And also:
https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#mobile-story
which has links to the reports, with the (core) commits. And:
https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#creators
may be interesting too; all of that a year+ old.
ATB,
Michael.
And also:
Maybe also that gave some people the impression that LibreOffice OnLine, being hosted at TDF and "contributed to the LibreOffice project", would have been made available to all but that may just be my reading.
Ciao
Paolo
Hi,
the linked documents shows the different behavior / narrative during a
period without a commercial product and with the opposite.
During the first one it is a community project and it is one of the core
projects. It is welcomed that every community member (everyone)
contributes to the project, support it and use it for free (as product
of the community). It is also proposed that it will be supported as a
community project and get updates (etc.).
Once the project gets commercial ready this commitment was retracted.
And the speech changed to the statement that the project had only little
/ negligible contributions from the community.
If you analyze this statement you could get to the conclusion that the
contributions of one group of developers are not contributions to the
community. But if that would be the case, why could they apply for TDF
membership and so on?
And the statement, that Paolo linked in this thread, was made from TDF
in 2015 and you could find out who was on the board at that time:
https://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/board/2014-2016/
Thus it seemed very important to have clear rules for projects, that TDF
hosts and which were substantial driven by a professional entity.
And it's also obvious that a CoI could happen very likely, if one try to
wear two hats (on different sides of the table).
Regards,
Andreas
Hi Andreas,
I agree the narrative on Collabora's own site seems to clash a bit with what happened down the line.
I see that you were in the board at the time, as some of the current board members, so I guess you were as excited as others know that LOOL was going to be available for free to all. Maybe at the times there was no fear that it would have been taken away from us so nobody thought to make things clear with an official agreement which confirmed what Collabora had on its website.
One may hope that someone re-reads what it was suppose to happen and reviews some decisions.
In the meantime it is evident that we need to set some rules for the projects that TDF hosts so that we can have more clarity in future.
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Andreas, hi Paolo,
this thread has been going on for some time, and the subject is still
"Counterproposal to the 'actization' of LibreOffice Online"
I don't find any new input for that discussion. All points have been
made already, most of them repeatedly.
The irony of someone on the board at the time complaining that the
board at the time made a mistake is not lost on me.
So can we now finally turn this into something constructive?
That would be, among other things:
- concrete proposals what TDF should (or should not) do for future
projects
- fundamentally new or different ideas on how to deal with stale
projects
Everything else is badly off-topic on this thread (and very likely
even on this list). For general discussions, please do move that over
to our discuss@documentfoundation.org list.
Cheers, Thorsten
Hi Thorsten,
this is the thread that Marco Marinello created to see if anybody can come up with other proposals that may bring back LOOL instead of just having to forget about it.
While sadly it seems like the original main contributors to LOOL don't seem to add much in terms of proposals, at least it's useful to have a clearer view and understanding of the past to try avoiding something similar happening in future.
I do understand the position of all the members of the board at the time and also yours, Thorsten, as I believe that at the beginning the intentions were those expressed on the page I linked. Surely no one thought that a friend and a member of the same community would have acted that way.
That's understandable and nobody here is blaming anyone for choices made at that time.
The more recent past shows us that now we have to look at things more carefully and think about the future of the projects we host.
In regard to your questions:
- concrete proposals what TDF should (or should not) do for future
projects
In your "atticisation" thread I clearly stated what I think we should do for projects that could be taken out of the attic AND for current/new projects we host.
- fundamentally new or different ideas on how to deal with stale
projects
As I stated in your "atticisation" thread we definitely need to check the projects that we are hosting and see what requires to be formally welcomed with an agreement as the main contributor is a commercial organisations, which projects are obsolete and which projects can be revived.
I'll follow up on the board list also with the proposal to look more in detail at what we host and status and future of the Android Viewer.
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Paolo,
Paolo Vecchi wrote:
In regard to your questions:
[references to earlier emails]
I'll follow up on the board list also with the proposal to look more
in detail at what we host and status and future of the Android
Viewer.
Thanks. So let's end-thread here.
Cheers,
-- Thorsten
Hi Thorsten, all,
it's of course legit to ask people contributing here to comply with the
ML netiquette but I don't think closing the thread here is the solution.
In my opening message sent on January 9th I made a proposal consisting
of four points as an alternative approach to the current online
situation and although the ML is named "board-discuss", nobody from the
board commented on the merit of the proposal.
I'm geniunally interested in the opinion of who's currently driving the
foundation and I don't understand why you, Thorsten, as current and
future board member, are certainly following the thread but only asking
to close it, instead of giving your contribution. So please, as for
other board members, go back to my first mail here and reply to that.
ATB
Marco
Hi Marco,
I have to agree with you here that maybe censoring threads isn't the best way forward and that surely isn't a message agreed within the board.
While there haven't been yet clear answers that can bring a solution, at least we all have a clearer view on how LOOL came to be, evolved into a viable product and then has been forked.
As a deputy member of the board and a member of our community I expressed my opinion about your 4 points:
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00057.html
It's true that I may have been a bit harsh with my answers, and I apologise if you got upset by it, but while I understand your proposal we have also to deal with the reality that without a reconsideration from the company that made the fork we don't have yet the internal/external contributors that could allow us to revive the LOOL project.
Even if I get full support from the board to employ internal developers I don't think is a good idea to unilaterally decide to backport the forked repository to LOOL without a clear agreement with the company involved so that probably won't fix the issue either.
Surely the fastest and easier way to solve the issue would be to have the company that forked LOOL to concede that they may have overlooked the initial agreement with TDF and the community but up to now we received no new proposals from them.
Having said that and with my answers underlying the issues I've noticed do you see ways to reformulate your proposal?
Any other practical proposals from other members of the board and the community?
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Marco,
it's unclear if we're talking past each other -
Marco Marinello wrote:
it's of course legit to ask people contributing here to comply with the
ML netiquette but I don't think closing the thread here is the solution.
This part of the thread is a conversation about the past, and as such
has served its purpose.
In my opening message sent on January 9th I made a proposal consisting
of four points as an alternative approach to the current online
situation and although the ML is named "board-discuss", nobody from the
board commented on the merit of the proposal.
There were board people answering, I counted two immediate follow-ups:
Paolo: msg-id a2501c6d-5ed1-49bb-ebef-1e5a56cb65b0@documentfoundation.org
Michael: msg-id b44f7c5d-968d-0904-703a-e0a03b18fb01@collabora.com
Plus a handful of good thoughts from community members, in the rather
massive side-thread that evolved from there.
I'm geniunally interested in the opinion of who's currently driving the
foundation and I don't understand why you, Thorsten, as current and
future board member, are certainly following the thread but only asking
to close it, instead of giving your contribution. So please, as for
other board members, go back to my first mail here and reply to that.
Not directly answering on a controversial proposal, that is triggering
quite emotional reactions, and has resulted in one of the longer
navel-gazing & history re-telling threads of the recent past - is
sometimes what is needed to not fuel the flames. I also had nothing
substantial to add, beyond the two existing answers.
I understand you frustrations & your motives, but I mostly agree with
Paolo: claiming Collabora Online is still TDF's, and then distributing
free binaries of it (which was the trigger for Collabora to leave in
the first place) - is quite a hostile move. It would also be beyond
tricky for TDF to message that to the general (FLOSS-affine) public.
There are aspects of your proposal that are really good ideas though,
c.f. the comments Simon made. The evolving consensus in the board it
seems (though of course I cannot speak for them), is that TDF should
for the moment close the chapter of LibreOffice Online.
All the best,
-- Thorsten
Hi all,
I believe a few comments require notes and corrections as they may mislead the community:
Not directly answering on a controversial proposal,
Members of the community are actually asking for answers and members of the board should help in providing them regardless of the level of controversy.
I understand you frustrations & your motives, but I mostly agree with
Paolo: claiming Collabora Online is still TDF's,
The statement is not correct.
I claimed that LibreOffice OnLine is still TDF's even if it seems we haven't yet found a way to move it forward, Collabora Online is a third party product.
and then distributing
free binaries of it (which was the trigger for Collabora to leave in
the first place)
The statement is not correct.
Collabora actually agreed to negotiate the details of LOOL's binaries distribution so that is definitely not the trigger of the fork.
- is quite a hostile move. It would also be beyond
tricky for TDF to message that to the general (FLOSS-affine) public.
I believe TDF has demonstrated to be everything but hostile even when the project it hosted and was part of the LibreOffice project has been forked without warnings.
The evolving consensus in the board it
seems (though of course I cannot speak for them), is that TDF should
for the moment close the chapter of LibreOffice Online.
More than a consensus I believe that we may have to resign to the fact that we may have been left with not many options unless other members of the board and the community come up with some practical options.
All the best,
-- Thorsten
Ciao
Paolo
Paolo Vecchi wrote:
> The evolving consensus in the board it
> seems (though of course I cannot speak for them), is that TDF should
> for the moment close the chapter of LibreOffice Online.More than a consensus I believe that we may have to resign to the fact that
we may have been left with not many options unless other members of the
board and the community come up with some practical options.
Which seems to be essentially the same conclusion.
Let's end this thread here. If there's new ideas, or new, constructive
input on Marco's proposal, that is of course welcome (ideally as a new
thread, or as answers to the original email).
Best,
-- Thorsten