Accept nomination: Franklin Weng

[franklin]

Sophie, thanks for your nomination. I accept this nomination to run for the next board.

I don’t have much to say. I still have very bad memories in my last term and was too disappointed to run again. But then I saw community members wanting to stand up to solve the mess in the board, to bring TDF BACK to a joyful, enthusiastic, and fun environment, to bring TDF BACK to the community. I decide to give it another try, to see what I can do, together with these great partners, to achieve these goals.

Full name: Franklin Weng (Weng, Chia-Chi on my passport)

e-mail address: franklin@goodhorse.idv.tw, franklin@libreoffice.org

Affiliation: Software Liberty Association Taiwan

The candidacy statement:
I’m Franklin Weng, 48 yo, from Taiwan. I’m an open source enthusiast, promoting ODF and PMPC in Taiwanese government. I was a member of the BoD for two terms, and am very disappointed to see the foundation in great danger and mess. Therefore I joined a group which I think able to do the necessary work to make it an open and inspiring environment again. Together with others I advocate the pledge for LibreOffice: The Document Foundation Nextcloud

[mmeeks]

Hi Franklin,

In the past you’ve expressed your enthusiasm for The Art of War and its applicability to relations between TDF board members.

Question 1: is that still the case, and if yes, do you believe that treating inter-personal relations with other board members as if you are nation states at war with each other is appropriate?

I would hope not, but let me continue. Sun Tsu AFAIR states “All warfare is based on deception” so:

Question 2: do you commit to speaking the truth (as you see it), if elected, to other board members and the community ?

It was interesting that three weeks ago you stated that you were discouraging people to run for the new board; of course reducing the number of candidates standing could give a potential advantage for your candidacy.

Question 3: Can you give a timeline of when you chose to change your mind on discouraging people to stand for the board ? and also when you yourself decided to stand ?

I notice that in your candidacy statement you have only one affiliation with the “Software Liberty Association Taiwan” – and yet previously you have described yourself as “Own a company to provide open source solutions and services” – and appear to have promoted OxOffice and OSSII at many places as an alternative to LibreOffice.

Question 4: do you still own a company providing OSS solutions & services? Have you now or previously had a direct or indirect commercial relationship with OxOffice and/or OSSII ?

Question 5: which competing companies in Asia would be most interesting to engage with to try to broaden the LibreOffice development ecosystem, and encourage up-stream contribution from the region?

Thanks,

Michael.

[EyalRozenberg]

@mmeeks : I think your questions 3-5 would have been better served without questions 1-2, as the former are more rhetorical devices on your part.

@franklin : A few questions for you. I realize it’s late in the elections cycle, but hope you’ll find the time to answer. I also think you should answer Michael’s questions, despite their being put in a rather confrontational manner.

Question 6: You mentioned “bad memories” from your last term. For the benefit of newer trustees, please elaborate on what made you feel bad about the last term you were on the board (and remind us of which term that was). What part of those regard your specific areas of activity as a board member, and what was a more general impression of the state of things? Did you write the trustees about these experiences?

Question 7: Other than the internal “restoration of trust” agenda, please name two or three areas of activity which you believe the board should focus on in the coming term, that in your opinion require significant effort.

Question 9: Some trustees (and candidates) believe that the BoD should be more supervisory than directly active. A somewhat similar sentiment is expressed in the pledge you and several other candidates have committed to, where it says that a meeting every two weeks is too much work for volunteers. Others believe that there is a lot of work to be done beyond what the employees do, and that is important that the some of the core tasks of the foundation remain undelegated and more amenable (in principle) to public scrutiny. Where do you stand on this spectrum?

The TDF’s annual amount of donations is ~EUR 1.2 Million (per the 2022 annual report). This, while our number of users is [estimated](LibreOffice: A history of document freedom | Opensource.com Document Foundation estimates that,part of their preferred distribution.) at over 200 Million (as of 2021); and the Thunderbird project, with ~16 Million active monthly users (see here), achieved an income of $6.4 Million USD in 2022. Even if we cut our user estimate by 50%, that’s still 30x less average donations per user for LO relative to Thunderbird.

Question 10: With and without regard to the comparison with Thunderbird, and if elected - what, if at all, would you suggest the board do to improve our income situation?