MALIBAL, a company that specializes in producing laptops, recently made headlines when it criticized the Coreboot community and urged others to stop using the project. They also announced that they would no longer use AMD processors due to concerns over the Coreboot leader’s employment at AMD. As a result, Malibal ceased deliveries to Germany, Poland, and Texas, where entities associated with Coreboot were located. Additionally, Malibal threatened to ban anyone who supported the Coreboot project in any way. The company also expressed frustration over the high cost of consulting services related to Coreboot and claimed that no progress had been made on adapting Coreboot for Malibal laptops.
The leader of the Coreboot community responded with surprise to Malibal’s accusations, stating that no contracts had been signed and no money had exchanged hands between the two parties. He explained that the interaction had been limited to analyzing Malibal’s existing work, which ultimately led to other companies refusing to collaborate with Malibal.
Christian Walter, a representative from 9ELEMENS, issued an apology for any misunderstandings that may have arisen during discussions with Malibal. He clarified technical details and emphasized that the firmware provided by Malibal was faulty and required additional work to function properly.
Despite Malibal’s claims that they had provided a functional solution, it was discovered that the firmware they sent did not work on the laptops provided. 9ELEMENS employees had to troubleshoot and install the firmware themselves, as the code provided by Malibal was incomplete. Furthermore, the firmware failed to load properly, indicating that it had never been tested on the devices.
After further testing, it was confirmed that the firmware was defective and could not be properly debugged. 9ELEMENS did not charge Malibal for their efforts, as they considered it a free evaluation of the firmware. Christian Walter has preserved all communication records and is prepared to provide them as evidence to refute Malibal’s allegations.
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