Big organisations not contributing

[vpanter]

Hej everybody,

I read that “None of the changes being evaluated will affect the license, the availability, the permitted uses and/or the functionalities. LibreOffice will always be free software and nothing is changing for end users, developers and Community members” and I am pleased to read that.

It strikes me that there’s a lot of talk about large organizations, that don’t contribute to the community. But why not talk to these organizations? By tagging a new version as “Enterprise” or “community”, you don’t go into communication and won’t convince them. A tag, which I feel, is also easy to remove.

Go into discussion and convince them of the usefulness of contributing to the project. They already get the best office software, but it is also important for them that this software is further developed, improved and distributed.
By arguing in their place and putting words in their mouths, you take the wind out of your own sails.
They laugh in their fist when they read these discussions and they don’t feel addressed. Make them feel addressed by engaging them in a conversation and make them part of the project.

Just my 2 Euro cents

Best regards

Leo Moons
LibreOffice/nl-be

“Nous sommes condamnés à être libres” - J.P. Sartre

[Daniel_Armando_Rodri]

At the moment we could say that we have divided positions, change the label and continue with the schedule and, on the other hand, continue the discussion and postpone the implementation until 7.1.
So, in order to bring positions closer together, why not postpone the release and continue with the discussion for a couple more weeks?

[mmeeks]

Hi Leo,

It strikes me that there's a lot of talk about large organizations, that
don't contribute to the community. But why not talk to these
organizations?

  Its a good idea, and of course everyone is trying to do that. For example when C'bra first went into business - we sunk Eur 100k+ into a full-time sales & marketing person mostly focused on governments for over a year. They were backed by great enthusiasm and a political push from central government in the UK, net result: around zero contribution.

  In broad brush-strokes: governments are very good at consuming your time talking, they love that. They even legislate with positive sounding words about open standards, and so on - but getting actual traction in terms of reality on the ground - direct contribution or sales that turn into contribution is extraordinarily hard. I guess that's true of any large organization the writ from the top runs only so far down the hierarchy.

  I had a section on some of the problems here:

https://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/vendor-neutral-marketing.html#commercial-marketing

  Sorry to copy/paste:

  "You can sponsor conferences, and attend them. Picking the right conference is a real trick, and the costs here are prohibitive. Imagine spending ~€5k attending a conference filled with Open Source interested Government IT decision makers. Imagine presenting your product, and having the friendly & enthusiastic conference moderator personally and explicitly promote buying your products to the entire conference. Imagine the zero leads that result in paid business, and/or any return at all. Repeat until convinced that this is a dead end. TDF itself has free booths at many conferences donated by the organizers, companies do not."

  Did I mention that ~no government person has a business card: you can meet them at a conference and chat to them while they pass by your very expensive booth, but following that up and turning it into sales is really tough. They also tend to operate on a timescale that is extraordinarily long - after all - there is little pressure to do any given thing by any given date.

  Naturally TDF could get free booths, free talks etc. left and right, but by presenting a gratis message in these fora with no firm steer to contribute this will consume TDF resource too for little win for our mission.

Go into discussion and convince them of the usefulness of contributing
to the project. They already get the best office software, but it is
also important for them that this software is further developed,
improved and distributed.

  So - of course you're right; we need to persuade people one by one, and make winsome arguments that they should contribute in their self interest. The problem is how to get that message across efficiently and effectively - the ecosystem sells software at well below the cost of MS Office. That means that the cost of marketing and sales to just initiate and complete those conversations can very easily swamp any possible return.

  Currently extraordinarily few enterprises appear to even know they should have that conversation around the desktop version. Hence attempting some changes here to make people more aware; does that make sense ? how can we initiate those conversations with the right people, effectively.

  ATB,

    Michael.

[samtuke]

This thread seems to be conflating separate things:

It strikes me that there's a lot of talk about large organizations,
that don't contribute to the community.

Meaning that:

1) large orgs should donate to TDF?
2) large orgs should buy services from ecosystem companies?
3) both?

These are largely different problems with different solutions.

[...] For
example when C'bra first went into business - we sunk Eur 100k+ into
a full-time sales & marketing person mostly focused on governments
for over a year. They were backed by great enthusiasm and a political
push from central government in the UK, net result: around zero
contribution.

This speaks to problem 2, which is first and foremost the responsibility of ecosystem companies to solve, with secondary support from TDF [1].

Some interests are shared between TDF and companies, and some interests conflict, and that's right and healthy in my view. For the sake of constructive debate let's keep clear who is being recommended to do what.

Brainstorming potential ecosystem company strategy case-by-case could be a useful exercise, but I'm frustrated when the problems and goals interchange and merge.

Thanks,

Sam.

1. Disclosure: I worked in the aforementioned marketing team as some of you know, and experienced many challenges marketing LO products and services in that role

[sophi]

Hi,

This thread seems to be conflating separate things:

It strikes me that there's a lot of talk about large organizations,
that don't contribute to the community.

Meaning that:

1) large orgs should donate to TDF?
2) large orgs should buy services from ecosystem companies?
3) both?

There is another item here, I know several orgs buying services from
companies that are not good players with FLOSS communities. This is
something in my view which is important to address, we should not blame
orgs here, when they try to do the right thing (and adding a Personal
tag line will not help them). Finding ways to expend the ecosystem is
vital too.
Cheers
Sophie

[Telesto]

Op 14-7-2020 om 12:58 schreef Sam Tuke:

This thread seems to be conflating separate things:

→ It’s surely the case.

On 14/07/2020 11:15, Michael Meeks wrote:

On 13/07/2020 22:07, Leo Moons wrote:

It strikes me that there's a lot of talk about large organizations,
that don't contribute to the community.

Meaning that: 

1) large orgs should donate to TDF?
2) large orgs should buy services from ecosystem companies?
3) both?

These are largely different problems with different solutions. 

→ Agree

[...] For
example when C'bra first went into business - we sunk Eur 100k+ into
a full-time sales & marketing person mostly focused on governments
for over a year. They were backed by great enthusiasm and a political
push from central government in the UK, net result: around zero
contribution.

This speaks to problem 2, which is first and foremost the responsibility of ecosystem companies to solve, with secondary support from TDF [1].

Some interests are shared between TDF and companies, and some interests conflict, and that's right and healthy in my view. For the sake of constructive debate let's keep clear who is being recommended to do what.

Brainstorming potential ecosystem company strategy case-by-case could be a useful exercise, but I'm frustrated when the problems and goals interchange and merge.

→ It’s big bowl of spaghetti from my point of view. Everything is intertwined and entangled. They published Marketing Strategy draft illustrates this. It’s a TDF document, but quite obviously addressing issues of the eco-partners. Or is TDF starting to be a software vendor themselves; releasing an Enterprise Edition.

However TDF is - based on the current situation - more or less founded by the eco-system partners (not sure if this actually was the case back in the day). And they eco-system partners trying to profit from the LibreOffice brand. While the whole existent of LibreOffice is more or less based on the contributions of the eco-system partners.

TDF is a kind of a joint (multi ?) venture (or co-operation) run by a a Stiftung without commercial interest, and maybe even different interest compare to the main contributors. The with the Board of Directors being staffed with eco-system partners. Which doesn’t make things any easier; it potential of Conflict of Interest. I really can’t tell which interest are represented when the BoD makes a decisions (especially on the topic here). In the interest of TDF sec, or… No offense :-). I personally don’t call this good governance. It perfectly fits the join/multi venture / co-operation model, except the TDF has slightly larger community (and it’s intended this way). Not sure if single Stiftung is the best entity to run things.

Lawyer are likely able to create a better/ nifty scheme to accommodate the interest of everybody (with it’s proper share in the saying) without a multiple heats structure. And it’s possible to split of things etc. So code maintained by separate entity/ Stiftung etc. Of course with some overhead costs, but current I’m not the fan they current structure either. As it doesn’t match the reality based on position of the big eco-system partners.

–

There are the marketing strategy’s of the eco-partners themselves, however build around LibreOffice. With TDF in the middle. TDF distributing promoting a free edition. While at the same time referring to the partners for others services (which isn’t a business of TDF). So here is TDF competing with the partners.

Point to eco-system partners having their own branded “LibreOffice” suite and services is again problematic ; so in essence competing with each other (assume World Wide Delivery; not country of origin). Which even more interesting based on the distribution of the code knowledge. Eco-system partners with more knowledge about Writer others know more about Calc (based on my observations).

The whole construction is really mind boggling. TDF is a community, not limited to the eco-system partners. However the eco-system partners are they major contributors; so their position is relevant for TDF (to get contributions from them). While the partners profit from the LibreOffice brand (or attempting too). While those partners are competing with each other. And at the same time people are contribution code/translations/QA for free, and maybe don’t like commercialization of their donated code or other work. And the code being available for free. Even to desktop editions of the eco-partners (I think).

Somehow everybody is condemned to each other. And I personally prefer an integral marketing/ communication strategy/ distribution strategy including the dimensions of TDF but also Collabora/CIB (and others). As everybody being in the same boat anyhow. And I really don’t see how to entangle it the interest; so the other way is an integral solution.

I’m really seeing ‘deficiencies’ at seen at Collabora/CIB in their attempt promote their product. Blaming TDF for lack of customers, while looking away for their own marketing/communication failures. Sure, a part of the issue is at LibreOffice/TDF. However it’s only a part of they story. TDF (and eco-system partners) need a product (or should I say products: software + L1/L2 services + L3 services + consultancy) and proper marketing. A product doesn’t sell without marketing. Marketing without a (proper) product won’t work either. And a strong LibreOffice brand doesn’t automatically create customers at the eco-system partners.

The whole thing could - theoretically - arranged differently. TDF becoming a (commercial) software vendor/ entity Buying code from the eco-system partners and have all sorts of out sourcing contracts with eco-system partners for delivering services to customers. With, yet again, all sorts of issues.

Telesto

[mmeeks]

There is another item here, I know several orgs buying services from
companies that are not good players with FLOSS communities. This is
something in my view which is important to address

  Absolutely. So - the original plan here was not just just to do a
"Fedora vs. RHEL" style marketing separation of LibreOffice derived
products - but to ensure that the "LibreOffice Enterprise" side of this
- could only be used in products backed by a suitable number of a
combination of (say the average):

  * certified developers
  * contributing developers

  by providing a clear economic incentive and a distinct postioning we
can simultaneously highlight those who take but don't contribute, and
also provide a clear economic incentive for them to contribute.

Finding ways to expend the ecosystem is vital too.

  Exactly - so of course, where there is an economic incentive,
investment and hence more developers, a wider ecosystem etc. follows
behind =)

  I believe Bjoern sketched a similar idea in his recent mail too =)

  Clearly - we need more time to elaborate & communicate how all of those
pieces could fit together to make something that drives TDF's mission
like a rocket ship =)

  HTH,

    Michael.