From: Peter Robinson <pbrobinson@gmail.com>
To: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>, u-boot@lists.u-boot-project.org
Cc: uboot@sfconservancy.org
Subject: Removing Simon Glass from the U-Boot community
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2026 16:57:49 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CALeDE9Pu2rzu_zaWr=XAux88nV-LJ9_AYfLB8D6EECgm-BbeCg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
Hello Community,
Effective immediately Simon Glass is no longer a member of the U-Boot community.
The PLC has thought long and hard over this decision, and has spent a
considerable amount of time over the last year behind the scenes
trying to engage with him in good faith to address his behaviour, and
as a result we have not come to this decision lightly. We are well
aware of the considerable amount of contributions he has made to the
project but unfortunately the overall health of the community at
large, their contributions and welfare needs to be prioritised over
that of an individual contributor. A project is made of many people,
not just one.
Over a number of years, in levels of increasing escalation, Simon has
engaged in unacceptable behaviour to many members of the community.
This has resulted in numerous complaints by the community, members of
the community refusing to engage with him unless absolutely necessary,
and a number of contributors leaving the community. I have personally
run out of fingers to count the members of the community that have
made complaints to me about his behaviour. In the past when these
issues have been brought up to him he has chosen to "Take some time
out" where he has disappeared from the community causing issues with
the sub systems he maintains and when he has returned his behaviour
has not improved and he continues from where he left off as if the
rest of the community might well have forgotten. We do not feel it
appropriate to go into further details but it's visible to see in the
community's public forums.
With the unfortunate passing of Wolfgang Denk it became clear the
project needed a new stable home. While the community was discussing
the options for what the organisation should look like [1] for the
U-Boot project moving forward Simon decided, without any engagement or
agreement with anyone within the rest of the community, that he would
engage in hostile activities such as registering his own U-Boot
charity [2][3], filing competing US Trademark applications[4] the day
after it was public[5] that SFC had applied for a trademark, and then
later withdrawing it. There as far as we could tell were actions to
ensure he had the ownership of the project to be under his sole
control. The PLC only discovered his actions when the SFC alerted us
of the details while they were doing their due diligence on the
project.
In related behavioural issues he has repeatedly refused to hand over
the u-boot.org domain to the SFC, the organisation the community chose
[7] to hold the community assets for the benefit of all. During the
discussion the PLC and SFC was having with him to donate the
u-boot.org domain to the community's chosen organisation he repeatedly
tried to link the donation to what we regarded as untenable
requirements for the PLC and the community at large, such as
recognition of his personal fork as an endorsed U-Boot
variant[7][8][9][10] as well as enacting numerous delay tactics and
setting deadlines that he didn't hold up. I had asked him to get
community buy in for anything code related he wished to try to achieve
rather than link it to other unrelated process. We don't believe that
holding a community asset hostage to get things your own way shows
behaviour we wish to encourage in a community, nor do we feel
promotion a fork of the project is the correct approach for the
community as a whole and would we then have to promote other forks?
As a result the PLC came to the conclusion, in consultation with the
SFC, was that the only option available for the health of the project
was the action we have announced above. The decision to name him
explicitly has not been taken lightly, but we felt in the interest of
transparency as a very public contributor over a number of years, we
have little choice.
On behalf of the PLC
Tom Rini, Peter Robinson and Neil Armstrong
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/20250225164121.GP1233568@bill-the-cat/
[2]: https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/dl/FinalLetter_33-4591093_U-BOOTORG_04152025_00.pdf
[3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250922201801/https://u-boot.org/about/
[4]: https://trademarks.justia.com/995/73/u-boot-universal-boot-99573698.html
[5]: https://lists.u-boot-project.org/pipermail/u-boot-custodians/2025-December/001573.html
[6]: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2025/dec/29/u-boot-has-joined-sfc/
[7]: https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/CAFLszTj620LX379mqtMN6Bu6W29fFt5okjab8Cqk79yy4aJgTQ@mail.gmail.com/
[8]: https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/20250227201523.GJ2640854@bill-the-cat/
[9]: https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/20250217191826.GU1233568@bill-the-cat/
[10]: https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/20250425001642.GR5495@bill-the-cat/
reply other threads:[~2026-11-03 16:58 UTC|newest]
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