Let’s put an end to the speculation

Dear Members,

I would like to invite you all to read the post on the official blog: Let’s put an end to the speculation


Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post. However, the articles and comments published in response to Collabora’s and Michael Meeks’ biased posts compel us to provide this background information on the events that led to the current situation.

Unfortunately, we have to start from the very beginning, but we’ll try to keep it brief. The launch of the LibreOffice project and The Document Foundation was handled with great enthusiasm by the founding group. They were driven by a noble goal, but also by a bit of healthy recklessness. After all, it was impossible to imagine what would happen after September 28, 2010, the date of the announcement.

At the time, nobody could imagine that the companies that had supported OpenOffice.org until then would create a project to kill LibreOffice. Also, if the project were to be successful, it would require resources greater than those available, and above all, a deep management experience.

Fortunately, the project grew quite rapidly. However, the founders’ different backgrounds and opinions were at the same time the reason for some bold decisions – many of which right – as well as a few mistakes, which are the root cause of some of the current problems:

  • granting free use of the LibreOffice brand only to companies in the ecosystem, to allow them to sell the software in Microsoft and Apple’s online stores;
  • awarding contracts for the development of LibreOffice – new features, fixing “legacy” bugs, etc. – to companies whose representatives were on the foundation’s Board of Directors, and who were active throughout the procurement process.

Both of these decisions were found to be incorrect for reasons relating to the non-profit law, to which The Document Foundation must adhere. They violated the law itself. When this fact was brought to the attention of the Board of Directors by the foundation’s legal counsels, the companies that had benefited from these errors sought to maintain the status quo rather than finding a solution. At the time – from the end of 2021 to the middle of 2022 – this could have been achieved swiftly and with minimal difficulty.

This attitude increased tensions within the BoD, adding to pre-existing frictions that began in 2020 when the majority of the new board decided to terminate the plan to transfer many of TDF’s tasks and assets to a parallel organisation called TDC. Several issues that the current board had to solve stemmed from elements of that project that had been partially executed.

The origins of TDC are controversial. One reason given for setting up the parallel organisation was the “alleged inefficiency” of the TDF team, which was expressed by some of the directors. Unfortunately, instead of addressing the supposed problem with a reorganization or some training, the BoD decided to react by creating a new problem: a parallel structure with a supposedly “highly efficient” team that would highlight the alleged inefficiency of the TDF team.

TDC was presented at the LibreOffice Conference in Almería in 2019 without prior notice, raising concerns within the team and the community. This was partly because the parallel organisation’s project envisaged leveraging TDF’s financial resources as startup funds. This attempt resulted in permanent damage to relations between the project’s components, and especially between certain BoD members and the team.

After years of discussions marked by accusations and finger-pointing, during which no real progress was made in resolving the legal issues, the authorities requested an audit whose results confirmed that resolving the issues was absolutely necessary to avoid losing non-profit status, with unforeseen consequences.

Unfortunately, the presence of company representatives on the Board of Directors (BoD), who were elected by employees of those same companies that are also TDF members, caused further delays to finding a solution, which has not yet been reached.

Fortunately, the introduction of restrictive measures – such as the decision to forfeit TDF membership status of Collabora employees – and the freezing of tenders, alongside the introduction of a robust procurement policy for development, has resulted in a positive outcome for the third audit. At least, the BoD has demonstrated a willingness to break the deadlock that has persisted since 2022.

The board also reviewed governance issues from the past and set clear rules to minimise the risk of them recurring in future. These rules are set out in the Code of Ethics and Fiduciary Duties, the updated Conflict of Interest Policy and the Community Bylaws.

Of course, if we could rewind the course of history, some of the choices made since 2010 would hopefully be different and no one would repeat the mistakes or the wrong behaviours of the past.

As we said at the beginning, we would gladly have done without this post, but it was necessary to set the record straight and avoid speculation.

TDF has been preparing for some time for Collabora’s announcement, by hiring developers and exploring new partnership opportunities to support a growing interest in LibreOffice on the desktop, still a viable option for many deployments, the cloud and mobile, and in ODF as the preferred document format for governments worldwide.

Thanks to the growing importance of free and open source software, as well as open standards for document formats, the concepts that we have been advocating for over twenty years and have finally reached political institutions and users, The Document Foundation and the LibreOffice project are well positioned for the future.

Best,

Eliane Domingos

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Find the Spanish translation at / Consulta la traducción al español en: Acabemos con las especulaciones

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FR translation with the help of DeepL (Traduction en français avec l’aide de DeepL)

Idéalement, nous aurions préféré éviter cet article. Cependant, les articles et les commentaires publiés en réponse aux publications partiales de Collabora et de Michael Meeks nous obligent à fournir des informations de fond sur les événements qui ont conduit à la situation actuelle.

Malheureusement, nous devons remonter tout au début, mais nous essaierons d’être brefs. Le lancement du projet LibreOffice et de The Document Foundation a été mené avec beaucoup d’enthousiasme par le groupe des fondateurs. Ils étaient animés par un objectif noble, mais aussi par une certaine dose d’insouciance salutaire. Était-il possible d’imaginer ce qui se passerait après le 28 septembre 2010, date de l’annonce ?

À l’époque, personne ne pouvait imaginer que les entreprises qui avaient soutenu OpenOffice.org jusqu’alors voudraient créer un projet visant à tuer LibreOffice. De plus, pour que le projet soit couronné de succès, il aurait fallu des ressources supérieures à celles dont nous disposions, et surtout, une solide expérience en gestion.

Heureusement, le projet a connu une croissance assez rapide. Cependant, la diversité des parcours et des opinions des fondateurs a été à la fois à l’origine de décisions audacieuses – dont beaucoup se sont avérées judicieuses – et de quelques erreurs, qui sont à l’origine de certains des problèmes actuels :

  • l’octroi de l’utilisation gratuite de la marque LibreOffice uniquement aux entreprises de l’écosystème, afin de leur permettre de vendre le logiciel dans les boutiques en ligne de Microsoft et d’Apple ;

  • l’attribution de contrats pour le développement de LibreOffice – nouvelles fonctionnalités, correction de bogues « hérités », etc. – à des entreprises dont les représentants siégeaient au conseil d’administration de la fondation et qui ont joué un rôle actif tout au long du processus d’appel d’offres.

Ces deux décisions ont été jugées illégales pour des raisons liées à la loi sur les associations à but non lucratif, à laquelle The Document Foundation doit se conformer. Elles constituaient une violation de la loi elle-même. Lorsque ce fait a été porté à l’attention du conseil d’administration par les conseillers juridiques de la fondation, les entreprises qui avaient bénéficié de ces erreurs ont cherché à maintenir le statu quo plutôt qu’à trouver une solution. À l’époque – de fin 2021 à mi-2022 – cela aurait pu être réalisé rapidement et avec un minimum de difficultés.

Cette attitude a exacerbé les tensions au sein du conseil d’administration, venant s’ajouter aux frictions préexistantes qui avaient débuté en 2020, lorsque la majorité des nouveaux membres du conseil avait décidé de mettre fin au projet visant à transférer une grande partie des missions et des actifs de TDF à une organisation parallèle dénommée TDC [The Document Collective, NDT]. Plusieurs problèmes auxquels le conseil actuel a dû faire face découlaient d’éléments de ce projet qui avaient été partiellement mis en œuvre.

Les origines de TDC sont controversées. L’une des raisons invoquées pour la création de cette organisation parallèle était la « prétendue inefficacité » de l’équipe de la TDF, exprimée par certains administrateurs. Malheureusement, au lieu de s’attaquer au problème supposé par une réorganisation ou une formation, le conseil d’administration a décidé de réagir en créant un nouveau problème : une structure parallèle dotée d’une équipe prétendument « hautement efficace » qui mettrait en évidence la prétendue inefficacité de l’équipe de la TDF.

Le TDC a été présenté à la conférence LibreOffice d’Almería en 2019 sans préavis, suscitant des inquiétudes au sein de l’équipe et de la communauté. Cela s’expliquait en partie par le fait que le projet de cette organisation parallèle prévoyait d’utiliser les ressources financières de TDF comme fonds de démarrage. Cette tentative a causé des dommages irréparables aux relations entre les composantes du projet, et en particulier entre certains membres du conseil d’administration et l’équipe.

Après des années de discussions marquées par des accusations et des reproches, au cours desquelles aucun progrès réel n’a été accompli pour résoudre les problèmes juridiques, les autorités ont demandé un audit dont les résultats ont confirmé qu’il était absolument nécessaire de résoudre ces problèmes Après des années de discussions marquées par des accusations et des récriminations, au cours desquelles aucun progrès réel n’a été accompli pour résoudre les problèmes juridiques, les autorités ont demandé un audit dont les résultats ont confirmé qu’il était absolument nécessaire de régler ces problèmes pour éviter de perdre le statut d’organisme à but non lucratif, ce qui aurait entraîné des conséquences imprévues.

Malheureusement, la présence au sein du conseil d’administration (CA) de représentants d’entreprises, élus par des employés de ces mêmes entreprises (qui sont eux-mêmes également membres de TDF), a entraîné de nouveaux retards dans la recherche d’une solution, qui n’a toujours pas été trouvée.

Heureusement, la mise en place de mesures restrictives – telles que la décision de retirer le statut de membre de la TDF aux employés de Collabora – et le gel des appels d’offres, parallèlement à l’introduction d’une politique de passation de marchés solide au service du développement, ont abouti à un résultat positif pour le troisième audit. Au moins, le CA a démontré sa volonté de sortir de l’impasse qui persiste depuis 2022.

Le conseil d’administration a également examiné les problèmes de gouvernance du passé et établi des règles claires pour minimiser le risque qu’ils ne se reproduisent à l’avenir. Ces règles sont énoncées dans le Code d’éthique et les devoirs fiduciaires, la Politique mise à jour sur les conflits d’intérêts et le réglement intérieur de la communauté.

Bien sûr, si nous pouvions remonter le cours de l’histoire, certains des choix effectués depuis 2010 seraient, espérons-le, différents et personne ne répéterait les erreurs ou les mauvais comportements du passé.

Comme nous l’avons dit au début, nous nous serions volontiers passés de cet article, mais il était nécessaire de rétablir la vérité et d’éviter les spéculations.

La TDF se prépare depuis un certain temps à l’annonce de Collabora, en recrutant des développeurs et en explorant de nouvelles opportunités de partenariat afin de répondre à l’intérêt croissant pour LibreOffice sur les ordinateurs de bureau – qui reste une option viable pour de nombreux déploiements –, dans le cloud et sur mobile, ainsi que pour l’ODF en tant que format de document privilégié par les administrations publiques du monde entier.

Grâce à l’importance croissante des logiciels libres et open source, ainsi qu’aux normes ouvertes pour les formats de documents, concepts que nous défendons depuis plus de vingt ans et qui ont enfin atteint les institutions politiques et les utilisateurs, The Document Foundation et le projet LibreOffice sont bien positionnés pour l’avenir.

Cordialement,

Eliane Domingos

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Translation to German / Deutsche Übersetzung:

Setzen wir den Spekulationen ein Ende

Im Idealfall hätten wir diesen Beitrag lieber vermieden. Die Artikel und Kommentare, die als Reaktion auf die voreingenommenen Beiträge von Collabora und Michael Meeks veröffentlicht wurden, zwingen uns jedoch dazu, diese Hintergrundinformationen zu den Ereignissen zu liefern, die zur aktuellen Situation geführt haben.

Leider müssen wir ganz von vorne beginnen, aber wir werden versuchen, uns kurz zu fassen. Der Start des LibreOffice-Projekts und der Document Foundation wurde von der Gründergruppe mit großer Begeisterung angegangen. Sie wurden von einem edlen Ziel angetrieben, aber auch von einer Prise gesunder Tollkühnheit. Schließlich war es unmöglich, sich vorzustellen, was nach dem 28. September 2010, dem Datum der Ankündigung, geschehen würde.

Damals konnte sich niemand vorstellen, dass die Unternehmen, die bis dahin OpenOffice.org https://OpenOffice.org unterstützt hatten, ein Projekt ins Leben rufen würden, um LibreOffice zu Fall zu bringen. Außerdem hätte das Projekt, sollte es erfolgreich sein, mehr Ressourcen erfordert, als zur Verfügung standen, und vor allem fundierte Managementerfahrung.

Glücklicherweise wuchs das Projekt recht schnell. Die unterschiedlichen Hintergründe und Meinungen der Gründer waren jedoch zugleich der Grund für einige mutige Entscheidungen – von denen viele richtig waren – sowie für einige Fehler, die die Ursache für einige der aktuellen Probleme sind:

  • die kostenlose Nutzung der Marke LibreOffice ausschließlich
    Unternehmen im Ökosystem zu gewähren, damit diese die Software in
    den Online-Shops von Microsoft und Apple verkaufen können;
  • die Vergabe von Aufträgen für die Entwicklung von LibreOffice – neue
    Funktionen, Behebung von „Altlasten“-Fehlern usw. – an Unternehmen,
    deren Vertreter im Vorstand der Stiftung saßen und die während des
    gesamten Beschaffungsprozesses aktiv waren.

Beide Entscheidungen erwiesen sich aus Gründen des Gemeinnützigkeitsrechts, an das sich The Document Foundation halten muss, als falsch. Sie verstießen gegen das Gesetz selbst. Als diese Tatsache dem Vorstand von den Rechtsberatern der Stiftung zur Kenntnis gebracht wurde, versuchten die Unternehmen, die von diesen Fehlern profitiert hatten, den Status quo aufrechtzuerhalten, anstatt eine Lösung zu finden. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt – von Ende 2021 bis Mitte 2022 – hätte dies schnell und mit minimalem Aufwand erreicht werden können.

Diese Haltung verschärfte die Spannungen innerhalb des Vorstands und verstärkte bereits bestehende Reibereien, die 2020 begannen, als die Mehrheit des neuen Vorstands beschloss, den Plan zur Übertragung vieler Aufgaben und Vermögenswerte der TDF auf eine parallele Organisation namens TDC zu beenden. Mehrere Probleme, die der aktuelle Vorstand lösen musste, ergaben sich aus Elementen dieses Projekts, die teilweise bereits umgesetzt worden waren.

Die Ursprünge von TDC sind umstritten. Ein Grund, der für die Gründung der parallelen Organisation angeführt wurde, war die „angebliche Ineffizienz“ des TDF-Teams, die von einigen Vorstandsmitgliedern zum Ausdruck gebracht wurde. Leider beschloss der Vorstand, anstatt das vermeintliche Problem durch eine Umstrukturierung oder Schulungen anzugehen, ein neues zu schaffen: eine parallele Struktur mit einem angeblich „hocheffizienten“ Team, das die angebliche Ineffizienz des TDF-Teams deutlich machen sollte.

TDC wurde 2019 auf der LibreOffice-Konferenz in Almería ohne vorherige Ankündigung vorgestellt, was innerhalb des Teams und der Community Besorgnis auslöste. Dies lag zum Teil daran, dass das Projekt der Parallelorganisation vorsah, die finanziellen Ressourcen von TDF als Startkapital zu nutzen. Dieser Versuch führte zu einer dauerhaften Schädigung der Beziehungen zwischen den Projektbeteiligten, insbesondere zwischen bestimmten Vorstandsmitgliedern und dem Team.

Nach jahrelangen Diskussionen, die von Anschuldigungen und Schuldzuweisungen geprägt waren und in denen keine wirklichen Fortschritte bei der Lösung der rechtlichen Probleme erzielt wurden, forderten die Behörden eine Prüfung an, deren Ergebnisse bestätigten, dass die Lösung der Probleme unbedingt notwendig war, um den Verlust des Gemeinnützigkeitsstatus mit unvorhersehbaren Folgen zu vermeiden.

Leider führte die Anwesenheit von Unternehmensvertretern im Vorstand (BoD), die von Mitarbeitern eben jener Unternehmen gewählt wurden, die auch TDF-Mitglieder sind, zu weiteren Verzögerungen bei der Suche nach einer Lösung, die bislang noch nicht gefunden wurde.

Glücklicherweise haben die Einführung restriktiver Maßnahmen – wie die Entscheidung, den TDF-Mitgliedsstatus von Collabora-Mitarbeitern zu entziehen – und das Einfrieren von Ausschreibungen sowie die Einführung einer soliden Beschaffungsrichtlinie für die Entwicklung zu einem positiven Ergebnis der dritten Prüfung geführt. Zumindest hat der Vorstand die Bereitschaft gezeigt, den seit 2022 andauernden Stillstand zu überwinden.

Der Vorstand hat zudem Governance-Probleme aus der Vergangenheit überprüft und klare Regeln festgelegt, um das Risiko einer Wiederholung in Zukunft zu minimieren. Diese Regeln sind im Ethikkodex und in den Treuhandpflichten, der aktualisierten Richtlinie zu Interessenkonflikten und der Community-Satzung dargelegt.

Sicherlich, könnten wir den Lauf der Geschichte zurückspulen, wären einige der seit 2010 getroffenen Entscheidungen hoffentlich anders ausgefallen, und niemand würde die Fehler oder das Fehlverhalten der Vergangenheit wiederholen.

Wie wir eingangs sagten, hätten wir gerne auf diesen Beitrag verzichtet, aber er war notwendig, um die Dinge richtigzustellen und Spekulationen zu vermeiden.

TDF hat sich seit einiger Zeit auf die Ankündigung von Collabora vorbereitet, indem Entwickler eingestellt und neue Partnerschaftsmöglichkeiten ausgelotet wurden, um das wachsende Interesse an LibreOffice auf dem Desktop – nach wie vor eine praktikable Option für viele Einsatzbereiche –, in der Cloud und auf Mobilgeräten sowie an ODF als bevorzugtem Dokumentenformat für Regierungen weltweit zu unterstützen.

Dank der wachsenden Bedeutung von freier und quelloffener Software sowie offener Standards für Dokumentformate – Konzepte, für die wir uns seit über zwanzig Jahren einsetzen und die nun endlich politische Institutionen und Nutzer erreicht haben – sind The Document Foundation und das LibreOffice-Projekt für die Zukunft gut aufgestellt.

Mit besten Grüßen
Eliane Domingos

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Useful comment on the German ml: Re: [de-discuss] Setzen wir den Spekulationen ein Ende! – The Document Foundation Mailing List Archives

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Thx @dennisroczek for this independent perspective. With everyone translating here, let me do the same (helped by Deepl, emphasis mine):


Hi,

to correct some — let me call it “biased portrayals” of the events, that I participated in first-hand:

On 04/05/26 at 11:39, Andreas Mantke wrote:

They were violating the law themselves…

Not necessarily. According to the lawyers’ assessment, the main issue was the “free use of the LibreOffice trademark” — since the value of the trademark had been used without compensation. Someone apparently forgot to explain to the lawyers, who it was that had played a decisive role (and also worked for free) in creating the value of the trademark in the years prior. One cannot of course expect lawyers specializing in nonprofit law to know how an open-source project like this works. This mistake (and it really was one) was unfortunately never corrected — despite repeated warnings. Instead, the facts of the case are still being used today to defame precisely these people.

This stance exacerbated tensions within the board and intensified existing friction that began in 2020 when the majority of the new board decided to terminate the plan to transfer many of TDF’s tasks and assets to a parallel organization called TDC. Several problems that the current board had to resolve arose from elements of this project, some of which had already been implemented…

At the time, I was part of the small team tasked with reviewing this on behalf of the board. In line with our recommendation, absolutely nothing was implemented — and nothing has been done since. That is likely why the current board has no issues to resolve, that might have arisen “from elements of this project, some of which had already been implemented.”

Instead, there are entirely different problems to address — such as an MC that is clearly running amok, failing to organize an election for the new board that has been overdue for nearly half a year, yet “kicking out” plenty of developers. Or perhaps they just wanted to do a major clean-up before the next board election.

From TDF statute’s preamble: “The foundation’s goal is the promotion and development of office software for free use by everyone. The foundation fosters a sustainable, independent, and meritocratic community for the international development of free and open-source software based on open standards.”

And the people who contributed two-thirds of the code are the first to get kicked out. Just how wonderfully meritocratic. I suspect, the founders of the TDF meant something a little different back then — but many of them are no longer involved these days.

Please don’t contact me — I’m going on vacation for now. But that post was just one too many for me.


Best regards,
Uwe Altmann

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tdc vote :

  • Appoint a transitional leadership Group comprising Nicolas Christener, Eike Rathke, Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, Uwe Altmann
  • Direct the Group to sign an agreement with Public Software CIC hosting TDC as an unincorporated association
  • Allocate a line of credit of €50000 to be requested incrementally as needed by Public Software CIC for TDC when the Group so directs,
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I would agree that in general Uwe tried, within the limits of his knowledge and experience, to provide independent opinions. I understood he was in a rush to go on holiday so he might have not had time to share his opinion about the whole TDC affair:

“Let’s talk of the elephant in the room: The whole TDC theme (not speaking of others equally concerned) is interfered by some (imho) unsolved conflicts of interests. We are talking about money - some say a lot of money - dedicated for development; and TDC shall be the structure to decide where it goes. The ability to exert influence on this decisions (directl or via structural contamination) is obviously of some importance for the economic interests of some of the board members. This is not necessary in the interest of the TDF (but maybe in some cases as well).”

That answer was provided in response to my personal inquiry about how TDC came about as other members of the board and the steering committee didn’t seem keen to release more information at the time. He decided to take on my offer to copy the answer to a wider audience, including the board, so I’m sure he has no issues with me sharing this publicly to put a stop to speculations and disinformation.

His statement confirmed doubts some board members had about the real reasons behind TDC and helped in supporting the decision of terminating the project.

To test these doubts I’ve taken on the task of proposing the creation of a similar entity in Luxembourg but under the full control of TDF and as expected the interest on the project, by the representatives of the companies and by the person that should have become the managing director “paid at market rates”, vanished.

Those that are not familiar with the TDC project can find some information in the presentation made in 2019 in Almeria (from page 19):

and the presentation made at FOSDEM 2020 (from page 9):

At first glance some might think the general idea could have made sense, some have been even convinced to vote for the idea before the details were made available, but then when looking at what the members of the committee and the main promoter of the project wanted to do things became awfully clear.

The actual reasons for setting it up had nothing to do with the “alleged inefficiency of the team”, some of them were actually presented publicly:
“− Spending donations on development is hard
− Addressing CoI of community members is hard”

That, as then discovered by the new members of the board in 2020, translated into something like “having to deal with stringent German charitable laws, the need to avoid conflict of interests and the cumbersome process of following proper tendering guidelines is hard”.

The document written by the committee read by the new members of the board gave the impression that it was a plan made to mostly benefit the companies, impression then confirmed by Uwe, and we had to fight hard with the representatives of these companies in the board to have it scrapped.

While, at the time, some wanted to go out with a very strong statement about the termination of the project, we only managed to reach consensus on a quite bland statement for the sake of stopping the endless arguments we were having about it.

Then, on the specific points raised by Uwe I’ll provide a non exhaustive list of hints:

  • he’s probably not aware that you, Thorsten, directed one of your colleagues at the company you were working for to draft an exclusive trademark licence for TDC
  • he’s probably not aware that you and your business partner demanded and obtained, against legal advice and opposition from the then chairperson and members of staff, the use that same trademark licence for your own companies
  • he’s probably not aware that these trademark licences have been signed by a member of the outgoing board during FOSDEM 2020 as our ED refused to sign them and he has been treated very badly by you for refusing to comply with your illegal orders
  • he’s probably not aware that you and your business partner demanded and obtained changes to trademark policy so that only your companies could use the trademark on the app stores
  • he’s probably not aware of the demands to issue take down requests so that TDC would not have competition on app stores but in the meantime the benefits of that would go to the companies
  • he’s probably not aware that despite being aware of the issues with the trademark licences and requests to stop their use, letting TDF publish LO in the app stores, you kept ignoring and/or dismissing these issues until you couldn’t anymore due to the delivery of legal statements spelling out things very clearly
  • he’s probably not aware that lawyers with lots of experience in matters related to Open Source confirmed that his take about the trademarks is incorrect, there are several paragraphs specifically about it in the legal statements, and what has been done put TDF at risk of losing its charitable status
  • he’s probably not aware of how you created even more legal issues by trying to cover up all these issues and delay the resolution these matters that keep dragging on while they would have not existed at all if in 2019 if you listened to our legal counsel and our ED and would have been easily fixed in 2021/2022 if you didn’t keep arguing against clear and obvious legal advice.
  • he’s probably not aware of many other things that you and your now employer did while you were supposed to serve TDF’s and the community best interests which we would have preferred not to disclose publicly and settle in a different forum once and for all

So both his points about the trademarks and the denial about the partial implementation of TDC elements are incorrect. Other opinions he provided are also incorrect as affected by a lack of preparation on the matters.

As you already had all the information needed to understand that his statements are incorrect, many would wonder why you decided to translate that message and post it here creating an embarrassing situation for yourself and Uwe.

Were you hoping that Uwe’s personal and uninformed opinion would convince the community that 8 of the top lawyers on these matters and 2 auditors were wrong?

Maybe you should check with your employer if it’s a good idea for you to stimulate the release of more well documented details about your and your employer’s behaviour while being members of TDF’s board of directors. I would suggest that you invest more time in preparing to mediate a settlement, as from what you post you seem to be still stuck in January 2020, so that we can put an end to this sad story.

The above is a personal opinion formed by evaluating a large amount of legal statements, email exchanges, complementary documents and audits.

Again, just picking only the dead horse TDC. TDC (or the like) will not happen, and it was then an excuse why the foundation cannot hire any developers.

Sadly you weren’t addressing any of the real problems:

(automatic translation from Uwe’s mail)

You can bet is a dead horse but as explained its ramifications have created huge problems.

Yes you can add that to the list of things that have been used as an excuse to create TDC.

Some people actually believed those excuses but then it turned out they were false excuses.

Thorsten did try to get the lawyer to find ways to keep the status quo but apart from confirming the illegality of what he wanted he also confirmed that TDF could do the things they wanted to outsource to the entity they wanted so much.

The “real problems” have been addressed a long time ago and I’ve responded to Uwe’s statements:

From your comments I have the impression that you still haven’t understood the seriousness of the situation.

For the benefit of those unaware, a “CIC” is a UK non-profit organisation with no beneficial owners. Public Software CIC has a purpose akin to Software in the Public Interest in the USA (which TDF uses) as an independent host of assets for open source projects. It was formed by Andrew Katz and I in 2016 and Andrew and I still volunteer as its unpaid stewards.

For a short while Public Software was prepared to temporarily host a TDC project on behalf of TDF as a way to put LibreOffice into the Windows and Mac app stores, something which at that point in 2019 TDF believed it could not do. I left TDF’s Board so there could be no conflict of interest in the event TDF decided to proceed; I am personally pleased it did not. Public Software never hosted any aspect of TDC.

It wasn’t as simple as that. If the people involved did a minimum of due diligence, and provided our legal counsel with at least a draft of the plan when he asked in April 2019, they would have discovered that TDF could have done that already.

The main “problems” to be solved were actually presented in public as I briefly clarified here:

It is even more explicit in the TDF Outline document that has been given to the new board:

  • To solve recurrent conflict of interest related delays by removing the conflicted parties from governance
  • To simplify contracting out work on LibreOffice to community members by avoiding caution associated with our Stiftung designed for the long term.

The new members of the board and the community have been mislead into believing that everything was fine, that legal advice was sought and in an email one of the then director even stated that our legal counsel was on board with it, also that turned out to be false.

Yes, there is a clause in the Board Rules of Procedures that states:

No contract shall be awarded by TDF to a BoD member during his tenure or within 3 months of the expiration of his/her tenure.

but, IMHO, the conflict of interest started when the beneficiaries of that arrangement, the companies and the future CEO paid at market rates, started the process while misleading the rest of the board and the community about it. Some, with the little information provided, were mislead into believing that it would have been a good thing for TDF, LibreOffice and the community.
I was one of those mislead to believe it might have been a good idea until a month later I joined the board, read the proposal and started collecting information. Fortunately, despite resistance and continuous attempts to mislead the board, the TDC plan was ditched but only after it created some of the issues some had to battle against for way too long.

Then some wonders why there were frictions and lack of trust within the board.

That’s not my recollection of the reaction. I remember reading something about having been betrayed by the board and being inconvenienced by not going through with the TDC plan but I might have to look for the relevant emails to verify what else was written in there.

Ciao

Paolo

HI,

Despite ample time for improvement, the underlying practices remain unchanged: decisions are still made in low-visibility spaces, frameworks are set without genuine collective deliberation, and there is then surprise at the disillusioned reactions that follow.

Communities do not expect to be kept at arm’s length, but to be treated with consideration — through transparent processes, fair procedures, and meaningful participation in decisions.

Otherwise, the greater risk is not criticism, but quiet disengagement — far more damaging in the long run.

The foundation’s recent messaging suggests a shift away from its broader communities, treating them more as a showcase than as genuine contributors, while choosing to rely primarily on a small group of recently hired developers.

This inevitably raises concerns, and it is difficult not to read it as a dismissal of the many individuals who have tried to contribute, often with limited resources and little formal support.

Recognizing and valuing these efforts is not only a matter of fairness, but essential to sustaining a healthy and committed community over time.

Regards,

Régis

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