Hi Laszlo,
let me share again with you the actual general issues:
In relation to your specific case it seems like you completely missed the point of the query about your funding page.
Once again, we look at the facts and draw our conclusions based on the evidence and experience.
The companies Collabora Productivity and allotropia are rightly appreciated for their great contributions to LibreOffice and for publishing their own products based on LibreOffice Technology being them funded by their own clients, by public money through various funding mechanism or tenders (once we can restart them using compliant procurement processes).
The issues have always been with the individuals that served as directors in TDF’s board and didn’t clearly separate their personal/business interests or their support for friends with personal/business interests from the role they had as members of the board.
You repeated all over the places that you got funded to develop the “LibreOffice/Collabora Online typography” which is totally fine and welcome that you as individual or through your company contribute to Open Source software including LibreOffice.
The issue comes when then you should wear your hat as TDF director, starting to objectively and impartially look at facts and evidence and act in the best interests of TDF.
The query that Florian raised is totally pertinent as looking at the evidence we have in public, in the directors’ mailing list, in minutes and now also in the project title, description and your own blog, anyone could wonder if you were in conflict of interest and/or uninterested in evidence available to the board when voting for matters related to LOOL/COOL, as well as many other matters, and that should be looked after finding out information confirming that also others acted in conflict of interests while influencing the board and voting.
Your comments then seem to contradict the purpose of the funding you received.
Could you confirm if you asked for and received funds to contribute to both LibreOffice and Collabora Online but then you actually only contributed to LibreOffice?
Once again, I’m very grateful for your contributions but I believe it is in general important, especially when talking about public funds, to be clear on the purpose of funds you received.
So why did you vote for someone in the same position to be in CoI and you did not vote to confirm the various CoIs others had and that were validated also by the legal counsels?
You have Collabora Online all over your blog, you were a contractor for Collabora Productivity years ago and you never sold any services based on LibreOffice so according to the logic you approved with your vote you are clearly in conflict with LOOL/COOL.
I know it sound stupid but either that determination was correct and you are in CoI or it wasn’t and you voted for something that you didn’t evaluate with the due objectivity and impartiality.
Which one do you choose?
Was that TDF’s project?
That’s very new to me, could you point to that project agreed by the board?
It seems like you haven’t been following board matters for the past 3 years.
A brief recap: tendering has been stopped and contracts have been invalidated because checks and balances did not work. As it seem you haven’t noticed a little more than 3 years ago we received written confirmation from our legal counsels that things weren’t good and following that we received audits confirming it.
I did try to get the majority of the board, which included you, to get things sorted but only lawyers managed to get the issues noticed:
It would be great if after 3 years you started to act following your fiduciary duties and actually looked at facts and evidence before making statements of that type or before voting.
TDF could have achieved a lot more but overlapping loyalties and a toxic environment in the board kept getting in the way since many years according to minutes and documents written even before I joined the board.
As you well know the issues this board has to deal with could have been solved in 2022 removing also the opportunity of creating all the other issues that then piled on to the existing ones. You could have made the difference and supported motions to fix those issues but decided to believe the false narratives that you’ve been fed instead of objectively and impartially look at facts, evidence and legal advice.
So if you want to look at one of causes of TDF being unable to act in the past 3 years you just need to find the nearest mirror.
I do respect you as a developer and contributor to LibreOffice but honestly your contributions as a fellow board member do not inspire me in feeling the same level respect at all.
If you could start reading and even challenging in an objective and impartial manner the large amount of legal statements, documents and emails you have available, as I’ve kindly asked you and other new members of the board to do when you joined in 2022, then you could still be in time to contribute positively to allow TDF to fulfil its mission and goals.