Yep.
Hi Kendy,
Hi Daniel,
Daniel A. Rodriguez píše v Út 08. 02. 2022 v 19:31 -0300:
I think Andreas hits the nail on the head when he mentions that in
other
projects no company dominates the project or the community.The contrary is true: Most of the successful open source projects have
a major, dominating company behind them - have a look at Nextcloud
(Nextcloud GmbH), ownCloud (ownCloud GmbH), MariaDB (MariaDB
Corporation Ag), ... and I can continue on and on.
I believe that the examples you mentioned actually confirm what Daniel said.
NextCloud has been forked from ownCloud apparently for divergences on levels of "openness" which may have something to do with some commercial choices on which Frank had no control but he can surely explain it better than me:
https://karlitschek.de/2016/04/big-changes-i-am-leaving-owncloud-inc-today/
Was Frank feeling that the commercial drive was clashing with his Open Source ethos?
He asked himself quite a few interesting questions:
"Without sharing too much, there are some moral questions popping up for me. Who owns the community? Who owns ownCloud itself? And what matters more, short term money or long term responsibility and growth? Is ownCloud just another company or do we also have to answer to the hundreds of volunteers who contribute and make it what it is today?"
Shouldn't we all ask ourselves the same questions?
MariaDB has been created as Oracle acquired Sun/MySQL and the contributors didn't seem to like the idea.
MariaDB Foundation has actively chosen not to get involved much in writing code while we actually have the contrary in our statutes.
Another organisation has been created as the community didn't want to be dominated by commercial interests of a single company.
In its announcement a founder stated:
"We believe that the Foundation is a key step for the evolution of the free office suite, as it liberates the development of the code and the evolution of the project from the constraints represented by the commercial interests of a single company. Free software advocates around the world have the extraordinary opportunity of joining the group of founding members today, to write a completely new chapter in the history of FLOSS"
In LibreOffice, there is no dominating company. Many like to paint
Collabora as one, but it is not the case due to how the founding
members (and I was one of them) have designed the TDF (with the 1/3
rule in the bodies and other means to protect from the project
domination) and due to how the German charity laws work.
I believe it's important to clarify that we are talking about TDF, the Foundation that is the home of LibreOffice and its community, not "just" about LibreOffice.
In terms of code contributions Collabora has a large impact as it's first in front of the "Unknown" category, RedHat, TDF and Allotropia.
As Italo said during FOSDEM code commits isn't all there is in terms of contributions so we'll probably have to look more closely at the data to celebrate the value of the many others that contribute to the project.
In terms of influence in TDF, Collabora has quite a large impact looking at the members in some of TDF's bodies so it would be great to have better representation.
The 1/3 rule is good but I guess that when it has been written when people were looking at a scenario were board members could have represented a very diverse and large number of commercial organisations. They probably didn't think there could be a company with employees, suppliers and their business partners in the same board.
There is work to do to understand why TDF hasn't been able to retain some of its contributors over the years and what we should do to attract more, not necessarily only developers, to have more people that can bring in new ways to look at the problems that all Open Source projects have to deal with and find solutions that work for our community.
Also, such thinking is very offensive to eg. Allotropia - who is doing
a great job undermining any kind of potential domination by excellent
engineering;
Allotropia has great developers with great potential for contributions.
have a look at their impressive WASM prototype.
Allotropia is doing great with the WASM prototype and I reiterate my proposal to agree on a shared outcome in case investments from TDF are to be considered with some interest.
But if you want to see an open source project with no company behind
them, have a look at Apache OpenOffice.
If I'm not mistaken the vast majority of contributors to Apache OpenOffice decided to move away as they didn't want to be dominated by companies' commercial interests 
Anyway the point here isn't to not have a commercial ecosystem, quite the contrary as we need more diversity to avoid creating a kind of "group thinking" that limits the board points of view about the issues we face and the solutions available.
Probably we should go back to the origins to see what the founders wanted TDF to be:
"The Document Foundation is an independent self-governing democratic Foundation created by leading
members of the OpenOffice.org Community. It continues to build on the Foundation of ten years'
dedicated work by the OpenOffice.org community, and was created in the belief that an independent
Foundation is the best fit to the Community's core values of openness, transparency, and valuing
people for their contribution. It is open to any individual who agrees with our core values and
contributes to our activities, and welcomes corporate participation, e.g. by sponsoring individuals
to work as equals alongside other contributors in the community."
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/announce/msg00000.html
All the best,
Kendy
Ciao
Paolo
Hi,
Hi Daniel,
Daniel A. Rodriguez píše v Út 08. 02. 2022 v 19:31 -0300:
I think Andreas hits the nail on the head when he mentions that in
other
projects no company dominates the project or the community.The contrary is true: Most of the successful open source projects have
a major, dominating company behind them - have a look at Nextcloud
(Nextcloud GmbH), ownCloud (ownCloud GmbH), MariaDB (MariaDB
Corporation Ag), ... and I can continue on and on.
once I read this sentences the first time, I thought I was in a
different film in 2010. But maybe I didn't understand the situation in
OOo project at that time.
Maybe this is due to the fact that I hadn't been at the dinner of an
inner circle during the Budapest conference.
In LibreOffice, there is no dominating company. Many like to paint
Collabora as one, but it is not the case due to how the founding
members (and I was one of them) have designed the TDF (with the 1/3
Sorry, but the founder of TDF was the association 'Freies Office
Deutschland e.V. (FrODeV)' with money from the world wide supporting
community.
rule in the bodies and other means to protect from the project
domination) and due to how the German charity laws work.
After some years in the LibreOffice project and TDF I reconsider that
the one third rule should have been one seat at maximum for an
organization. This would have lead to a more divers formation of TDF's
bodies.
But that is something that could be fixed only with high effort in case
there is a will to go in that direction.
Also, such thinking is very offensive to eg. Allotropia - who is doing
a great job undermining any kind of potential domination by excellent
engineering; have a look at their impressive WASM prototype.But if you want to see an open source project with no company behind
them, have a look at Apache OpenOffice.
Sorry, but there are other OSS projects with a lot of business
contributors with different sizes and a balanced impact on the project.
In my view such a structure / ecosystem is much more healthy.
Regards,
Andreas
Hi Paolo,
Paolo Vecchi píše v St 09. 02. 2022 v 19:56 +0100:
He asked himself quite a few interesting questions:
"Without sharing too much, there are some moral questions popping up
for
me. Who owns the community? Who owns ownCloud itself? And what
matters
more, short term money or long term responsibility and growth? Is
ownCloud just another company or do we also have to answer to the
hundreds of volunteers who contribute and make it what it is today?"Shouldn't we all ask ourselves the same questions?
Awesome - so now you finally understand how hard a decision it was for
us (Free Software lovers & contributors for decades) to move the LOOL
development to GitHub - because it was the result of asking & pondering
the same questions. Thank you for that!
Particularly:
* TDF does not own the community, TDF is an organization designed to
make the community (let me repeat, "community" = "group of
contributors") strong & flourishing.
* TDF does not own LibreOffice itself; it owns the brand, but the code,
translations, etc. is owned by the particular contributors (ie. by
the community) - to the level of lines of code, strings of
translations, icons painted, test cases provided, etc.
* Long term responsibility & growth matter more - and when the LOOL's
(sub-)community didn't grow under TDF, it was time to move on. The
decisions shouldn't be about donation money.
And regarding the last one: "Is TDF just another foundation or do we
also have to answer to the hundreds of volunteers who contribute and
make it what it is today?" is for us, the new board, to improve -
because from what I can see, TDF was not listening to the contributors
the last 2 years too much.
Let's improve it together!
All the best,
Kendy
Hi Kendy,
On 09/02/2022 15:57, Jan Holesovsky wrote:
Hi Paolo, Paolo Vecchi píše v St 09. 02. 2022 v 15:09 +0100:The community and our valuable members of the ecosystem have been asking us to invest more in developmentIt is important to understand that "community" means "contributors"; as opposed to "users". "Users" are not part of the "community", until they start contributing; via code, QA, translations, marketing under the TDF umbrella, etc.
I’m sorry but I have to strongly disagree with your statement.
“contributors” are not opposed to “users” as users, which are/could become contributors at any time, are amongst the main beneficiaries of all TDF does as from our statutes and mission as a Foundation.
We do encourage users to contribute in any way they can even with simple things like filing a bug or simply promoting LibreOffice to their friends and family helps our community. Even the simple fact that they use LibreOffice can be part of fulfilling our goals as it helps with the “distribution of FLOSS philosophical and cultural ideals”.
On libreoffice.org we can also read:
“LibreOffice is Free and Open Source Software. Development is open to new talent and new ideas, and our software is tested and used daily by a large and devoted user community.”
Even Collabora’s own forum includes users in their own community “competent community of users, integrators, and developers”
I think that, as part of the on-boarding process, we should include a session hosted by Florian and Mike Schinagl that clarifies to all why TDF has been created, what its role is and what we should all keep in mind while performing our duties as members of the board.
With that in mind - can you please point us to those requests?
There are plenty of examples in board’s public and private meetings and even in articles that have been published quoting members of the ecosystem.
Eg:
‘TDF has around €1.5m in the bank, Meeks said, but something that may surprise outsiders is that the foundation cannot and does not use that money to employ developers.’
‘Thorsten Behrens, IT lead for LibreOffice at CIB, told The Register he was “99 per cent in agreement” with Meeks, adding: “The TDF is a charity; it’s not in the business of developing software and actually cannot, because that would put it in competition with the commercial ecosystem,” as well as threatening its charitable status.’
or
'Turning TDF donations into feature/function improvements is not only a process that at best is approximately 10% of that total development…"
These clear calls, from 2020, for TDF to invest more in developers have been listened to and some misconceptions, which have been holding back TDF for a long time, have been clarified.
Some comments are very odd as we know that “The objective of the foundation is the promotion and development of office software available for use by anyone free of charge.” and it isn’t clear at all how improving LibreOffice could be in competition with the commercial ecosystem, the commercial ecosystem partners focus on their own market segment with their own services which TDF doesn’t provide.
So, as things are much clearer, we can now get to work to make TDF an active code contributor which will help in making LibreOffice better for all.
Thank you! All the best, Kendy
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Kendy,
Am 10.02.2022 um 10:49 schrieb Jan Holesovsky:
because from what I can see, TDF was not listening to the contributors the last 2 years too much.
sorry to step in here but at this point I have to take part:
It was one of my first and foremost task as chair - and let me add it was hard time consuming work - that everybody was heard and could speak, it is simply not true, that contributors wasn’t heard.
It is a different issue, if all of that got a majority in deciding in the board or was convincing everybody, there you could certainly be different opinion, but not for the pure fact if contributors wasn’t heard.
I think this is worth to differentiate. Nevertheless there is always room for improvement, for which the new board certainly should reach out.
Thanks
Lothar
Hi Lothar,
Lothar K. Becker píše v Čt 10. 02. 2022 v 11:12 +0100:
It was one of my first and foremost task as chair - and let me add it
was hard time consuming work - that everybody was heard and could
speak, it is simply not true, that contributors wasn't heard.
I am sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I've seen it myself in the
public parts of the calls I were attending how hard a job it must have
been for you given the conditions, and I am sure you *yourself* made
everything to listen very carefully - thank you for that!
And the same way - I want thank everyone who were carefully listening &
considering, instead of just pushing their agenda.
All the best,
Kendy
Hi,
Some parts of LibreOffice are not covered by the ecosystem…
Although we sometimes have customers who ask for improvements :
May be those topics below are not fashionable but they contribute to give some credibility to LibreOffice
-
VBA compatibility
-
Basic bugs
-
Base enhancement
-
Python support
-
Math equation
-
Slide transition
-
documents signature support (CNG api)
-
All most annoying bugs…
All the best
Le jeu. 10 févr. 2022 à 11:30, Jan Holesovsky <kendy@documentfoundation.org> a écrit :
Hi Lothar,
Lothar K. Becker píše v Čt 10. 02. 2022 v 11:12 +0100:
It was one of my first and foremost task as chair - and let me add it
was hard time consuming work - that everybody was heard and could
speak, it is simply not true, that contributors wasn’t heard.I am sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ve seen it myself in the
public parts of the calls I were attending how hard a job it must have
been for you given the conditions, and I am sure you yourself made
everything to listen very carefully - thank you for that!And the same way - I want thank everyone who were carefully listening &
considering, instead of just pushing their agenda.All the best,
Kendy–
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Hi Regis,
Regis Perdreau píše v Čt 10. 02. 2022 v 11:21 +0100:
Some parts of LibreOffice are not covered by the ecosystem...
Although we sometimes have customers who ask for improvements :
If you talk about customers - it sounds like there is a company willing
to pay to fix those. With my Collabora hat on, I'd love somebody from
our company to talk to those customers to see what we can offer them.
But with my TDF hat on - why should TDF, paid by donations from real,
living people, use those donations to employ developers to fix stuff
for enterprises?
May be those topics below are not fashionable but they contribute to
give some credibility to LibreOffice- VBA compatibility
- Basic bugs
- Base enhancement
- Python support
- Math equation
- Slide transition
- documents signature support (CNG api)
- All most annoying bugs...
I didn't check how many of these were proposed for tendering - but I
think some of these were. Can you please add the missing ones as
proposals, so that it is possible to rate them & see which of them are
in line with the TDF goals & TDF can tender them?
Thank you very much!
All the best,
Kendy
Hi *,
Paolo Vecchi wrote:
> It is important to understand that "community" means "contributors"; as
> opposed to "users". "Users" are not part of the "community", until
> they start contributing; via code, QA, translations, marketing under
> the TDF umbrella, etc.I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree with your statement.
In fact Paolo wasn't disagreeing so much, just stressed that users
should be encouraged to become contributors.
That's indeed a very important, and perhaps an under-used approach to
increase overall contributions in the project!
On the statement per se, that we (as in, TDF, and its board in
particular) predominantly need to care and listen to our contributors,
I would believe there's hardly any disagreement in the community.
I think that, as part of the on-boarding process, we should include a
session hosted by Florian and Mike Schinagl that clarifies to all why TDF
has been created, what its role is and what we should all keep in mind while
performing our duties as members of the board.
While it is important for the new board to know what TDF can, and
cannot do (and in fact Paolo will find an email in his inbox, where
Florian is announcing exactly such an onboarding), the role of the
board is the opposite - to lead, within the limits of the charitable
laws, where the community needs us to go.
Looking at the reasons why TDF was started almost 12 years ago
shouldn't be the sole guiding principle. Living in the past is not a
good board strategy.
I'll not comment on the quotes out of a press article, shown without
much context and lacking a link to the original source (which would be
good practice). The article
(https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/16/libreoffice_ecosystem_beyond_utterly_broken/)
was written in the context of the LOOL and MarComm plan discussions,
and the fallout around the LibreOffice Personal / LibreOffice
Community arguments. I recommend reading it in full.
Finally, on the apparent contradiction between what Andreas (lawyer,
TDF founder, long-term board member) and Paolo state on what TDF is
permitted to do: this is part of an ongoing discussion with various
experts.
I would much prefer not discussing difficult legal matters on a public
list.
Cheers,
-- Thorsten
Hi all,
* Members of the ecosystem and others also suggested that we should
spend more money in development
* Bugs, a11y issues and features can be harder to taken care of by
volunteers and are not always addressed by the ecosystem
* We need to build up internal skills and development capabilities to
speed up innovationI agree here that there are several areas like CJK and CTL (and not only for bug fixes) or ally that should deserve much more love from TDF and I'm sure our donors would be happy that we invest in this area too.
That would help also to grow this part of the community, which is very complicated to achieve when our version is difficult to use.
That sounds like a good approach to me, in particular for areas where there's currently no specific interest from ecosystem companies or volunteers and that are unsuitable for tenders, but considered important for the community.
I would see that in line with how TDF already employs non-developer staff to take care of other important aspects not (sufficiently) covered by other contributors.
I have the impression that a fundamentally important question is what the purpose/task of TDF-internal developers would be.
If larger topics that TDF-internal developers were to work on were first agreed on in the bodies where ecosystem companies are present as well (like ESC and/or the board), my expectation would be that the development work from different sides should work together nicely, rather than creating any kind of destructive competition.
(Ecosystem company products profit from contributions made to LibreOffice as well, and having a better overall product should in my opinion also increase the range of potentially interested customers in general.)
Of course, in case the main intention were for TDF to provide more business-like services (like an LTS version or creating an impression of "donate a certain amount of money and your pet bug will be fixed"), I see very well how that might interfere significantly with the business model of ecosystem companies.
Assuming members in the involved LibreOffice/TDF bodies found a way to work together constructively, my current impression is that this approach could be for the benefit of all.
However, I must admit I don't know the ecosystem company perspective first-hand, so would be interested in learning more about specific concerns.
Best regards,
Michael
Thank you for your support Michael!
I confirm that my proposal does not contemplate at all offering LTS version or any other services in exchange for donations.
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Kendy,
Hi Paolo,
Paolo Vecchi píše v St 09. 02. 2022 v 19:56 +0100:
He asked himself quite a few interesting questions:
"Without sharing too much, there are some moral questions popping up
for
me. Who owns the community? Who owns ownCloud itself? And what
matters
more, short term money or long term responsibility and growth? Is
ownCloud just another company or do we also have to answer to the
hundreds of volunteers who contribute and make it what it is today?"Shouldn't we all ask ourselves the same questions?
Awesome - so now you finally understand how hard a decision it was for
us (Free Software lovers & contributors for decades) to move the LOOL
development to GitHub - because it was the result of asking & pondering
the same questions. Thank you for that!
I'm not sure it's as awesome as you may think.
What NextCloud seems to have done is practically the contrary to what Collabora did.
I never talked with Frank about it, and even if it happened I wouldn't share it without his permission, but his own published thoughts seem to indicate that for him his Open Source ethos wasn't fully respected in a company that was going "too commercial" that's why I wondered "Was Frank feeling that the commercial drive was clashing with his Open Source ethos?"
I don't think I ever heard Frank saying that NextCloud users were not part of the community or complaining that there were too many freeloaders like others do.
We have any a couple of public threads that you may find useful to view the LOOL issue from both sides.
They are linked here:
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00099.html
The clear summary anyway is that LOOL, conceived as a project that should have been delivered to the community, has been forked as commercial interests prevailed regardless of the agreements in place, the negotiations that were still ongoing and the marketing plan, which included LOOL, being developed.
Particularly:
* TDF does not own the community, TDF is an organization designed to
make the community (let me repeat, "community" = "group of
contributors") strong & flourishing.
I reported verbatim Frank's questions.
He probably was wondering if a community should be "owned" by a commercial organisation.
Then see my previous email in regards to the definition of "community":
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00167.html
* TDF does not own LibreOffice itself; it owns the brand, but the code,
translations, etc. is owned by the particular contributors (ie. by
the community) - to the level of lines of code, strings of
translations, icons painted, test cases provided, etc.
Also NextCloud GmbH doesn't own the code it produced or the code, translations, etc. produced by contributors.
It doesn't even own its brand as a foundation owns it.
TDF has been created as the home of LibreOffice and its community.
See the rest of the email you omitted, towards the end:
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00164.html
* Long term responsibility & growth matter more - and when the LOOL's
(sub-)community didn't grow under TDF, it was time to move on. The
decisions shouldn't be about donation money.
When in the early days a SUSE employee proposed to TDF the LOOL project he was developing more contributors came along.
It seems like at some point contributions stopped. We may need to investigate to help us understanding what went wrong and avoid similar mistakes in future.
Did some contributions stop because some thought that they were contributing to a company instead of a community?
Did the contributors get employed by Collabora so it looked like nobody else was interested in contributing?
Was the project too complex for many individual contributors to deal with?
Other factors at play?
And regarding the last one: "Is TDF just another foundation or do we
also have to answer to the hundreds of volunteers who contribute and
make it what it is today?" is for us, the new board, to improve -
Well, removing the name of a commercial organisation that Frank was leaving behind and replacing it with the non for profit and independent TDF frames things in a very different way.
Anyway of course we have to focus on the millions of users and hundreds of contributors that form our community and support us in various ways with code, localization, marketing, infrastructure, QA, design, word of mouth, events and activities, donations and in many more ways.
because from what I can see, TDF was not listening to the contributors
the last 2 years too much.
As Lothar said members of the board listened and had to work very hard to fix many issues and to get the relevant information showing that TDF can do much more that it has been thought including investing in developers.
Let's improve it together!
Yes but let's keep in mind that members of TDF's board of directors, while performing their duties, need put first the interests of TDF and its wider community and not focus mostly on "subsets".
All the best,
Kendy
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Michael,
Thanks for summarizing my thoughts on your email (as far as I can understand from your message, we share exactly the same ideas).
I agree here that there are several areas like CJK and CTL (and not only for bug fixes) or ally that should deserve much more love from TDF and I'm sure our donors would be happy that we invest in this area too.
That would help also to grow this part of the community, which is very complicated to achieve when our version is difficult to use.
Totally agree.
That sounds like a good approach to me, in particular for areas where there's currently no specific interest from ecosystem companies or volunteers and that are unsuitable for tenders, but considered important for the community.
I would see that in line with how TDF already employs non-developer staff to take care of other important aspects not (sufficiently) covered by other contributors.
Totally agree.
I have the impression that a fundamentally important question is what the purpose/task of TDF-internal developers would be.
Yes, but it looks like the discussion is blocked one step before reaching a consensus on this very simple point. If the discussion stays as such, I have to say that I don't feel I am represented - as a TDF Member - by any member of the just elected board of directors (of course, those who have expressed their opinions).
If larger topics that TDF-internal developers were to work on were first agreed on in the bodies where ecosystem companies are present as well (like ESC and/or the board), my expectation would be that the development work from different sides should work together nicely, rather than creating any kind of destructive competition.
(Ecosystem company products profit from contributions made to LibreOffice as well, and having a better overall product should in my opinion also increase the range of potentially interested customers in general.)
Totally agree.
Of course, in case the main intention were for TDF to provide more business-like services (like an LTS version or creating an impression of "donate a certain amount of money and your pet bug will be fixed"), I see very well how that might interfere significantly with the business model of ecosystem companies.
Totally agree. But I don't see the issue, as ESC and BoD members could easily stop any project before it starts, when there is a potential risk of conflict. AFAIK, major development activities are scrutinized by both bodies, as they are ranked in order of importance, suggested, approved and transformed to tenders, or not considered for tendering.
Development activities which are not considered for tendering, or just ignored, could probably be developed by TDF without creating disruptions (or even discussions). I am rather sure that in 7 million lines of code (plus the open bugs) there are enough challenges for everyone.
Of course, given my complete lack of understanding of development, is too easy to find a technical angle to disprove what I just wrote, but it would also be disproving what many of the contributors - the community - think, and this would confirm my personal belief that TDF BoD does not represent the community as a whole, but only a portion of it.
Assuming members in the involved LibreOffice/TDF bodies found a way to work together constructively, my current impression is that this approach could be for the benefit of all.
Again, totally agree. Best regards, Italo
Hi Andreas,
Andreas Mantke píše v St 09. 02. 2022 v 19:58 +0100:
once I read this sentences the first time, I thought I was in a
different film in 2010. But maybe I didn't understand the situation
in OOo project at that time.
I may be wrong, it is a long time ago, but from what I remember, the
problem was not the domination per se [though please don't understand
me as supporting domination ;-)], but the unwillingness to communicate
& seek consensus how to improve the situation for contributors.
[This is also why I insist that "community" means the contributors -
the situation was perfectly fine for the users; they were getting their
builds for free & were happy.]
At that time:
* There was the CWS system that was forcing contributors to go through
a complicated process even for the simplest fixes
+ unless you have found a friendly internal engineer who was kind
enough to include your patch into their CWS
+ not to mention that the access to CWS was restricted for the
outside for a long time in the first place
* CVS was a disaster for version control
+ and I've created a working, usable git import
+ yet Mercurial was favored, even though not ready for the
OOo size
+ so the conversion was postponed and OOo was converted to
Subversion as a temporary measure
+ then 2 years later converted to Mercurial
- with a terrible penalty for the non-internal contributors,
because Mercurial had to download 500MB of metadata for each
branch [which might be OK'ish these days - but this was
11 years ago and more]
+ only to be converted to Subversion again [at Apache]
+ and then finally to git
* the localization went through the .sdf files
+ I was not involved in this, so I have only vague memories it was
a terrible pain for the l10n community
* the build system was a disaster by itself due to build.pl & dmake
+ and worse, the company had a different, internal one
- so no interest in improving it for the contributors
+ but at least Bjoern has invented the gbuild while being an
internal engineer, regardless of the internal pushback
- he's a hero; and I have fond memories of other heroes who
helped to make the contributing easier
- still - the general approach of the company was to make
the contribution hard.
* I'm sure there's more; but luckily I forgot 
So if you see any sign of an ecosystem company trying to make
contributing harder (like the above), please do shout - contributing
must be as easy as possible for everybody who wants to contribute!
All the best,
Kendy
Hi all,
Hi *,
Paolo Vecchi wrote:
It is important to understand that "community" means "contributors"; as
opposed to "users". "Users" are not part of the "community", until
they start contributing; via code, QA, translations, marketing under
the TDF umbrella, etc.I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree with your statement.
In fact Paolo wasn't disagreeing so much, just stressed that users
should be encouraged to become contributors.
I was actually disagreeing with a statement saying that users are not part of the community.
On the statement per se, that we (as in, TDF, and its board in
particular) predominantly need to care and listen to our contributors,
I would believe there's hardly any disagreement in the community.
Sure that we have to listen but that doesn't mean we have to do all what contributors say as some ideas passionately promoted by some contributors within the board turned out to be suboptimal and cost months of work and arguing.
I think that, as part of the on-boarding process, we should include a
session hosted by Florian and Mike Schinagl that clarifies to all why TDF
has been created, what its role is and what we should all keep in mind while
performing our duties as members of the board.While it is important for the new board to know what TDF can, and
cannot do (and in fact Paolo will find an email in his inbox, where
Florian is announcing exactly such an onboarding), the role of the
board is the opposite - to lead, within the limits of the charitable
laws, where the community needs us to go.
From the exchanges I've seen it seems like it's really important to make clear what TDF is and what was set up to do.
Looking at the reasons why TDF was started almost 12 years ago
shouldn't be the sole guiding principle. Living in the past is not a
good board strategy.
While we should clearly evolve and grow, TDF has been setup for a specific reason and it has been incorporated on purpose as a Foundation (Stiftung) to preserve its guiding principles. It seems like it's more important than ever to remind ourselves of that and have a nice session with Florian and Mike Schinagl to tell us more about it.
The feedback we are receiving and the legal consultations we had confirm that employing developers to contribute directly to LibreOffice fits perfectly with TDF's purpose and objectives and allows to do more for our community.
Paraphrasing slightly what someone said quite a few years ago "Ask not what your community can do for you - ask what you can do for your community" so TDF should lead and do before expecting others to do.
I'll not comment on the quotes out of a press article, shown without
much context and lacking a link to the original source (which would be
good practice). The article
(https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/16/libreoffice_ecosystem_beyond_utterly_broken/)
was written in the context of the LOOL and MarComm plan discussions,
and the fallout around the LibreOffice Personal / LibreOffice
Community arguments. I recommend reading it in full.
I did not link the article on purpose as it really doesn't make the two person involved look good at all, it denigrates TDF, it reports misconceptions that have been clarified, it states that TDF cannot do things that are actually in the statutes and in general did not reflect the thoughts of the majority of the board.
It nearly got a quite strong public answer but some preferred to avoid it.
Finally, on the apparent contradiction between what Andreas (lawyer,
TDF founder, long-term board member) and Paolo state on what TDF is
permitted to do: this is part of an ongoing discussion with various
experts.I would much prefer not discussing difficult legal matters on a public
list.
They are not difficult legal matters, they are just basic legal consultations that gave us confirmation that we can do much more that previously thought.
I'm quite sure that Andreas (lawyer, TDF founder, long-term board member) would agree with Paolo (nothing much apparently) if he were a board member in this term and participated to the legal consultations. There is also no contradiction as Andreas summarised well the final scope for the employment of the developers which is the same scope for our tenders.
Cheers,
-- Thorsten
Ciao
Paolo
Hi Italo,
Italo Vignoli píše v Čt 10. 02. 2022 v 16:31 +0100:
Yes, but it looks like the discussion is blocked one step before
reaching a consensus on this very simple point. If the discussion
stays
as such, I have to say that I don't feel I am represented - as a TDF
Member - by any member of the just elected board of directors (of
course, those who have expressed their opinions).
This is very sad to hear 
I am afraid this is a product of the
unilateral & vigorous presentation of hiring developers as the only way
forward, regardless of what the ecosystem companies have to say.
> Of course, in case the main intention were for TDF to provide more
> business-like services (like an LTS version or creating an
> impression of
> "donate a certain amount of money and your pet bug will be fixed"),
> I
> see very well how that might interfere significantly with the
> business
> model of ecosystem companies.Totally agree. But I don't see the issue, as ESC and BoD members
could
easily stop any project before it starts, when there is a potential
risk
of conflict. AFAIK, major development activities are scrutinized by
both
bodies, as they are ranked in order of importance, suggested,
approved
and transformed to tenders, or not considered for tendering.
If assurances like these were part of the proposal, I am sure it would
be much easier to discuss - at least for me personally. Thank you for
pointing this out!
And also Michael (W.) - thank you for your great summary!
All the best,
Kendy
Hi Kendy,
Hi Italo,
Italo Vignoli píše v Čt 10. 02. 2022 v 16:31 +0100:
Yes, but it looks like the discussion is blocked one step before
reaching a consensus on this very simple point. If the discussion
stays
as such, I have to say that I don't feel I am represented - as a TDF
Member - by any member of the just elected board of directors (of
course, those who have expressed their opinions).This is very sad to hear
unilateral & vigorous presentation of hiring developers as the only way
forward, regardless of what the ecosystem companies have to say.
And I feel the same. Hiring developers is not the only way forward, it's one of them. We, as members, knows the ecosystem companies have needs and I (for myself) understand perfectly the market pressure. But here, as a member of TDF, we contribute with the ecosystem companies, not for them.
Of course, in case the main intention were for TDF to provide more
business-like services (like an LTS version or creating an
impression of
"donate a certain amount of money and your pet bug will be fixed"),
I
see very well how that might interfere significantly with the
business
model of ecosystem companies.Totally agree. But I don't see the issue, as ESC and BoD members
could
easily stop any project before it starts, when there is a potential
risk
of conflict. AFAIK, major development activities are scrutinized by
both
bodies, as they are ranked in order of importance, suggested,
approved
and transformed to tenders, or not considered for tendering.If assurances like these were part of the proposal, I am sure it would
be much easier to discuss - at least for me personally. Thank you for
pointing this out!
Their is even no written proposal at the moment, but only a discussion on the pros and cons and what it could bring to the project. But it seems impossible to discuss because the ecosystem companies won't allow it.
I'm sorry, I already wrote in a previous thread that TDF has failed to have a balanced position during the pandemic, caring of the charitable part of its duty, I hope we will not continue in that way because, again as a member, this is not how I feel represented.
And also Michael (W.) - thank you for your great summary!
yes, thanks Michael to have broaden my proposal and my ideas.
Cheers
Sophie
Hi Italo,
I have the impression that a fundamentally important question is what the purpose/task of TDF-internal developers would be.
Yes, but it looks like the discussion is blocked one step before reaching a consensus on this very simple point.
It seems reasonable to explore what people should be hired to do - before hiring them =) That has the benefit of working out what skills are needed in the job advert and/or interview process for example. The 'discussion' here - I would not see as blocked, but problematic see later.
There is a huge amount of need around LibreOffice development. It is easy to find a hundred different "top priority" issues each dear to the heart of a user, each user convinced that if only we had eg. 'Reveal Codes' in writer everyone would use LibreOffice.
As for no-one listening to users - I spend my life listening to customers & partners & users - and trying to do what they want. Anyone jealous of some big pool of unconstrained money / development power in corporate contributors is mistaken. Nevertheless I still get impassioned complaints of why Collabora did X and not Y from intelligent, articulate, engaged community members.
TDF in contrast while it has many constraints on what it can do - has few time constraints on its spending, which frees it to do more strategic long-term work. Thus it can invest more efficiently with some multiplying factor - via the educational / mentoring role into specific areas. I for one would support some targeted a11y / CTL mentoring - those seem like good areas that Sophie outlines - and ones where we can perhaps shine & grow the contributor community.
However - there is a cliff-face of need here. It seems totally sensible to suggest that hiring internal developers without any plan of working out what they should work on seems premature. Part of why mentors are attractive is that their agenda is partly lead by what volunteers want to do. That can be steered of course by creating new easy-hacks / tasks / projects in directions they want to go - and/or learning on the job themselves by hacking on things.
For myself, I would want to see some sensible mechanism that includes the views of those who contribute via donations as to what is important. Then again if we dedicate donations solely in-line with what donors want - I suspect certain key functions: admin, marketing might not get the attention they deserve: so again, there is no obvious solution here beyond the board getting wide input and deciding (as they do now).
If the discussion stays as such, I have to say that I don't feel I
am represented - as a TDF Member - by any member of the just elected
board of directors (of course, those who have expressed their opinions).
and:
> Of course, given my complete lack of understanding of development, is
> too easy to find a technical angle to disprove what I just wrote, but
> it would also be disproving what many of the contributors - the
> community - think, and this would confirm my personal belief that
> TDF BoD does not represent the community as a whole, but only a
> portion of it.
It would be deeply unfortunate if the above was read as questioning the legitimacy and composition of the new board - and that before they have been seated and/or taken a single decision. It would be good to clarify that reading.
I would note that everyone who stood for the board was elected - and perhaps acknowledging the complexity of what might look like simple decisions from the outside - is real & not imaginary. I wish them the best as they try to find the local maxima in some multi-dimensional problem space.
As for finding new board members on the list to express a view you feel represents you: these long threads packed with trolling and misrepresentation on board-discuss are not a great way to interact I suspect. Why would a new board member want to engage in them while they find their feet ? Lets not be quick to preemptively despair of sensible decision making.
But I don't see the issue, as ESC and BoD members could easily stop
any project before it starts, when there is a potential risk of conflict.
These days the we have created rules to exclude people from such decision making - which has the potential to significantly exacerbate conflict and division I feel.
But you're right, in theory the BoD is sovereign.
Regards,
Michael.
Hi Paolo,
Paolo Vecchi wrote:
I was actually disagreeing with a statement saying that users are not part
of the community.
Then we have to agree to disagree.
Sole users (i.e. without contributing anything to the community) are
to my mind never part of a FLOSS project community.
The rest of your answer are mostly unproductive jabs at various
people, that I refuse to interact with.
Cheers,
-- Thorsten