[ben0x539]

If the FSF thought that minimizing drama was a priority, they could have accepted that the maintainer wanted to take libreboot out of the GNU project without prolonging the whole thing. Like, basically this submission, but a couple of months earlier.

Also, more generally, I maintain that there's more nuance to the question of professional behavior than whether your communication includes common swear words.

[vog]

> could have accepted that the maintainer wanted to take libreboot out of the GNU project without prolonging the whole thing

If I read the FSF statements correctly, there were very good reasons for taking some time, which I found quite convincing.

For instance, they were looking for a new maintainer of this GNU project, especially since GNU projects belong to GNU/FSF, not to the individual maintainers. The maintainers are free to step down and let other maintainers continue a project.

Would it have been more professional if they had thrown away their management process for GNU projects in this single case?

[dsp1234]

GNU projects belong to GNU/FSF

The only documentation that I see[0] about this just says "The program remains a GNU package unless/until the GNU project decides to decommission it.", but that's not a legal document. Assigning the copyright to the FSF would be a good indicator, but is not actually required to be a GNU package. So unless they have some other document to sign, then this seems to be a mutual contract which can be terminated by either party at any time. I don't know if that document exists (if it does, you'd think they'd link it on that page so people could review it), but if it doesn't, then I don't see any reason why the original submitter can't revoke GNU package status, like any other business relationship.

[0] - https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.en.html