Ideas around TDF's future

Hi @mikesaunders,

That is a bit of self selecting though, because productivity is not just ā€œdesktopā€. Desktop productivity use itself is getting more and more a corner case: In my day jobs, ā€œdesktopā€ productivity software have not been used anymore by my employers for a decade at least already. Now, the future is not evenly distributed, but the desktop itself is becoming irrelevant.
Are there still people using ā€œdesktopā€ software? Sure, but it is hardly universal in the way you are arguing.

A common trap people fall into is that assuming the LibreOffice project is something you can just wish for your feature to be implemented free of charge or without a contribution (or worse: to be bought by donation). That is obviously not how that works or can work, so it is important that ā€œfree of chargeā€ is not a goal in itself, but means: it is the easiest way to unlock and generate future contribution.

By extension, the foundation needs to carefully consider other investments (like e.g. hosting productivity solutions beyond desktop binaries) on if they also enable enable or unlock future contribution in the same way.

Best Regards,
Bjoern

Iā€™m not sure what the argument around a project or product means in practical terms. I mean, if LibreOffice is not a product and TDF is not an organization about a product, what that means in practical terms?

IMHO, TDFā€™s lack of involvement in ā€œproduct managementā€ is one of the great failures of LibreOffice (which I did raise back in 2019, so it is not a new opinion of mine), since volunteers canā€™t fill that role and companies only care about their customers, so who looks after the needs of LibreOffice users? I was hoping that TDF hiring developers is a change in this direction.

Though it is common for open source projects to not care about non-contributing users, certainly a non-profit organization shouldnā€™t be structured that way, or what is the point of being tax-exempted non-profit if it only cares about its contributors. There is certainly some form of industry consortium that could have been formed instead.

4 Likes

Hi Florian,

I donā€™t see anyone disagreeing, that having something like a tangible ā€œproductā€ out there was (and is) a very useful thing for TDF to do. And of course the messaging (and this article is a PR statement), in particular at the beginning of the fork, when we were up against OpenOffice, which very clearly was marketed and developed as a product - it was quite mandatory to uphold the impression that we were ā€œsimilar-just-betterā€.

Itā€™s just not something that is at the very core of an OpenSource Foundation. I agree with @Sweetshark and others, that providing such ā€œproductsā€ are a means to an end, to grow and nurture the community of contributors.

Best, Thorsten

1 Like

Hi @khaledhosny2 ,

The societal benefits of OpenSource (that includes everyone: individual citizens, companies, and the public sector) are undisputed and huge: see e.g. this joinup article from 2012, or the more recent (and more modest, in terms of value) one from the EU Connect Directorate.

So I donā€™t think this product-vs-code distinction is something that in general affects the beneficial nature of an OpenSource foundation towards society. As such, it probably does not help us in this discussion.

Best, Thorsten

HI @khaledhosny2, Hi @floeff,

I think you raise a few good points, but before being able to care for the needs and desires of non-contributing users, one needs to have an agreement on what those are. A product(*) ā€“ unlike a service ā€“ inherently wants to minimize the interaction between user and provider. A product free of charge uncouples the user from the provider practically entirely. As such, I am very suspicious about anyone arguing to act on behalf of them.

What the LibreOffice project reliably knows is contributors and it can assume they care for the users (otherwise they would not spend their resources here). Their input (by the trustees via the board of directors) is the best guidance on the direction of the project you can get.

I know, but I think most would naively assume a larger share to be spend on development. Also note that while salaries have been reliably spend, TDF doesnt have the best track record in really spending what was budgeted for tenders (and not all tenders are about code). So the real investment by TDF in code is most certainly lower than most users, donors and contributors expect. Im not saying that is good or bad btw ā€“ just that common perception likely quite off here.

LibreOffice is a democratic community and an meritocratic project and not a church or a cult. As such, we dont need priests who interpret the words of prophets from decades gone by, but need to hear the active contributors in 2023 how they see the objectives of the project.

Best Regards,

Bjoern
(*) According to the German wikipedia a product is a ā€œresult of an organization that can be produced without any transaction between organization and customerā€ in ISO9000.

I hope I can still be seen as an active contributor :slight_smile:
I believe LibreOffice the product is empowering communities and is able to save lifes. That is where Iā€™m proud to contribute to the product and where Iā€™m happy to be contracted by TDF to further give people a mean to collect, analyze, illustrate and document the information and the data they need on their daily life wherever they are in the world.

We have, almost each month translators in new languages. Translating less spoken or endangered languages is not only for the beauty of the contribution, LibreOffice here has a key importance because it keeps the language active and evolving and it lets people express themselves in their own language.

So speaking about TDF future, I hope it will still reaffirm its mission of:

  • eliminate the digital divide in society by giving everyone access to office productivity tools free of charge to enable them to participate as full citizens in the 21st century
  • support the preservation of mother tongues by encouraging all peoples to translate, document, support, and promote our office productivity tools in their mother tongue
  • allow users of office productivity software to retain the intellectual property in the documents they create by use of open document formats and open standards
  • an open and transparent peer-reviewed software development process where technical excellence is valued

Iā€™m an open source contributor since 23 years now and Iā€™m well aware on how much it has evolved. Iā€™m also well connected with other foundations, like Eclipse or Software Heritage and others. Which is quite amazing how a collective approach to open source has to differ from one foundation to another to cover the world needs, thatā€™s great :slight_smile:

So fortunately, TDF is not dedicated to develop and promote open source products for the business market, but include the 3 bullet points above that makes it relevant for many more communities and niche usage. Thatā€™s up to us to attract them as a community through diversity and inclusiveness (not only in the community but also by product offers), but also by listening to and understanding their needs and being creative to include and answer them. We are not there in my opinion at the moment.

3 Likes

Have you considered users reporting issues or asking for enhancements on Bugzilla?

Hi @sophi, Hi @htietze,

I wrote:

causing @htietze to ask:

You mean taking random enhancement requests that ask for a contribution to LibreOffice and tendering them with a random amount of money? No, I have not considered doing that without consulting with experts who can judge those requests.

Who might be an expert on possible contributions to the LibreOffice project? I think it might be ā€¦ contributors. Just a guess though.

I think most of that is great, some things need to be updated. I think I drafted something for that a few years ago, I will see if I can still find it.

Best Regards,

Bjoern

Hi Florian,

Hmm, so the actual amount planned for 2023, to spend on staff (including contractors) is about 910k ā‚¬. Adding to that recurring costs like infra, accounting, conferences, community events & other incidentals, the overall annual recurring expenses is about 1.2M ā‚¬ - with a donation income of around 1.3M ā‚¬ (for 2022), that does not leave that much for anything else, including tenders (in a steady-state situation - that there is a certain backlog of tender projects was already mentioned).

Edit: given the fact that we additionally & usually save around 10% of the overall donation income of each year into a rainy day fund, whatā€™s left for any projects (code-related tenders are the majority, but not 100% of project work) on a steady-state basis, is I would say minor in comparison.

Best, Thorsten

To add on that: The sum planned for projects including tenders for 2023 is 770.008,91 ā‚¬.

Hi @thb,

lemme rephrase that to see if I understood that correctly.

TDF has currently an donation income of ~1.3 mio. EUR p.a.

TDF currently aims to:

  • put ~130,000 EUR p.a. (10%) in the rainy day reserve
  • spend ~290,000 EUR p.a. in recurring costs for infra, accounting, conferences, community events & other incidentals
  • spend ~910,000 EUR p.a. on staff (including contractors)

for a total planned annual spending of 1.33 mio EUR p.aā€¦

If that is correct:

  • it is already a rainy day: we are cash flow negative by some 30,000 EUR p.a.
  • there is no running budget left for tenders at all.

Therefore any and all direct ā€œproduct developmentā€ from TDF that has been argued about in this discussion would need to come from staff and contractors work time ALONE from now forward in addition to them keeping to provide their usual administrative tasks on the project.

Or am I mistaken?

Best Regards,

Bjoern

Ah, donā€™t worry, thatā€™s not what I had in mind. :wink:

We do have this conversation here indeed with many active contributors in 2023, and I am very happy to read many of them share the view that a product is vital and a big part of what makes them contribute to and engage in this community.

Hi @Sweetshark ,

Yes, from a 2022er cash flow perspective, that is correct. The currently budgeted sums for tenders and other one-off projects are carry-forwards from earlier years. We had a big jump in staff spending this year, with three new team members joining - but this is at least to some extent compensated by increased donation income. For a projection of that for the full fiscal year, I would defer to @floeff or @italovignoli

Best, Thorsten

1 Like

Hi!

Iā€™m not a TDF member, thus canā€™t say if I should consider myself as a
ā€œmember of the communityā€. To be honest, I donā€™t actually know what such
a ā€œcommunityā€ actually is supposed to be.

Iā€™ve been working with OOo since version 1.1.1 in 2005 and have since
contributed to (FR) documentation, help on mailing lists and Ask web
sites (EN/FR), reported some bugs and also provided a few LibreOffice
extensions.

Perhaps this allows me to bring in some comments as a contributor of sorts.

Iā€™m very stumped by this discussion. Not sure what it is all about,
since English is not my mother language and some seem to be using
tongue-in-cheek. I understand this is all about making LibO a paying tool.

I strongly advise against such a decision which (1) would lead me
out (but thatā€™s of no interest) and (2) would lead many users ā€“ as
already stated by others here ā€“ to using some free (gratis)
competitors. Such a decision would be highly detrimental to the project,
and to the software altogether.
Also, this would send a very bad message about TDF not fulfilling
their mission and about the project management.

I have the very deep impression that some in this discussion have a very
important conflict of interest and are promoting their employerā€™s
/apparent/ interest.

The project and the software are NOT separate. The tool is the
project, the project is the tool.

People, donā€™t try to play some foolery, just follow TDF philosophy and
view as stated in the statutes. Lets play together the same partition!

1 Like

Hi @jfn,

No, this discussion is not really about that.

I know it apparently vogue to use accuse unnamed people of CoI, but in this discussion here, I dont see a single instance of a propsal that could be suffering from that. Who are you refering to and what proposal do you think has been made to benefit something else than the LibreOffice project?

In fact, TDF needs essentially all available funds and running cash flow to pay for staff and contractors by now. Preventing CoI is ultimately about preventing somebody to receive funding from TDF for motives other than the benefit of the project (or the foundations goal). Given TDFs free future running budget being spend entirely on staff, only staff can be in CoI in a meaningful here by now. Because although they dont have a CoI due to their employer, they personally benefit via their main source of income.

I hope that is not what you are referring to, though it is the only realistic CoI that exists in this discussion. Please dont throw random accusation of CoI around, that is not constructive at all.

Best Regards,

Bjoern

That basically matches how I see LibreOffice, as being both a community as well as a software for free use by anybody, in accordance with the statues. Since most potential users wouldnā€™t be able to make use of just the source code, providing the software in binary form is IMHO essential.

For me, the software called LibreOffice has been and still is crucial for my motivation to contribute.

From what I read, Iā€™m glad there seems to be agreement that TDF should continue to provide the software in binary form as well.

Regarding the question whether that software in binary form is rightfully meant to be called a ā€œproductā€ or not, itā€™s not fully clear to me what the practical implication of the answer to that question is, so Iā€™m staying out of that discussion for now. (And Iā€™m wondering whether it wouldnā€™t be useful to discuss those practical aspects a bit more if necessary, rather than what the right term is.)

2 Likes

From the perspective that both LibreOffice and the community do matter, in whatever form, one can also consider it an advantage that apparently there is room for the interpretation of ā€œproductā€. Thus, depending on the situation, the community, and by that I mean the part united in the foundation, can set priorities that best serve the situation.

Think so yes, although higher-level discussions are valuable in their own right.

I didnā€™t start the product vs project discussion and I honestly donā€™t understand what is it about. My comment is much more basic than that, TDF should be looking after the interests of its users and the community at large, not only those who contribute directly to LibreOffice, otherwise I donā€™t get what is the point of having an organization and not a run-of-the-mill open source project that is run by contributing developers and everyone else is a second class citizen.

But why all the indirection? We do know what our users want, they tell us that all the time.

3 Likes

That goes both ways, so if it says ā€œfree of chargeā€, some priest canā€™t come and provides a contradictory ā€œinterpretationā€ to the ā€œpropheticā€ saying or attribute it to ā€œlost in translationā€.

Hi @khaledhosny2 ,

No, most of them dont. And the loudest of the few that do are not a great guidance for making the project grow.

But ā€œitā€ doesnt.
If ā€œitā€ is the statutes of the Document Foundation ā€“ which is the constitution of this community, ā€œitā€ doesnt say ā€œfree of chargeā€, it says ā€œfreier Nutzungā€ and ā€œfree of chargeā€ is just one very selective interpretation of what that means.

Best Regards,

Bjoern