Developer hiring proposals

Hi,

100% agree.

But if you’re looking for feedback from the French community: we’re very skeptical about TDF’s ability to manage duplicate projects with reasonable success with 4 developers . Collabora has a development lead of many years, with many developers; is it realistic to compete with it?

Many believe it’s too late to reactivate Lool in 2025.

We want fewer bugs and mature features in existing products, not a duplicate project that will remain in beta forever. Collabora is free software and won’t disappear next month; there will always be time to develop our version if the licensing model doesn’t evolve ethically as TDF expects.

The environnement of Collabora is almost important, could you manage interaction with docker, kubernetes or other clusters, wopi integration ? You probably need a dedicated specialist to achieve that.

We are interested by these general enhancements :

  • Especially everything related to data insertion (JSON and RSS processing, calls to external OpenData APIs, pivot tables)
  • Integration with remote services (Nextcloud and others, AI is a plus)
  • Help pages that help you (significant progress, however)
  • Translated documentation (handled mainly by communities ?)
  • Tests on key features; it’s unacceptable to see versions with broken mail merge.
  • Easier contribution, UNO API documentation, IDL
  • Documented configuration files
  • Special attention to display, speed of processing large documents and tables without crashes during copy and paste.
  • A mobile app with a little more functionality; some people work on tablets.
  • Knowledge sharing with local communities .
  • Some templates and other file goodies.
  • OOxml enhanced compatibility
  • A roadmap !
  • (and I want to be able to replace line breaks with end of lines, sorry M Kagansky)
  • Also the LibreOffice P2P projects could be an interesting third way .

Bests,

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Hi,

I propose a workshop at Libocon to study development scope with communities, if no other better proposition exists.

Bests,

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The whole world benefited. Let me take this opportunity to put on record what an excellent job NlNet have been doing over many years for Open Source. This particular work in combination with NGI funding (from the EC) has built the foundations of LibreOfficeKit accessibility. All of that work is Open Source, much of it was contributed to the LibreOffice core. Better than that, this was strategic seed funding, that we and others have since invested a lot on top of to further extend, and improve LibreOfficeKit and Collabora Online accessibility hugely. So - thank you NlNet and the EC.

This continues your recurring pattern here of negative speculation presented as fact, as well as aggressive attacks around the trademark. I can confirm your statement is false. I would suggest attacking NlNet for their friendly attempt to promote LibreOffice with this logo (which was not included in “Improved accessibility for Collabora Online and LibreOffice” proposal) does not make a winsome start to seeking future funding from them. Collabora may appear to tolerate your ongoing baseless public attacks, but I would not assume this is true of everyone.

The LibreOffice trademark is valuable because of the collective work of very many individuals and organizations (including TDF) in the community. I expect that the good feeling people have for LibreOffice/TDF is based on their belief that it fairly represents that community and is stewarded in a reasonable and open way.

The move of the entire LibreOffice Online development team to work instead on Collabora Online was caused in large part by your aggressive approach, as well as the un-relenting refusal to listen to basic business / economic arguments. Sadly it seems all of the same hand-waving arguments are being re-deployed today.

Now there is continued proof by repeated assertion of non-competition in this thread. It seems in parallel to these assertions you are here suggesting that TDF is planning to enter the consultancy services market itself in return for grants. This is suggested to fill the ongoing funding shortfall for hiring new developers without matching donation income. It is of course an exciting idea to build a sales/grant pipeline and deliver consultancy - but the degree of commercial experience and business acumen needed (on top of having excellent technical engineers who can cope with the deadline pressures) should not be under-estimated.

Despite all that - today there is an extremely usable, easy to get, Collabora Online, based on LibreOffice we just did our COOL 25.04 release the code is all open source and I’d encourage people to check it out. We are grateful to all who have contributed to making it better in the community both in COOL and in the LibreOffice project: thank you all & NlNet / NGI.

As for the miscellaneous other serious accusations in your E-mail, it is safe to assume that my view is that they are also negative speculation presented as fact.

Michael.

I didn’t see anyone challenging this. This is not about NLnet. This is about which projects have received funds under the LibreOffice name and some other questions I’ve pointed out in my other email. Let me explain again with one example about what I find highly confusing:

This is an actual screenshot of the website with developer tools enabled. You see it shows the LibreOffice Online logo. The repository was frozen at the time of the project funding. Confusingly, the title talks about Collabora Online. And even more so, if I click on the LibreOffice Online logo, I am redirected to the Collabora Online website.

Would you be fine if we showed the Collabora Online logo and bring someone to a different website when they click on it? I guess not.

It remains a mystery to me what was funded using the LibreOffice Online name.

Again, this is not about NLnet. This is about who had projects funded under the LibreOffice name and some other questions I’ve pointed out in my other email.

Looking at a recorded board election townhall session from 2021, there seem to be different perceptions on the reasons. I hear something about GitHub in this recording…

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Hi Michael,

I haven’t attacked anyone, I’ve just presented facts that are there for all to see.

There is a LibreOffice OnLine logo, the mention of LibreOffice and a description that also states:

“The goal of this project is to implement improved accessibility for Collabora Online. The core of the proposal is to add accessibility to the edit view of documents, which are currently just pixels for a screen reader.”

Are the facts just a simple misunderstanding?

Did someone at NLNet, out of their own initiative, decided to get the LibreOffice OnLine logo and put it there despite the fact that it isn’t mentioned anywhere and the link points to your own project?

If it was a mistake then I should contact them, explain to them that no contributions from that funding went to the LibreOffice Online project and ask them to contact you to get the right logo.

Is then the project actually related to LibreOffice or only to Collabora Online?

The description seems to indicate that it’s only relevant to Collabora Online as the bit saying “are currently just pixels for a screen reader” doesn’t seem applicable to LibreOffice desktop.

Also the title states:

Private and accessible collaborative editing with Collabora Online/LibreOffice

As the feature has been funded also for LibreOffice, why I do not see any features related to “Private and accessible collaborative editing” in LibreOffice?

Or was also that text an initiative of someone at NLNet?

As we all value what NLNet did for many Open Source projects and if funds are available we should apply as well then it’s important for TDF to understand how the process works and who decides which logos and text to use.

It could turn out to be a mistake from their side, it happens, and they should fix that page but it could turn out that you did it all and that would be quite problematic.

We’ll ask and we’ll let everyone know.

Was LibreOffice OnLine, with written in all its files “This file is part of the LibreOffice project” and promoted using TDF’s trademarks and marketing team as well using TDF’s resources, a community project that should have been made available to all?

After having asked for clear answers for a while and not having received any satisfactory answer then it was my duty to clarify the situation.

I presented a motion to finalise what the name of the product and the actions from TDF were implying, that finally helped you in taking in consideration the questions of a deputy member of the board asking nothing more than clarity.

You agreed with the entire board to allow TDF to publish usable version of LibreOffice OnLine to the community in exchange of a proper marketing plan supporting “the ecosystem”.
The whole board and the marketing team got to work on it and then, without warning, you breached the agreement and forked the project. That’s the short and diplomatic story which at least clarified what LibreOffice OnLine was.

If you want to carry on attacking me for having performed my duties then we should share more board minutes and documents to clarify the situation once and for all.

Nope.

As any other Open Source projects TDF can and should seek fundings where available to increase its capacity to further its mission and goals including contributing directly to LibreOffice which in turn will allow TDF to have more skills to deal with mentoring and educational projects around the world.

I thought you would be very supportive of this initiative as it will help the project and increase TDF’s capacity to mentor and support even more developers around the world.

Ciao

Paolo

I did some research on the web based Office with the available patches for Online and some further changes. I build my version of Online based on LibreOffice core master and got at least some issues with the module Draw (and Impress). If I build my version of Online based on the branch / fork CO-25.04 instead these issues are gone. You can read my research / experience at https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/missing-commits-back-from-online-project-to-libreoffice-project-and-community/13180

Regards,
Andreas

This is the 2nd version of the web/mobile proposal, which tries to address various issues discussed here. It provides more details, including market analysis, the rationale for hiring, and the suggested focus areas.
proposal-web-mobile-v2.pdf (161.6 KB)

Hi Hossein,

thanks a lot for the write up and the analysis which I fully support.

Ciao

Paolo

Hi Hossein,

thanks for your paper. I fully support it.

One question: could programming Android and iOS app using Kotlin instead of (or next to) Java and Swift?

Regards,
Andreas

Hello Andreas,
Thank you!

could programming Android and iOS app using Kotlin instead of (or next to) Java and Swift?

The development path written in the proposal is based on the current implementation of Android Viewer, which is a classic approach to create native Android applications using Java programming language. The source code can be found in android/ folder, and the suggestion is to continue this path, and add more editing capabilities within the same software architecture and using the same programming language, Java.

On the other hand, I know that mixing Kotlin and Java in an Android project is possible, although I haven’t tried this approach:

Also for iOS, it seems that mixing Kotlin and Swift/Objective-C is possible, but I haven’t tried it:

In other words, the suggested approach in the proposal is based on the existing applications and proof of concepts. I think the best would be to try Kotlin and create a proof of concept first. If it can be used on both Android and iOS to minimize code duplication, then it may be useful in practice.

Some notes and feedback on the proposal:

  1. Biggest gripe: Web development is one thing; mobile phone development is another thing. There is some overlap between them, but that’s also true for desktop and mobile. So, it’s not clear whether a developer who applies needs to be a developer for either of them, or both of them (or - a partition of the 4 FTE’s among the categories). The problem is even deeper: The rest of the document continues referring to “web/mobile”, “web/mobile”, “web/cloud mobile” without distinguishing between these two, or three, categories - so that many statements and claims become vague and inspecific, and perhaps partially incorrect (see also below).
  2. In fact, are we hiring a developer in order to offer LibreOffice “on the cloud”? i.e. have we decided to set up servers, offer storage, manage people’s documents etc.? As opposed to offering a client-side web-based app which deals with a user’s files locally?
  3. Grammar could use some polish, there are numoerus errors and failure to conclude sentences with all
  4. (Pg. 1) Software is not a commodity, and the space of office productivity suites is not a market. We don’t sell LibreOffice nor sell the service of using it. So please don’t use those terms.
  5. (Pg. 1 par. 3) What’s the basis for the far-reaching claim that “users demand their office productivity [missing word here?] remains accesible in [sic] … web and mobile”? That is, is this a quote from an authoritative source? If so, please reference it; otherwise, explain that to be a belief or opinion or make an argument in favor of this statement.
  6. My experience is that people don’t want to use office productivity apps on their mobile. Viewing files? Sure; creating & editing them? Nooo, not at all. I can count on the fingers of a single hand the number of people I’ve seen - ever, in my entire life - editing a spreadsheet, presentation or even a formatting-heavy document, on their mobile phones.
  7. (Pg. 1) The document suggests that we are trying to copycat Microsoft in various way; specifically, adopt their business tactics - tactics which are often underhanded. They want to cripple desktop software by making it half-cloud-based; we should not adopt such an approach or assume its validity and usefulness.
  8. (Pg. 1) The analysis completely ignores our intention to allow for P2P collaboration in document authoring. This is something which other office app suites do not offer - and is rather anathematic to their business strategy and attempts to centralize contol over the use of office apps. If people had that possibility, how many of them would really want/need a central server?
  9. (Pg. 1, par. -2) it says “While TDF provides… it provides almost nothing in the area of web and mobile” ; this should probably refer to LibreOffice as a project rather than the TDF as an entity.
  10. (Pg 1. par. -2) What is the basis for the claim that a desktop office productivity app suite would become irrelevant within a decade? )
  11. (Pg. 1 par -1) In another statement only considering the commercially-offered office suites, the analysis neglects a description of what non-commercially-commoditized office suites offer w.r.t. web-based clients, fully-in-cloud services, and mobile versions of office apps.
  12. (Pg. 1 par -1) “nearly all of the companies who [sic] provide office software for desktop [sic],
    provide their version of web/cloud and mobile” - which companies? and which companies are an exception to this rule?
  13. (Pg. 1 par -1) Even for the commercially-commoditized office suite - it is not listed nor elaborated which companies offer what - a web-based client, fully-in-cloud services, and mobile versions of the office apps. There is also no information regarding the extent of functionality offered via a web-based client, in a cloud version, or via a mobile app. It is also not stated whether the mobile app is entirely standalone, or whether it is a client for use of the cloud version of the office suite.
  14. (Pg. 1, par. -1) A claim is made that availability of each of, or all of, a web client, a mobile app version, and an in-cloud version, are “key factor for adoption of the office software”: Which office software? Generally? Some specific office productivity suites? Which ones? Are you claiming that these aspects have been key to the adoption of Microsoft Office? OTOH, if you mean office suites like Google Docs/Workspace, they have never been desktop applications, so this claim is vacuous regarding those suites.
  15. (Pp. 1-2) Generally, the analysis of the office suite space fails to distinguish the consideration of office suites which have originally been developed and offered as dektop apps; those developed as cloud-based web apps; and those developed as mobile (non-cloud or not-cloud-only) applications.
  16. (Pg. par. 1) “The strong and steady growth in the market” - another example of the wrong focus of consideration. A growth in the amount of money which organizations or individuals pay for office productivity suites or apps does not in itself mean a growth in the number of users making those payments, and more importantly, does not mean a growth of the number of users of commercially-offered office suites.
  17. (Pg. 2 par. 1) “The strong and steady growth in the market” missing clarification that this is a projection for cloud-based office productivity application services. But, according to statista (the validity of whose data or whose methodology I can’t vouch for, I’ll admit) - the global revenue from office productivity software in 2025 is over 80 Billion USD, while the link mentioned in the hiring proposal talks about a market with a revenue of ~12.6 Billion USD. So, less than 1/6’th of the “market”, and see also my point (4.) above.
  18. (Pg. 2 par. 2) The reference here is to a brief blog post on LinkedIn. Have we actually read the research document in question? Why is SmartShift Insight a credible source on these matters?
  19. (Pg. 2 par. 2) How much of the stated revenue, now and over the next decade, is due to Microsoft forcing people to use a semi-cloud-based MS Office?
  20. (Pg. 2 par. 2) “the effect of platform convergence” - what effect? How does it manifest with various office suites? I again worry you are basing your description of reality and of where things need to go on the Microsoft decision to force people to use a semi-cloud-based subscription service.
  21. (Pg. 2 par. 2) “The … growth in the market … alongside the effect of platform convergence shows the necessity that TDF provides web and mobile versions of LibreOffice.” That is a huge logical leap over many steps of inference; and the analysis has not established any of them.

(I’ve only gotten to the top of page 2 - to be continued.)

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Are you making that statement ex officio or in a personal capacity?

  1. Biggest gripe: Web development is one thing; mobile phone development is another thing. There is some overlap between them, but that’s also true for desktop and mobile. So, it’s not clear whether we want a developer for either of them, or both of them. The problem is even deeper: The rest of the document continues referring to “web/mobile”, “web/mobile”, “web/cloud mobile” without distinguishing between these two, or three, categories - so that many statements and claims become vague and inspecific, and perhaps partially incorrect (see also below).

I agree that distinguishing between web and mobile would make sense.

  1. My experience is that people don’t want to use office productivity apps on their mobile. Viewing files? Sure; creating & editing them? Nooo, not at all. I can count on the fingers of a single hand the number of people I’ve seen editing a spreadsheet, presentation or even a formatting-heavy document, on their mobile phones.

That generally matches my own approach (occasionally view files on the phone, clearly prefer doing “real work” on my laptop).
However, feedback for the current LibreOffice Viewer app for Android in Google Play review comments differs: Lack of proper editing support is one of the main “complaints”, besides “Doesn’t open PDF files”.

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Do we have numbers on how many people use, or have downloaded, the app? And how many people have given this feedback?

Google Play Console currently shows an install base of 544,089 devices. (Description for “install base” is: “The number of active devices on which your app is installed. An active device is one that has been turned on at least once in the previous 30 days.”)
Below is a graphic showing the development over the last 5 years.

Besides Google Play, there are other app stores like F-Droid, but I don’t know any numbers for those.

I don’t have systematic numbers for that, but would say there are usually around 10-20 review comments per week, with maybe 1 to 3 of them mentioning that better editing capabilities would be desirable.

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If those are the numbers, then I wouldn’t say that contradicts my anecdotal experience… and that’s before we know whether those users would actually do significant editing given the possibility, which is itself a question.

Well, I would love to do minimal editing and annotation and commendation using the smart phone while having a zigarett. Hence, I even use SSH for simple tasts on the street next to the bin…

What is missing, the app was taken down for a very long time in both(?) 1app stores… Many “fake” or “pay for” or "for donation’ apps were problematic for the user base…

I think the request is also about tablets. I know that several plug-ins or applications developed in France for education, like Cartable fantastique - which provides a LibreOffice plug-in for dispraxic children - or LibreOffice des écoles - which provides a dedicated UI to facilitate learning - are not used on tablets because of the lack of the application. It’s even part of their FAQ.

There are other areas where tablets are used like in small town-hall to collect data by the road workers or in refugees camp for students in Kenya, Tanzania or South Sudan, for those I know.

Also GeoPoll has done an interesting survey on phone usage in Africa and Asia, see Report: Mobile Phone and App Usage in Africa and Asia - GeoPoll. Also not everywhere there is a good internet coverage or a reliable one.

There are other examples of usage that would benefit greatly and empower some populations, but I don’t have the time to provide them now.

Fair enough, but - Tablets are rather different than mobile phones. On today’s tablet, you can probably assume you satisfy the minimum width and height requirements for the Deskotp LibreOffice. Of course, Tablets are also very different from desktops, so “in the middle” between the extremes I guess.