Hello,
as part of the ongoing transparency, we publish a document that was sent by the team to the board and MC in preparation of two joint meetings. These two meeting took place on December 14, 2022. Minutes of these meetings will be published separately.
The document was sent to the 2022 board and MC with the following explanatory text:
Dear board,
Dear MC,We look forward to our two joint calls tomorrow and we are glad to have this important meeting together.
We know that everyone believes in the initial ideas of the project and in TDF’s mission. All of us at TDF do our best with a lot of effort. However, like others, the team has serious concerns about the future of TDF and wants to contribute to fix the situation.
We prepared some notes and would appreciate if you could read them before the meeting. The idea is not to go through all points. The document should rather illustrate where we as a team are coming from and what our concerns are.
We would like to use the call to discuss actual solutions for the challenges that TDF, the LibreOffice project and the wider community currently face.
We are glad to have the discussion together with the Membership Committee and work together with all of you.
Thanks in advance for joining, and thanks a lot for taking the time for this.
The document follows below. It was accompanied with a section called “Some notes on a communication strategy”. Its publication we will also review soon.
Florian
Concerns and feedback from the team
Introduction
- The following document is agreed on by the full team. We share it with board and MC for our joint meetings on 14 December 2022.
- Our goal is to find a common path together with board and MC to solve the long-lasting issues at TDF, which, as we feel, threatens TDF, the LibreOffice project and our community in its existence.
- The first part contains things the team is concerned or worried about. The second part contains concrete proposals for solutions we can all work on together.
- Although there have been several specific interactions that went wrong, and some people are perceived to be closer to the problem than others, we intentionally avoid to name individuals. Our common goal is not to point fingers to what happened in the past, but to solve problems for a better future.
- The document has been created similar to Chatham House rules. Its content is supported by the team, but names of individuals who added a specific item are not mentioned.
Team’s feelings concerning their role
- We are extremely unhappy about the situation.
- We think that things absolutely cannot go on as they are and there must be a change NOW.
- There is a growing trend that many of us are massively stressed and overworked.
- Some of us are even affected in their health and things are getting worse. There are growing signs of burnout with several team members. People wake up at night with TDF things on their mind, and don’t get that out of their heads even during weekends and vacations.
- We are unhappy with the toxic environment and some of us also with some working parameters and contractual conditions.
- Some of us very seriously consider to just quit our job and leave TDF.
- Some of us don’t know for what we are still here.
- We are all shocked by the repeated public attacks against some members of the team. It is very disappointing that no board member was speaking out in public to defend and protect them. We expect much better from our employer, who should support us in such situations, especially when we cannot defend ourselves.
- There were even public attacks against individual team members which can very negatively affect their career. It is very disappointing that these attacks seem to be tolerated by the board. We expect much better from our employer.
- After the experience with TDC, some of us continue to be scared and have fear to speak out freely even internally.
- We are irritated that it seems no problem for board members to “wear two hats”, but the team is silenced because it is paid. We feel like second-class citizens in the community, or even not as part of it anymore.
- For many of us, the situation leads to a lack of enthusiasm. We feel that any enthusiasm we try to bring is killed, which is deeply demotivating.
- We want an actual change to happen, not only “nice words”. We had that too often in the past, when nothing changed sustainably. We are happy to sign a joint statement, but only when there is an actual change. We do not want to give our names anymore for window dressing.
- We are disappointed by the board’s lack of action after the two last anonymous team surveys. We clearly expressed unhappiness about some things, but there was not even a follow-up by the board, let alone improvements. Some of us even don’t want to participate in these surveys anymore, because it does not seem to matter anyways.
Perception of TDF and LibreOffice as project and community
- We are very concerned about the state of the project and the community.
- It looks like several activities are stalled based on the fact that there are different point of views about the foundation’s scope and future, and the majority of people focus on their point of view instead of trying to find compromise in line with TDF’s mission and objectives.
- The impression is that TDF decides slowly and has a lot of overhead.
- Several of us feel they do not want to or cannot represent TDF anymore in public due to all the frictions and bad public perception. Some of us are worried to have their name associated with what is going on at TDF.
- We miss a long-term vision for TDF and are worried that the process for a next decade manifesto seems stalled for over two years.
- Several of us feel that having a solution for online and mobile directly at TDF is critical to our mission and not to become irrelevant. Desktop-only is nothing for the long run, we feel to run behind. The current situation is not consistent with the LibreOffice Technology strategy, where all software based on the LibreOffice engine is part of the same wider offering. Of course, the products should be managed not as competitive against each other but as components of a larger portfolio where each one has a specific role in the market.
- We struggle to have enough candidates for board and MC elections, which in itself is another redlight.
- We are concerned that legal problems waste a lot of time, energy, and motivation, and add workload.
- We are sad that many native language communities do not participate in the discussion. The impression is they feel too distant (i.e. they lack information) from the “center”.
Perceptions about the board
- We are extremely worried the board is split and polarized, which appears to be visible beyond community members now (cf. recent LWN article). This contributes to the worry that the project is on a path to implosion.
- We feel the board’s trust towards the team seems to be eroded.
- We are sad to see the interaction style in the board and that people blame each other and are engaged in escalatory rhetoric.
- Some have the impression, however, a strong tone is needed to be heard at all.
- We are worried that there seems to be no will to compromise from anyone.
- It is hard to follow all the e-mail discussions for us – the amount and the length of the e-mails make it very complicated.
- We are concerned about two resignations in such a short period of time.
- After the experience with the forced moderation on board-discuss, we are worried that dissent might be censored on the mailing list in the future.
- The lack of board engagement in the MC election was really disappointing, it was mainly Thorsten organizing things. The MC organized several sessions, but most of the board did not seem to care as much about the election of another TDF body.
Proposal for solutions
- We suggest to look for a moderator/mediator for the full board.
- We suggest to better distribute the workload. The board should drive the long-term vision, but not handle the day to day operations and decisions, which doesn’t scale well with a volunteer board. Instead, we suggest to give the team all the flexibility, trust and freedom needed to implement details.
- The big ticket items the board should deal with are e.g. identify and prioritize under-loved areas, drive the process of the next decade manifesto, plan investments, develop and adopt community bylaws and statutes.
- Please give everyone the freedom to speak out in public and private without fearing retaliation.
- Please involve and listen to the TDF members, the local groups, and the larger communities in the decision-making process.
- We suggest that TDF, e.g. by sourcing the MC, should empower communities to advance social changes. That means helping people everywhere in the world where there is a need for people to express themselves. That includes asking individuals to become local ambassadors for the foundation. This way, we can “have an ear” in the local communities and break the language barriers. The Board should source the competence of the Membership Committee to foster our community.
- In our view, LibreOffice is not only a product, but a tool to empower people in their daily life wherever they are in the world and whatever they struggle. Many people are living under the poverty line, have a limited access to education, are suffering of digital illiteracy – our work is not about a market, but about our charitable goal.
- We should be creative, inventive, and open in our brainstorming. If the only discussion turns around not competing with the ecosystem and we spend all the energy in that instead of trying to find solutions for both TDF and its ecosystem, we will not solve TDF’s problems.
- We propose a voluntary limit of consecutive terms in the board, after which one needs to stay out at least for one term, before running again. That would also force us to grow new people into the role, which we currently lack as well. Right now there is little to no discussion during election and campaining period.