Hi Eyal,
Base is used as a complementary tool in the mail merge function, and in Calc as a database.
Cool doesn’t provide any similar tool.
It is therefore necessary to maintain and improve it a little.
That’s my point.
Hi Eyal,
Base is used as a complementary tool in the mail merge function, and in Calc as a database.
Cool doesn’t provide any similar tool.
It is therefore necessary to maintain and improve it a little.
That’s my point.
Two points about the “Online and mobile” proposal:
The first point is that this is a proposal to hire 4 developers. Where is the budget for that? We have not had a massive, sustained, increase in revenue recently. Or - are you guys planning to basically
gut the tenders budget?
We have realistically one bidder, which already, in particular given the past history, is a significant issue. In addition, it seems that bidder would not want to bid under our procurement policy. I don’t see how tendering in 2025 could still be realistic.
Hi Eyal,
I can only speak from my personal experience as a business and domestic user of Base.
I’ve been using the various iterations of Base since StarOffice days. It has always lacked the polish of its main rival MS Access, and for those on macOS, Filemaker Pro, making sophisticated UI interaction a challenge well beyond the realms of what a common user might be comfortable with. Even the signifcant developer investment brought in by Sun with the Java embedded database of hsqldb 1.8 and the Pentaho report builder integration only relatively improved that experience. The fact remains that Base development has always been the unloved child of the LibreOffice project. Maintenance of the codebase has always seemed to play second fiddle to other modules, where changes made to Writer or Calc have been considered priority topics to the detriment of bugs that were then created in the Base codebase.
From recollection, when metrics were being taken of the use of LibreOffice, Base was specifically excluded. Why exactly that was the case, I don’t know. Perhaps there have been more recent metrics taken that do include Base statistics.
From an ecosystem partner point of view, it would appear that Base was considered for quite long time as a black hole that wasn’t worth the time and significant investment for any reasonable ROI in a decent timeframe. Yes, there was the embedded Firebird migration project, but that literally didn’t even make it halfway to being a replacement for the current and now somewhat ancient hsqldb embedded variant.
Additionally, it is of note that none of the online versions of LibreOffice of which I’m aware (and unless I’ve missed something), have any sort of Base component. This appears to have been a deliberate choice by the ecosystem partners.
With regard to MS Access, it is my understanding that it is not included in the default domestic subscription model of Microsoft 365 and that it is only available separately for Windows PC as a desktop application. This means that most domestic users are shut out from Access. An improved LO Base module would go a long way to opening up that area to people looking for a way to find the same thing without being platform restricted and having to pay separately for it. Similarly on Mac, FMPro is only available through payment of a fairly costly license fee.
It seems to be fairly difficult at the moment to find any multi-OS compatible database application or portable database solution that has a fairly easy to use UI. Either any such solutions require an embedded JVM (or corresponding JRE/JDK at corresponding system level), or else a complete Java application with the inherent limitations of the Swing UI, or else the proposed solutions are not multi-OS nor multi-arch.
Having a modern, functional Base module with a reporting engine not reliant on Java and multi-OS, multi-arch to boot, would go a long way to filling that need and helping to democratise the use of LibreOffice even further.
Base is a front end for any relational database engine, not only for Access. In addition to internal use for mail merge, the application area of Base ranges from training courses using the integrated database to complex applications with external databases in a commercial environment. And the use of SQL is by no means outdated.
Only with a good Base component users will stop to misuse a spreadsheet as database.
I would really appreciate it if TDF hired a developer who would focus specifically on Base.
I agree with Regina. Base is an important and distinctive feature of LibreOffice and it would benefit from thoughtful and innovative improvement by a skilled developer.
It is useful to remind that early 2022 a new director suggested TDF to distribute full LibreOffice Online for free. That was of course in the believe that growing market by giving away the product for free would generate more income for the ecosystem and presumably Collabora was not willing to support that. Asked for examples from a comparable open source ecosystem showing that it would not harm the ecosystem doing the work on online (Collabora), the director promised to give those later. I haven’t yet seen them.
It is useful to remind that early 2022 a new director suggested TDF to distribute full LibreOffice Online for free.
Which is exactly in line with TDF‘s mission, goal and objectives. As a director, one needs to first and foremost have TDF‘s interest in mind, which this new director obviously did.
There’s a few tools like Teable, Baserow, and Mathesar that take up this mantle but through web browsers. DBeaver on Linux also comes to mind, as does Kexi and DBGate (probably the most advanced in development).
I’m not against developing Base further, but just keep in mind there are lots of accessible FOSS solutions that are streets ahead of Base now.
I am curious how quickly one could improve Libreoffice code by loading it into an LLM and using Vibe-coding to improve the software. This will minimize onboarding time in the future and make it easier to replace the clearly self-interested and bitter Allotropia and Collabora for building business models that try to exploit and gatekeep a public good. I remember when Thb and Cors were on the board and they could barely contain their biases for their corporate interests. At least I respect Meeks’ transparency and intent for mutual benefit.
Just remember there’s always developers from emerging markets that will work double time for a fraction of the price and if you give them proper knowledge transfer (AI can help) then the output code ain’t half bad.
Hi y’all,
it’s quite hard to say how much potential Base has - simply because it’s been so far behind the other applications in the LibreOffice suite, for such a long time. So the argument that Base is ~unused, therefore any investment is useless - is circular IMO.
Those community members working with Base are IMO best placed to assess its potential:
and
Also assuming that usually, a TDF-funded developer would be able to spend a significant fraction of their time mentoring, and taking into account the existing volunteer Base developers in the project - this proposal appears to have a decent chance to kickstart & sustain a Base modernisation initiative.
Just my 2c, Thorsten
It just means that we don’t do tendering, but engage in a different process, appropriate for the situation of a single service provider. The legal controls and the procedure might be different, but in itself, that is not a problem.
Of course, that is ignoring the bad blood and outstanding claims on both sides with Collabora & Allotropia, which are still not resolved.
It just means that we don’t do tendering, but engage in a different process, appropriate for the situation of a single service provider. The legal controls and the procedure might be different, but in itself, that is not a problem.
I seriously doubt awarding contracts to always the same company is compatible with the rules we are subject to, nor desirable - even if there was no past history.
We are a nonprofit foundation, not a business club.
It has been explained more than once that your reading of TDF’s mission is not the only one and especially not the one from the meaning of the German wording, that learns that ‘free’ is as in freedom, not free as in without payment.
Your words further more seem to suggest that you do not understand TDF’s mission to unite all stakeholders in a balanced way.
It is interesting to look the outcomes of the facilitated meetings we had in Bucharest. Do read what it says about Rebuilding trust and Charitable purposes/objectives.
(Give the situation still looks quite wrecked, one wonders how it could happen that some audit concluded that spending to work on improving the internal situation, should be considered as being not in TDF’s interest.)
Why do you seriously doubt that? This is an objective constraint. And many organizations face it.
As for it being undesirable - the undesirable part is not the contracting with Collabora/Allotropia (as you are implying), it is the fact there are usually no other organizations or freelancers with which we can contract. Perhaps we should focus more resources on making LO development more accessible and easier to become experienced with, so as to facilitate the ability of others to participate in tenders. We should not cancel the budget for contracting work to be done outside the TDF.
Why do you seriously doubt that? This is an objective constraint. And
many organizations face it.
Do you have an example/reference for a nonprofit in Europe, if not
Germany, that repeatedly and for non-trivial sums over a long period of
time contracts or tenders always with the same company and has no
problems with that? I’d love to hear about it.
As for it being undesirable - the undesirable part is not the
contracting with Collabora/Allotropia (as you are implying), it is the
fact there are usually no other organizations or freelancers with which
we can contract. Perhaps we should focus more resources on making LO
development more accessible and easier to become experienced with, so as
to facilitate the ability of others to participate in tenders. We should
not cancel the budget for contracting work to be done outside the TDF.
The goal of hiring developers is to retain competence inhouse and mentor
others, so it is one element indeed of facilitating the ability of
others to participate.
You can’t ask me that question. The onus is fully on you (= the BoD and you personally) to establish that this is in any way forbidden.
Suppose I live an isolated village and there’s a single grocery store there; you’re basically saying that the village cultural foundation can’t get short-order grocery deliveries from it since it’s effectively a single supplier. That’s not the way things work and I challenge you to show otherwise.
You can’t ask me that question. The onus is fully on you (= the BoD and you personally) to establish that this is in any way forbidden.
So you make the remarkable claim what the board plans is punishing a company, and then you tell me you have no insight into the legal details actually.
Suppose I live an isolated village and there’s a
We are not an isolated village. We are an internationally active nonprofit.
But I think this discussion becomes somewhat moot now.
@SolarDesalination I appreciate the DB managers you mentioned, some of which I was already vaguely aware, but none of which are truly equivalent local & remote GUI alternatives to Base. Kexi comes close, but isn’t fully cross platform & has other limitations. Every search for a FOSS MSAccess alternative seems to come up empty.
The LLM idea is interesting, but consider this meme:
Local and remote; agree it’s a unique feature of Base.
And to your pic. Yes I agree that AI hasn’t replaced human ingenuity and critical thinking. But it’s not about getting AI to fix all the problems at once. I see it as the same concept as a data scienctist working at an organization with a data catalogue vs. without. Without, the data scientist takes months to understand the data and its context, with a data catalogue, they can search for the field and find it well defined and its lineage.
Asking AI about specific aspects of TDF code while programming speeds up the ability to see where potential regressions can occur, leverage previous work to implement similar features, and optimize specific functions or libraries. It should be used to augment developers not try to replace them. And I do think it will speed up development for those who know how to use the tech properly.
@EyalRozenberg @floeff
I don’t have a lot of experience to strongly comment on what should be prioritized. However, as someone who isn’t deeply involved, here’s what I think Base should be:
In an ideal world, Base would select one local database to develop and also have a way to easily convert forms into a full GUI manager for external databases like MariaDB. Eventually, it could even allow forms to be converted into a simple PHP-based web interface.
@Tigerdev : I am convinced enough by answers to my question about the merit of a programmer working on Base. But - I am still worried about the apparent general direction of killing the contract-work budget by hiring 5-6 developers in permanent positions.