operate, however Minifree has decided not to pay their contract on
> >> this work.  We strongly recommend that no person do any business
> >> with Minifree or its founder Leah Rowe, as they do not honor their
> >> legally binding contracts.
> > 
> > 
> > I see that my mail does belong to this list as little as this ^
> > 
> > However, I just want to remind you folks that there's always two
> > sides to a story. I've seen a lot of badmouthing of Leah,
> > especially the last few hours in IRC etc... questionable, to say
> > the least.
> > 
> > So, before you make up your mind, also listen to the other side.
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> >  Merlin
> 
> Since you state that the criticism is questionable, can you please
> indicate where you disagree with said criticism?  As you say there are
> two sides to any story, and I have not presented a clear picture of
> our side for the sake of brevity and not wanting to drag the list
> along for the ride.

I feel quite uncomfortable discussing this here, not because it's
public, but because it's rather off-topic. Also I don't want to quote
freenode logs here.

I have no problem with (fair) criticism of how Leah is driving the
libreboot project, and that she still did not pay for the KCMA-D8 port
is clearly morally questionable.

But I have a problem with all that badmouthing of her I recently
encountered, on this somewhat miscarried article on Phoronix [0], on
#librecore, and #libreboot. I mean, I'm also annoyed of the GNU/FSF
drama and so on, but that's no reason to personally offend her (no
matter how subtle), or dragging libreboot through the mire.

Note that this is no direct response to your initial mail. I just
wanted to tell people, before they are reading stuff like the article
linked above:

> > So, before you make up your mind, also listen to the other side.


How comes that not everyone can just play nice with each other..?

That makes me sad.


 Merlin



[0]
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librecore-Formation






> 
> It comes down to a simple contract non-payment; no dissatisfaction
> with our work was registered until today when I was informed that the
> KCMA-D8 contract would not be paid.  These contracts were originally
> signed back in 2015 and the goal was to make all of these systems
> available for sale to the community; functional sources were given to
> Rowe early 2016 but sadly Minifree did not list them for sale until
> late 2016.  By that time the market had shifted further and,
> partially due to the ongoing controversy regarding Libreboot and the
> FSF, we observed a very public refusal to support Minifree further.
> Instead of honoring the debt incurred as part of this business
> opportunity, Rowe simply decided to walk away from it.
> 
> Rowe also does not have the knowledge or authority required to comment
> on our internal development processes regarding the KCMA-D8, including
> time taken, effort expended, and overall cost.  The KCMA-D8 is not a
> trivial port in the sense of, for instance, the T400 to T500
> conversion; a quick glance at the coreboot GIT repository, noting the
> logs referring to the C32 socket (the socket used on the KCMA-D8),
> will indicate that there was DDR3 initialization work required to get
> the KCMA-D8 operational and stabilized, in addition to handling the
> new layout and modified components of the mainboard itself.  Our
> quote was fully in line with industry standards for the type of work
> performed.
> 
> I don't want to go into further detail on this list; this is our side
> and really all you need to know.
> 
> - -- 
> Timothy Pearson
> Raptor Engineering
> +1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
> +1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
> https://www.raptorengineering.com
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-- 
Merlin Büge <toni at bluenox07.de>