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== About LEDE

The LEDE project was founded in April 2016 as an OpenWrt based spinoff with a
strong focus on transparency, user collaboration and decentralized structures.

=== Goals

LEDE's stated goals are:

. Transparent decision processes with broad community participation and public
  meetings
. Only rely on decentralized infrastructure provided by free services and
  volunteers while avoiding single points of failure to ensure maximum
  avilability of the software
. Avoidance of developer hierarchies, "core members" and the like

=== Name

The name _LEDE_ is an abbreviation for Linux Embedded Development Environment,
a reference to its flexibility and embedded buildroot origins, making it a
solid choice for embedded Linux applications far beyound the wireless router
and network appliance realm.

The word _LEDE_ is also an alternation of the phrase _to lead_, describing
an introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader
to read the full story.

=== Origin

For a long time the OpenWrt parent project experienced infrastructure issues
and declining developer participation on the base system while the community
driven package ecosystem around it continued to thrive.

When the number of frequently active committers reached a new low in the
beginning of 2016, the three OpenWrt developers John Crispin, Felix Fietkau
and Jo-Philipp Wich decided to start a new spin-off project in an attempt to
radically change the development processes and reboot the project in better,
community-driven manner.

=== Endorsement

The *Wrt community is made up of many great communities all tinkering on their
own mission in improving something on this planet. the Following communities have
kindly decided to endorse our project. Thanks !

. none so far :-)