Osvaldo Gervasi: Nomination for the elections of the TDF Board of Directors

Thank you, Sophie, for nominating me at Nominations for the elections of the TDF Board of directors.
I accept the nomination for the Board election and express my full support for the Pledge for LibreOffice.

Who am I

I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of Perugia University. Since 2019, I served as Deputy Director of the Department. I am the President of the same Department’s Professional Degree “Programming and Management of Computer Systems”.

I served in the BoD as Director in 2016-2017 and Deputy Director in 2018-2019.

I have been a member of TDF and the Italian LibreOffice Documentation Team since 2013.

I live in Spello (PG, Italy), one of Italy’s most beautiful small towns. I’m 66 years old and married to Lorella, and I have a daughter, Marta (35), and two sons: Andrea (32) and Damiano (23).

Why I apply for the new BoD seat:

I am enthusiastic about joining the Pledge for LibreOffice to give TDF a vibrant life while respecting the specificities that each member of the Community expresses.

I want to promote LibreOffice among University students, in particular, Engineers and Computer
Scientists should let them contribute to such great software.

I think that is necessary to stimulate and promote donations.

Furthermore, I think it is necessary to morally support local communities in promoting LibreOffice and Open Formats, particularly among younger generations.

Full name: Osvaldo Gervasi

Emails: [ogervasi@libreoffice.org] [osvaldo.gervasi@gmail.com]

Affiliation: The University of Perugia, Italy

My official Candidacy Statement (75 words)

I have previously served TDF as Director and then as Deputy Director and wish to renew as professor and university course president. I wish to renew my commitment to promoting TDF and LibreOffice to young people and students, mainly Engineers and Computer Scientists. New impetus is needed to bring the project and the foundation back to vibrant life. I support and am committed to realising the Pledge for LibreOffice for the future of TDF The Document Foundation Nextcloud

Cheers,
–Osvaldo

Hello Osvaldo,

I’ll allow myself to pose a few questions…

Question 1: I am a relatively new trustee, having joined the BoT in 2022. Can you tell us newer trustees a little more about your activity on the board in previous terms, especially when you were a full member?

Question 2: Suppose a legion of pixies committed to making routine donations to the TDF, totaling an extra 1 Million EUR/annum, starting right now. In other words, our annual budget suddenly increased by 1 Million EUR. As a member of the board, what would be your priorities for allocating the extra income?

Question 3: One of the problems I have found with the outgoing board is the violation of the TDF-statutory requirement to publish information (as per §8.3.c of our statutes). Did the BoD, during your first tenure, abide by this obligation? (TBH, I am guessing that it didn’t so there would be a followup question.)

Question 4: I also have some background in Academia (Ph.D from the Technion IIT in 2012). Universities I’ve visited, and my own alma mater, do not seem to make much of an effort to promote FOSS culture; and - they very easily “give way” ideologically to commercial closed-source software companies when those donate to them financially, or deign to visit and try recruiting their graduates. My question: Do you believe the TDF has the potential of exerting influence in the opposite direction? More generally, what are the prospects of TDF involvement with academia in your view?


PS - Some of these questions overlap with what I’ve asked in the third town hall; and some questions are relevant to all candidates more or less, but I kind of distribute questions semi-randomly rather than ask everyone everything.

Hi Eyal, I’m happy to respond to your questions!

Question 1: I am a relatively new trustee, having joined the BoT in 2022. Can you tell us newer trustees a little more about your activity on the board in previous terms, especially when you were a full member?

Response:

My experience as a board member was in some ways contrasting: I was attracted by way of working, which was quite different, more pragmatic, from the academic way I knew, and I was very much attracted by the technical and cultural depth of the people I dealt with, but language was sometimes a significant barrier, as I was not a native English speaker, so the intrinsic complexity of specific topics from a technical point of view was added to the language barrier, causing a lot of stress.

  • I certainly contributed to hiring a mentor to provide newcomer developers with essential guidance and mentoring. Several students carried out their thesis on the TDF ecosystem. The most important outcome was Fabio Biocchetti’s work on the Help System.
  • I contributed to enhancing various training activities in schools, universities and HackFests.
  • I hope I have contributed to fostering a calm discussion within the Board.

Question 2: Suppose a legion of pixies committed to making routine donations to the TDF, totaling an extra 1 Million EUR/annum, starting right now. In other words, our annual budget suddenly increased by 1 Million EUR. As a member of the board, what would be your priorities for allocating the extra income?

Response:

As my grandmother used to say: “May your mouth be holy”! If this were to come true, as Board members, we would have an extraordinary opportunity to make a significant and stable impact on innovative components: a shared cloud environment, mobile access, generative Artificial Intelligence, UX enhancement to make LibreOffice even more beautiful and powerful, listening to the marvellous suggestions of our local communities. Apart from improving the software, I would also use resources to foster the local communities, enable them, and help them grow.

Question 3: One of the problems I have found with the outgoing board is the violation of the TDF-statutory requirement to publish information (as per §8.3.c of our statutes). Did the BoD, during your first tenure, abide by this obligation? (TBH, I am guessing that it didn’t so there would be a followup question.)

Response:

From what I can remember, the formal obligation was fulfilled. However, I think that in some cases, it was difficult for community members to fully understand the scope of decisions. This is something that, in the Pledge that I support together with my colleagues, we have strongly stressed to have much more involved community participation.

Question 4: I also have some background in Academia (Ph.D from the Technion IIT in 2012). Universities I’ve visited, and my own alma mater, do not seem to make much of an effort to promote FOSS culture, and - they very quickly “give way” ideologically to commercial closed-source software companies when those donate to them financially or deign to visit and try recruiting their graduates. My question: Do you believe the TDF has the potential to exert influence in the opposite direction? More generally, what are the prospects of TDF involvement with academia in your view?

Response:

I live this situation you describe every day. Unfortunately, the IT biggies always manage to find loopholes in which to creep in to get their solutions through. At my university, there was a friendly group of tech people (many were former students of mine) who had implemented excellent FLOSS solutions. Unfortunately, at some point, Microsoft managed to creep in and destroy everything. The results are visible now for all to see.
We must not give up because reasonable solutions ultimately prevail. We must, as TDF, strengthen communication and initiatives that enhance the freedom of FLOSS choices and their robustness. It would be desirable to increase the number of companies in our Ecosystem so as to increase the number of players that can provide and service our solutions in compliance with GDPR and personal data, using open formats, and promoting joint training actions within the framework of the certified professionals’ program.

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Thank you for your detailed response to Eyal, and sorry for coming so late with my questions.

(a) You mention getting more donations as one priority. Hasn’t a big problem of those last two years been that existing funds (and donations) have not been used? Hardly any tenders were opened, and even fewer completed.

All the more given current inflation rates this looks like a sizeable problem. How do you see it? And how do you think this can (and will) be addressed swiftly?

(b) You mention Generative AI and other buzzwords whereas in my daily work with LibreOffice I keep running into basic aspects like 3D rotation, full integration of videos (of non-rectangular for or with other elements in front),… missing and interoperability still lacking.

How do you see the overall picture and priorities?

Thank you, Gerald

Dear Gerald,
I apologize for the tardy response … I was busy with the family… Here are my responses:
(a) If donations increase, it means that users are happy with LibreOffice. If I will be elected, as written in the Pledge for LibreOffice, we will try to maximise the tenders, monitor their developments, so that LibreOffice gets better and better, try to expand the ecosystem of companies, always listening to the various souls of the Community.
(b) Every software has its critical aspects and bugs; besides improving these aspects, which is a very important, we need to pay the utmost attention to technological evolution to keep LibreOffice aligned with users’ expectations.
Best Regards,
–Osvaldo