User:Libreleah
About me
[edit]Firstly, I must tell you that I am *not* a rowebot. I'm a sentient human being, and my name is Leah Rowe. I write free and open source software for fun, and occasionally produce things that normal people want to use.
I'm a hugely passionate nerd who likes coreboot and openbsd.
I may or may not audit random codebases, and pledge() them, as I'm often wont to do.
I'm also trans (non-binary), preferred pronouns they/them. Thank you.
Declaration of conflict of interest for: Libreboot
[edit]I have a COI for the Libreboot article, thus I won't edit that, since I'm the founder of libreboot.org, Leah Rowe, and current lead developer of that project. For proof that I am in fact the real Leah Rowe, please look at this mastodon post: https://mas.to/@libreleah/110549963175518954 and now look at that mastodon account referenced here: https://libreboot.org/contact.html
NOTE: I also provide Libreboot pre-installed laptops here: https://minifree.org/
This means that I technically have a *financial* conflict of interest. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Paid_editing
In practise, I do try to be neutral even on libreboot.org which is an free/opensource project, and I don't really try to stop anyone from making their own business out of it if they want to. On libreboot.org itself, I make instructions very clear about how Libreboot works, how to install it, and I generally work with the community to provide excellent documentation. The very nature of my business model is precisely that I'm the *opposite* of a proprietary software company who tries to restrict everything, instead I try to free/unrestrict everything, and that's why people buy.
I've even helped my commercial competitors on numerous occasions, helping them fix bugs, and they've helped me by doing the same. Libreboot is a free software project. The goal is freedom, first. So I wear two hats: Minifree Hat, and Libreboot Hat. I try to separate the two, as best I can, since Libreboot is a public project that I just coincidentally profit from.
In other words, if I were to be anti-competitive (as implied by the negative connotation of "financial conflict of interest"), it would in fact hurt the very business model that makes my business so successful. *Libreboot* is what people care about. That's what you see in the media, sometimes. Not to mention, it would be unethical. I want people to be able to compete with me. There are already lots of people out there who want Libreboot, and I bet only a tiny minority of users actually bought a machine from me directly.
People who buy from me are just people who can't be bothered to install it themselves. I do those people proud by providing products as best I can, in the best quality I can. That's it really. Of course, this nuance is irrelevant in the context of Wikipedia, where it is required that any such conflicts of interest, paid or not, must be declared.
I also mentioned this in the talk page of that article, for people's reference, but I thought it best to also mention it here just to say I've complied with Wikipedia regulations in declaring that, yes, I am biased in favour of my own work. Thank you!
tl;dr Leah sells libreboot, and libreboot accessories.
Other conflicts of interest that I possess:
[edit]In case articles about these topics ever appear in the future, I pre-emptively declare such conflict of interest for the following additional projects that I own:
- Untitled Static Site Generator: https://untitled.vimuser.org/
- Federation of Freedom / fedfree: https://fedfree.org/