Questions on NLnet fundings with the LibreOffice name

Given the phrase you are are objecting to is a technical term identifying a rhetorical tactic that is clearly in use, and given the recommended defence against the tactic is to say the phrase Thorsten used, I would love to hear your proposal for describing it concisely without a link to the explanation. “As simple as possible, and no simpler” as Einstein supposedly said.

Once sentence. 53 words. Wow. Best example.

“Clearly”? Really? You don’t find the questions Paolo is asking relevant at all?

On the other hand, there are translations in wikipedia for all “major” languages…

Hi y’all,

and

It seems what I said earlier bears repeating: we have not received any funding from NLnet for LibreOffice Online. Anybody claiming the opposite is not telling the truth.

Again, we have not received funding for LibreOffice Online - the initial project proposal did include a part for Online, but that only made sense as long as the project was alive & maintained. So when LibreOffice Online was left in limbo, instead this was turned into useful additional features for LibreOffice core, e.g. for the in-browser pdf conversion.

Best, Thorsten

Hi @tjhietala,

I don’t believe @webmink was specifically referring to what I stated, as ignoring all the public and the board available evidence would be a dereliction of duties for a director, and it more likely was an imperfect attempt of explaining how that term is commonly used.

I surely disagree on the statement that the Gish gallop technique “is clearly in use” as there are is no “format” limiting anyone in their capacity to answer as we could see in a in person time-limited debate.

One would say that we can see “series of specious arguments, half-truths, misrepresentations and outright lies” but we can also see fact-checking and evidence refuting those statements making the wrongly mentioned “Gish gallop” ineffective especially in a public forum where the community can evaluate that evidence and the various statements in their own time.

Of course it would have been better if @webmink wrote a clearer sentence and actually confirmed that the evidence presented is correct, as available also to him, that Thorsten indeed got funded for the “LibreOffice P2P” project which had the purpose of improving LibreOffice Online and that its scope changed about 2 years after he applied for it but I guess that after dinner isn’t the best moment to validate evidence and write posts.

Anyway that was just another example of how directors and chairperson should not behave and yet another lesson learned that make the following 2 decision more important than ever:

Ciao

Paolo

The various projects ran over a larger time span, sometime between August 2020 to November 2023, some seem still running, from what I gather from the website. See the below screenshot, I’ve highlighted the dates.

The vote to freeze LibreOffice Online was taken in November 2020. The vote to put LibreOffice Online into the attic was taken in March 2022 and it explicitly states a project “can be moved back into active development”.

The tie-breaking vote mentioned “a short term period” and “as soon as we have these new active project it/the content should be used again”.

So given there seems to have at least been a funding opportunity: Why wasn’t the repository opened again?

You write yourself that “LibreOffice Online was left in limbo” and “the initial project proposal did include a part for Online”. That “limbo” could have been easily resolved.

Why was Online put in the attic, when the attic prevents such active contributions that are needed? I would have expected that the moment a viable chance for contribution comes up, the development is encouraged and the attic status is removed.

Also my question stands: Why Paolo has been put into a CoI over Online but others haven’t? As you were just pointing out again Paolo is supposedly having a CoI, would you please answer my question, that is shared by others, too?

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Forgive me for exploring that statement briefly; I was not party to this now contested decision so I may be missing details, but:

If a non-profit was to fund some Task in line with its mission at fixed-price, and that Task was already funded by a third party, and could only be done once, that would surely be a waste of its money ?

Or another scenario:

  1. Imagine a world where Bob owns a book-shop which sells educational books.
  2. Bob gets elected to the board of the ‘Foo’ non-profit that writes new educational books.
  3. Bob pushes enthusiastically for the charity to stop writing and instead spend funds buying and giving away free books to students.
  4. Foo is an educational charity. Giving away free books serves an educational purpose.

Is it your contention that because Bob’s change of direction is still inside the mission - that there is then no conflict of interest for Bob ?

Ultimately I would hope that TDF only chooses to do things that are inside its charitable mission. If so is it your contention that no choice in line with the mission can be to the detriment of TDF ?

Thanks,

Michael.

If a non-profit was to fund some Task in line with its mission at fixed-price, and that Task was already funded by a third party, and could only be done once, that would surely be a waste of its money ?

The problem would occur if a board member of the non-profit decided to not pursue this task further, until there is funding. When an opportunity of funding arises, they don’t pursue this task further in the non-profit, because the task has been “temporarily” laid to rest, due to the lack of funding. The problem seems pretty obvious to me…

Or another scenario:

I think this is a more helpful scenario:

  • Imagine a world where Bob owns a book-shop which sells educational books.
  • Bob gets elected to the board of the ‘Foo’ non-profit that writes and publishes new educational books free of charge.
  • Jane owns a publishing company which publishes educational books.
  • Also Jane gets elected to the board of the ‘Foo’ non-profit.
  • Bob pushes enthusiastically for the charity to continue writing and fulfil the nonprofit’s mission by giving away free books to students.
  • Not Bob, but Jane fears her business endangered. Some board members, including at least one contractor of Jane, in the ‘Foo’ non-profit vote to stop writing and publishing a specific book and to point readers to Jane’s publishing company.
  • Although Jane’s company contributed a lot, the book has been written by the help of authors worldwide. Others in the non-profit translated, illustrated, proofread and advertised for this book.
  • Foo is an educational charity. Giving away free books serves an educational purpose.
  • Bob is publicly blamed to have a conflict of interest. It is publicly pointed out that he “failed to establish a business relation” with Jane’s and another company.
  • Others, including a contractor, do not have a conflict of interest.

Question 1: Why does Bob have a conflict of interest? He voted to continue the free publication of books. Bob obviously cannot sell free books. Where is his conflict?

Question 2: Why no one else has a conflict of interest, even if they work for the publisher and point at Bob’s supposedly failed business relation?

The whole situation is like running a pizza place in the same street as a food bank. The pizza place owner can decide to support the food bank and do something good for society. They can also decide to see them as a threat for their own restaurant, because some food bank visitors might be willing to buy a slice of pizza.

While that would be sad, it becomes truly problematic when the owner becomes a board member of the food bank and then votes to not serve specific goods anymore. The owner fears that this might take customers away, and in return, they cannot support the food bank anymore, so by giving away free goods, the food bank would damage itself.

That’s not how nonprofit works in my world.

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Let’s also say that those that point out about the “failed” establishment of a business relation do so knowing perfectly their statement is false as they all know, having also seen the evidence, that Bob refused to establish a business relationship with Jane as he considered unethical the contractual clause stating that contributions to free publishing should go to Jane’s company instead of directly to the non-profit.

Hi @floeff ,

Let me suggest another tweak, to make your scenario even more illustrative: Bob instead owns a reading glasses business. The charity writes, prints and publishes free educational books, which Bob very much supports. Additionally, he pushes the charity to use a much smaller font size in print, arguing that this way more educational content can be handed out , to more pupils, for the same budget.

Same question as before: would you agree that Bob is in a conflict of interest here? And oh, please also consider answering the other open questions from the earlier post - in particular this one:

Best, Thorsten

In the story, it was Jane who created artificial scarcity, not Bob. Apart from that, reading glasses is something most pupils luckily don’t need yet.

I didn’t get any answer as to why Paolo was put under a conflict of interest. It seems this board then has to consider this, as it had to consider other situations from the past:

Me neither. Does anyone from the previous Board want to explain this, to all community members?

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I think I just did that.

In the example, the eye doctor is said to be conflicted, but not the two biggest opticians in town, who are also partners on selling reading glasses.

I think that is a bit short-sighted.

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While I’m sure we’re all enthralled by Bob’s adventures in the optical wonderland, we’re not having this discussion because of imaginary decisions taken by imaginary people.

Besides, I agree with @floeff that the analogy is rather strained.

Now, are we going to hear any justification for the actual decision taken by the actual previous BoD concerning the actual fellow director @PaoloVecchi ?

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Hi @tjhietala,

that decision was widely debated (and justified) back in the day. For starters & reference, see here for the public aspects:

Since conduct and business practices of a TDF member where scrutinized, the previous board decided to keep the details of that debate members-only though. You are a TDF member, so likely you will have received my email about that on Nov 17th, 2022.

At issue was, what me and others in this thread have tried to illustrate with those allegorial book shop stories:

  • someone earning money with the complementary good of a free product is likely in a CoI
  • someone trying to partner with companies, who benefit from a better free product is likely in a CoI
  • it does seem invalid to assert ‘I just wanted more free giveaways’ as a defense for a behaviour that harmed an organisation (whose 2nd objective is the support of a sustainable, independent and meritocratic community)

I hope that answers at least a few of your questions. Beyond that, it would be great, if you and others would hold those who started this topic about a largely imaginary problem to the same standard: there are quite a few questions unanswered up-thread.

With all the outrage here, what seems additionally curious is the notable absence within the current BoD, of minimal standards to register & make transparent personal interests. While during the previous board, the minutes started with a list of directors with an interest, split by agenda items, that habit seems to have stopped.

Which is a problem IMHO, when for example discussing and voting on a budget, which among other things contains the salary of the husband of one of the directors; potentially increases the staff size, such that more favourable labour laws apply for another director who’s himself an employee; and adds or dissolves a number of budget items, over which staff-directors had discretion to spend. It is worth stating, that the BoD Conflict of Interest Policy - frequently quoted in arguments against previous board members - in section 5 requires the sort of disclosures I’m missing above.

I’m sure that the current BoD members have the best interest of TDF in mind (just like the previous board had). But for making progress, looking backwards & trying to find fault is perhaps less helpful, than tackling the many unresolved issues & shortcomings in front of us. I’m still hopeful we can jointly knock a number of them down though, during this board term!

Best, Thorsten

That would apply then also to services, support, long-term supported versions, or sales in app stores done by commercial entities.

That would then be even more true of someone who says that a person “failed to establish a business relation” with companies: [board-discuss] Board of Directors Meeting 2022-11-14

Paolo’s behaviour around Online is entirely in line with the objectives, scope and mission statement of The Document Foundation.

However, I begin to wonder where things are heading. If I recall correctly, one of the arguments for moving Online elsewhere was that a large contribution of code came from one contributor, and a free download in binary form from TDF was seen problematic for the business. Keep in mind that while maybe not for code contributions, but for other areas like localization, marketing and documentation, the community contributed quite a lot.

What will happen to the LibreOffice Desktop version if we reach the same situation? Would anyone asking to keep the free, binary download of it at TDF then also be described as “harming” TDF and put under a CoI, while those selling it wouldn’t?

On what would it depend? The monetization situation?

That is a very worrying thought.

Looking at the PDF, I have a few more questions. There’s probably lots to say, but let’s start with the most obvious ones:

we share the conclusion of the board

(page 2)

Who is “the board”?
Did people who are affiliated to the ecosystem companies participate in the hearing, and/or the discussion and/or the vote?
In other words, did they participate in a procedure to put Paolo in a CoI over also the companies they are affiliated with?

The document shows “Cor Nouws” as author, who during this time was affiliated with Collabora.
The document suggests that the hearing e-mails have been sent by you, Thorsten, who back at that time was the management director of allotropia. Is that correct?

So, my question again: Did people who are affiliated to the ecosystem companies participate in the hearing, and/or the discussion and/or the vote?

“Conclusion based on the facts found:
The members of the board come to the conclusion that you have a
personal/business interest in an online version of LibreOffice/ based on
LibreOffice Technology.”

(page 2)

Why does that apply only to Paolo and not to others who were affiliated with companies who have products based on LibreOffice Online and/or LibreOffice Technology?

An interest is the availability of a ‘version of LOOL’ supported by TDF
or another entity, allowing you to offer relevant functionality to your
customers.

(page 3)

Isn’t that also true for other companies? Why have their affiliates not been put in a CoI?

Hi @floeff,

I believe my defence document already contains several answers together with the evidence that Thorsten and Cor were very aware of the fact that what they were doing was illegitimate, unethical and also wrong from a procedural point of view.

Exhibit C in the defence document shows one of the many instances where they, together with the rest of the board, were reminded of how wrong they were with what they were doing but they carried on regardless ignoring any element that wasn’t fitting with their desired outcome.

Ciao

Paolo