Ideas around TDF's future

[cornouws]

Hi Bjoern,
Makes sense - let me look how to do that sensibly…
Edit: moved here

[iplaw67]

Hi @Sweetshark ,
I’m not particularly interested in other office suite products, but you did mention the market and online offerings in relation to the presumed irrelevance of the office suite installable product, so I’m a little surprised that you would move that out of the topic.

Either LO is a relevant product for desktops, or it isn’t. In the latter postulate, to which I don’t personally adhere, as I’m rather satisfied with a desktop installable product paradigm, then a discussion needs to be had about how a non-desktop version of LO can be provided by the foundation which would still be in line with the wide goals set out when the foundation was created, and which would provide the same functionality, or better, than the desktop version.

Currently, this is not the case in any of the ecosystem offerings, they are all amputated in some way and thus do not, IMO, fulfill the wider goals laid out by the foundation.

I also get the distinct impression that your definition of “contribution” is quite a narrow one, as it seems to only encompass code development-oriented contributions, or at least only those contributions which have monetary worth. If my understanding is correct, I would challenge that position and maintain that the project needs a much wider range of contributors, indeed this is what makes the current project so diverse and rich. Whilst I understand that commercial entities need to make a living from the products that derive from their contributions to the project, this should not be to the detriment of the project as a whole, otherwise we are back where we started when Oracle took over OOo, the very reason for which the foundation was created in the first place. Surely, that can not be where you see the future of the foundation, being essentially “managed” by a few commercial entities? That would be an extreme and very sad situation to end up in.

I am also a little surprised at your position that TDF contains too much “dead wood”. If TDF were run as a business, then I would be more inclined to hear such an argument, but it isn’t supposed to be a business, is it (or perhaps I am misinformed)? I would still understand the argument that it needs to have a rationale behind its employment/ engagement expenditure, but why do you see the current situation as so detrimental to the continued existence of the project?

[Sweetshark]

Hi @iplaw67,

@iplaw67

I’m not particularly interested in other office suite products, but you did mention the market and online offerings in relation to the presumed irrelevance of the office suite installable product, so I’m a little surprised that you would move that out of the topic.

AFAICS OnlyOffice Desktop is offered free-of-charge, while only the “Cloud” version is sold. Its a classic commoditize your complements play and strongly reinforces that desktop productivity is a commodity by now.

@iplaw67

I also get the distinct impression that your definition of “contribution” is quite a narrow one, as it seems to only encompass code development-oriented contributions, or at least only those contributions which have monetary worth.

No “monetary value” or “development” are not relevant for how I see contributions. But to keep LibreOffice the project sustainable it is relevant that to increase the contributions that make LibreOffice (in this case, not only the project, but also the product) better. This is purely utilitarian: Fixing a bug affecting a lot of users has more impact for that than say making a school use LibreOffice – even if both might have the same amount of invested time(*).

@iplaw67

Surely, that can not be where you see the future of the foundation, being essentially “managed” by a few commercial entities?

No, however TDF spending all its free cash flow on staff is pretty much as far as it can be from that.

@iplaw67

Whilst I understand that commercial entities need to make a living from the products that derive from their contributions to the project, this should not be to the detriment of the project as a whole

Yeah, I think this one of the core misconceptions about the LibreOffice ecosystem: TDF “competing” with ecosystem companies is inherently hurting LibreOffice and making it less sustainable. TDFs resources are very limited compared to its (huge) mission.

When looking at what TDF can spend its resources (funds, tenders and staff worktime) on either:

1. something that is or would be offered by contributors (companies and individuals) to be added to LibreOffice if a user pays for that
2. something that is or would NOT be offered by contributors (companies and individuals) to be added to LibreOffice if a user pays for that
3. something that is or would NOT be offered by contributors (companies and individuals) to be added to LibreOffice if a user pays for that, but might interest new audiences to contribute to the project

2 will clearly be preferable over 1 for TDFs goals: If you do 2 instead of 1, it is possible that users will still fund 1 in addition, while the same is not true the other way around. 3 of course is even better than 2 as it might unlock follow-up contributions and still allows 1 to be funded by users.

So, for keeping LibreOffice sustainable, investing in option 1 is clearly the worst choice. And this is important: Not focusing on sustainability of contributions makes you end up like Apache OpenOffice.

@iplaw67

I would still understand the argument that it needs to have a rationale behind its employment/ engagement expenditure, but why do you see the current situation as so detrimental to the continued existence of the project?

The donations to TDF are the havest of all LibreOffice contributors: Volunteers, ecosystem employees and also TDF staff. It should be used in ways they collectively see beneficial. That was less relevant as staff expenditures were small, but as they now are essentially all of TDFs free cash flow, there should be a shared understanding between all trustees on how this major part of our harvest (the staffs work time we are funding) is used.

Best Regards, Bjoern

(*) Note this doesnt change that both are trustees with equal voting rights – but when TDF spends its resources.

[cornouws]

Hi Eliane,

@elianedomingos

I participated in the Board Meeting on Monday 07/08 and expressed my great concern with so many emails, so much wasted energy and so many urgent and important things stopped.

I’ve been on the board once and I’ve never seen such slowness to solve the project matters.

Did you have the opportunity to read the report of the boards face-to-face meeting in Budapest, July 8 and 9 this year? It has been mailed to tdf-internal on July 25th.
It was a very productive and friendly meeting. (Let me note that we still need to sent the full minutes…).
I do advice to look at it (again) and give feedback or let us know any questions.

Paolo had chosen not to join that meeting, and now we are in the process of further handling the items discussed and initiated there.

Note that various action items are about improving communication and relations, foundations governance etc. So: thanks for expressing your concerns! They are shared and we are working hard to improve wherever we can.

[S.t.e.p.h]

@mariosv

It may be due to my poor understanding of what the TDF statutes say.

The original German version of the full TDF-statutes is the binding one.
In my opinion it is not helpful to quote only a part of the non binding English-translated statutes.

In this context, may I draw your attention to the following:

@mariosv

in accordance with the Articles

binding DE:

… nach Maßgabe der Satzung…

[mariosv]

And what articles of the statutes, do you consider relevant to the responsibilities of the Board, that are relevant to this matter?