Proposal for in-house developers at TDF

Board Discuss
#1

Hi all,

after receiving quite a few comments and suggestions it seems like is time to publish what, hopefully, is the final version of the proposal to add 2 in-house developers to TDF's team:

https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/sfJeNq7H9GS8YPe

The most significant changes have been made in the Focus Areas where the recommendations from Michael Weghorn and lmari Lauhakangas (thanks to both!) have been merged in the text, relevant links have been put in the footer to make the proposal more readable and additional explanations have been provided.
Other minor changes have been applied to the text throughout the document.

I have received no additional constructive feedback from the board since the last published version so I assume that the proposal will be promptly approved as a new strategic project and the team will be kindly asked to prepare the job descriptions shortly after.

Thank you all for your contributions!

Ciao

Paolo

#2

after receiving quite a few comments and suggestions it seems like is time to publish

...

I have received no additional constructive feedback from the board since the last published version so I assume

...

  I'd really love to get some answers to my points from March,
perhaps you took those on-board, let me link to those:

https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05550.html

       "The concern around clarifying management and tasking of the proposed
new staff is still there. I link my original comment which seems to still be
unaddressed. Having ten people manage two is a problem as we know from
previous boards."

  etc.

  Interesting that mail links to the unaddressed issues from Feb,
let me link to that, though it is perhaps obsoleted by the former.

https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05477.html

  Regards,

    Michael.

#3

Hi Paolo,

Paolo Vecchi píše v Čt 12. 05. 2022 v 14:29 +0200:

I have received no additional constructive feedback from the board
since
the last published version so I assume that the proposal will be
promptly approved as a new strategic project and the team will be
kindly
asked to prepare the job descriptions shortly after.

I remember there was a Board working group to be set up to finalize the
proposal, for which I volunteered, to be able to further my feedback
there. Unfortunately I am not aware of the working group being setup
yet, did I miss that, please?

If the Board working group is not going to be set up, I still have some
feedback I'd like to share. Should I send it here instead?

All the best,
Kendy

#4

Hi Kendy,

If the Board working group is not going to be set up, I still have some
feedback I'd like to share. Should I send it here instead?

It has been communicated to send comments by email but nothing has arrived since a while from the board.

Ciao

Paolo

#5

Hi Paolo, hi Kendy,

Jan Holesovsky wrote:

Paolo Vecchi píše v Čt 12. 05. 2022 v 14:29 +0200:
> I have received no additional constructive feedback from the board
> since
> the last published version so I assume that the proposal will be
> promptly approved as a new strategic project and the team will be
> kindly
> asked to prepare the job descriptions shortly after.

I remember there was a Board working group to be set up to finalize the
proposal, for which I volunteered, to be able to further my feedback
there.

Could I ask the two of you to work out a joint proposal, how to
finalize the document?

It could be a working group or a shared, editable document, or
something else entirely - but would be great to see this finished
soonish, and with wide board support.

Thanks a lot,

-- Thorsten

#6

Hi all,

It could be a working group or a shared, editable document, or
something else entirely - but would be great to see this finished
soonish, and with wide board support.

As we started the project in an open and transparent way I'm sure everyone will want to carry on like this.

I haven't received any constructive feedback for a while so I presumed that the proposal was to be considered sufficiently exhaustive.

I'd like to move on to the next stage very soon but if you have additional concrete proposals please share them here.

Ciao

Paolo

#7

The project management section might imply something of a mentoring or
micro management role for the ESC which isn't really something that I
think it's suited for, if that is envisioned.

The commentary around targeting specific stalled/neglected areas of
development is appealing, I fear there may exist a general feeling TDF
developers will solve everyone's pet peeves whereas hiring to primarily
do a specific XY sets achievable expectations.

#8

Hi Caolan,

Hi all,

after receiving quite a few comments and suggestions it seems like is
time to publish what, hopefully, is the final version of the proposal
to add 2 in-house developers to TDF's team:

https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/sfJeNq7H9GS8YPe

The project management section might imply something of a mentoring or
micro management role for the ESC which isn't really something that I
think it's suited for, if that is envisioned.

That is not envisioned. The proposal sees an interaction with the ESC to avoid overlaps but the mentors and our ED will keep in check the developers.

The commentary around targeting specific stalled/neglected areas of
development is appealing, I fear there may exist a general feeling TDF
developers will solve everyone's pet peeves whereas hiring to primarily
do a specific XY sets achievable expectations.

That's why there will be an interaction between mentors, ED and ESC to avoid that. If the ED sees that there are unresolvable conflicts then he will have the choice of involving the board.

Ciao

Paolo

#9

Hello Paolo,

Thank you for working on this proposal. As a member of TDF, I fully agree that more investment is needed in RTL, CTL and CJK in order to make LibreOffice useful for the next two billion or so people and potentially grow the community of contributors. I'd imagine this could also open up new business opportunities for the commercial ecosystem once the investment from TDF has brought LO to a more usable state in the currently neglected languages.

With regard to accessibility, I'd like to bring up the question of regulation. In the future, it might very well become mandatory for most public sector organisations globally to only procure software meeting accessibility requirements (and in the case of office suites, producing accessible documents). Even without such regulations, many organisations will probably choose accessible software, if possible.

I agree with others who have said that MSO interoperability is not a neglected area. The commercial ecosystem is very active there. I also don't think TDF should be spending its resources on chasing compatiblity with proprietary formats as long as LO still has catching up to do with the latest version of ODF. While MSO compatiblity is important for many people (including myself), in many cases, such as in education, it might not be needed at all, whereas accessibility would be very welcome. Not to mention supporting the local language properly.

Best regards,
Tuomas Hietala

Paolo Vecchi kirjoitti 12.5.2022 15:29:

#10

Hi Tuomas,

Hello Paolo,

Thank you for working on this proposal. As a member of TDF, I fully agree that more investment is needed in RTL, CTL and CJK in order to make LibreOffice useful for the next two billion or so people and potentially grow the community of contributors. I'd imagine this could also open up new business opportunities for the commercial ecosystem once the investment from TDF has brought LO to a more usable state in the currently neglected languages.

Thanks for the kind words and for summarising some of the reasons why we should invest in in-house developers.

With regard to accessibility, I'd like to bring up the question of regulation. In the future, it might very well become mandatory for most public sector organisations globally to only procure software meeting accessibility requirements (and in the case of office suites, producing accessible documents). Even without such regulations, many organisations will probably choose accessible software, if possible.

You are absolutely right on this.

I agree with others who have said that MSO interoperability is not a neglected area. The commercial ecosystem is very active there. I also don't think TDF should be spending its resources on chasing compatiblity with proprietary formats as long as LO still has catching up to do with the latest version of ODF. While MSO compatiblity is important for many people (including myself), in many cases, such as in education, it might not be needed at all, whereas accessibility would be very welcome. Not to mention supporting the local language properly.

I see your point but we are still in a situation where one of the objections that holds back some upgrades to LibreOffice is that people have to deal with files created with an everchanging proprietary format of a de-facto monopolist. It's good that the commercial ecosystem works on it and keeps doing a great job by serving the enterprise customers that are having to deal the most with OOXML files.

TDF invests a lot on the ODF format and slowly some governments are choosing it as their standard file format. There have been calls for European Institutions to start using ODF as their standard file format and I'm pleased to see that the European Commission, among others, accepts and publishes also ODF files. When the OOXML variant used in the other office suite will finally be recognised as not being a valid Open Standard then we'll see a big positive change in all the public sector and by consequence in the private sector.
Hopefully in the not too distant future we will look at OOXML as a thing of the past and keep an import filter in LibreOffice just in case some discover some old files that need to be upgraded to a proper Open Standard format like ODF :wink:

So, in my opinion, keeping up with OOXML changes shouldn't be a primary focus for the in-house developers, unless they find some quick fixes for some issues or old bugs that aren't getting the right amount of attention by others, and I totally agree that languages and accessibility should be given priority over this.

Best regards,
Tuomas Hietala

Thanks again for your contributions.

Ciao

Paolo

#11

Hi,

...
I haven't received any constructive feedback for a while so I presumed

This puzzles me, Paolo. What do you consider as "constructive feedback"?

Cheers
Cor

#12

Hi Paolo,

Hi,

...
I haven't received any constructive feedback for a while so I presumed

This puzzles me, Paolo. What do you consider as "constructive feedback"?

I think clarifying this is useful. From what I have read, I could easily conclude that mails that give ideas on where developers could work on, are considered to be 'constructive feedback', and that mails with questions about how we the work of and processes around developers hired by TDF should be managed, are considered _not_ to be 'constructive feedback'.

(Again - short - I'm a proponent of a clear trial period to learn about the questions we've seen and find out if/how that can be handled in a way that hiring developers indeed is a reasonable approach to improve on the shortcomings in the development, as discussed in the early phase of your proposal.)

Cheers,
Cor

#13

Hi Cor,

I think clarifying this is useful. From what I have read, I could easily conclude that mails that give ideas on where developers could work on, are considered to be 'constructive feedback', and that mails with questions about how we the work of and processes around developers hired by TDF should be managed, are considered _not_ to be 'constructive feedback'.

part of the process of providing constructive feedback is to evaluate objectively the information available and then propose improvements.

During the past 3 months many members of the community proposed many improvements, as some fellow members of the board of director had no further improvements to propose and discuss in public we can safely assume that our community did an excellent job in filling all the information gaps they felt were important.

As described in the document I'm sure that our team, our mentors and our ED will do an excellent job in managing the in-house developers and will implement corrective actions if they feel that the way they are managing their new colleagues needs to be improved.

In the next few days a vote request will be sent out for the board to confirm they listen to our community by approving the the proposal.

Ciao

Paolo

#14

Hi Paolo,

part of the process of providing constructive feedback is to evaluate objectively the information available and then propose improvements.

Then who says what is objective evaluation and what is not?

...
As described in the document I'm sure that our team, our mentors and our ED will do an excellent job in managing the in-house developers and will implement corrective actions if they feel that the way they are managing their new colleagues needs to be improved.

It is the boards responsibility to evaluate that.
Hence my proposal for another approach, that can well result in a similar situation, but that you sadly didn't respond to for the third or fourth time.

Cheers,
Cor

#15

Hi Cor,

It is the boards responsibility to evaluate that.

It is not the responsibility of the board to micromanage the team.

The board has an employees oversight group which already conducts appraisals which, when conducted in a fair and objective way, help the team in achieving the best outcomes for themselves, TDF and the community. During those appraisals we can provide feedback if we think that things can be improved.

Hence my proposal for another approach, that can well result in a similar situation, but that you sadly didn't respond to for the third or fourth time.

You stated that I should have answered questions, that in my opinion are answered in page 10 and 11 of the proposal, but I haven't seen from you any actual proposal for improvements. Could you point me to your proposals in board-discuss just in case I missed them?

Ciao

Paolo

#16

Hi Cor,

It is the boards responsibility to evaluate that.

It is not the responsibility of the board to micromanage the team.

To evaluate the quality of your proposal.

The board has an employees oversight group which already conducts appraisals which, when conducted in a fair and objective way, help the team in achieving the best outcomes for themselves, TDF and the community. During those appraisals we can provide feedback if we think that things can be improved.

Hence my proposal for another approach, that can well result in a similar situation, but that you sadly didn't respond to for the third or fourth time.

You stated that I should have answered questions, that in my opinion are answered in page 10 and 11 of the proposal, but I haven't seen from you any actual proposal for improvements. Could you point me to your proposals in board-discuss just in case I missed them?

You do not response to the idea to have a trial period etc.

Cor

#17

On 23/05/2022 12:57, Cor Nouws wrote:

It is not the responsibility of the board to micromanage the team.

To evaluate the quality of your proposal.

It would have been the responsibility of other fellow members of the board to contribute to a proposal but you may have noticed that the community did such a good job that only a few actual proposal from the board were deemed necessary.

You do not response to the idea to have a trial period etc.

I believe you missed some of the interactions on board-discuss as the answer has been already provided:

https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05567.html
https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05579.html

Ciao

Paolo

#18

Hi Paolo,

It is not the responsibility of the board to micromanage the team.

To evaluate the quality of your proposal.

It would have been the responsibility of other fellow members of the board to contribute to a proposal but you may have noticed that the community did such a good job that only a few actual proposal from the board were deemed necessary.

It looks as if you are thinking in circles :wink:

You do not response to the idea to have a trial period etc.

I believe you missed some of the interactions on board-discuss as the answer has been already provided:

https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05567.html
https://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg05579.html

Thanks. Mark is making a valuable point there. The trial as mentioned there is however based on the persons performing and not on TDF's responsibility.

Cheers,
Cor

#19

Hi Paolo, hi Kendy, all,

Paolo Vecchi wrote:

> Hence my proposal for another approach, that can well result in a
> similar situation, but that you sadly didn't respond to for the third or
> fourth time.

You stated that I should have answered questions, that in my opinion are
answered in page 10 and 11 of the proposal, but I haven't seen from you any
actual proposal for improvements. Could you point me to your proposals in
board-discuss just in case I missed them?

Can I repeat my request to get a small group (e.g. Paolo, Kendy as
representatives of the two opposing sides here) to first agree on a
workable process, to quickly iterate the proposal to something we can
all support?

The current approach via emails does not appear to get us closer to a
final result.

Thanks,

-- Thorsten

#20

Hi,

Can I repeat my request to get a small group (e.g. Paolo, Kendy as
representatives of the two opposing sides here) to first agree on a
workable process, to quickly iterate the proposal to something we can
all support?

First of all, why are you saying that there are opposing sides?
Opposing to what?

I don't think is a good idea to trying to artificially create a division where there isn't any.

Secondly, why do we need a "small group"?
We all did an excellent job together with the community and the team so I don't think anyone would see the necessity of doing things behind closed doors.

The current approach via emails does not appear to get us closer to a
final result.

It seems like you are stating that the community and the team hasn't done an excellent job and that's regrettable.

If directors choose not to share their proposals, like everyone else, here in the mailing list then some might think they don't want to have their proposals scrutinised as the rest of the document.

If you have seen any major issue with the proposal please to share them with us now or let's proceed with the vote.

Ciao

Paolo

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.