Sorry, but I give up

I am very sad to read your lines Italo, but the toxic environment that has flooded TDF make it understandable.

Just hope to shake your hand sometime in the future.

Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

I would like to reassure those who interpreted my message as an abandonment of the project. This is not the case.

I am merely acknowledging my impotence in the face of any reasonable attempt to resolve the problems, not only the more serious ones highlighted by the two audits - I would remind you that we are talking about the risk of losing our status as a charitable foundation, with all that this implies - but also the less serious ones relating to day-to-day management, such as the proposal for a group of BoD members in charge of human resources, without a CoI, which has been ignored twice.

I add, of course, the situation regarding the election of the Membership Committee, for which I confirm - in case anyone had any doubts - my decision, in which the rights of the TDF members were used to conceal a completely different objective, namely to control the majority of the Membership Committee, which would constitute the TDF members for the next Board elections. I am 70 years old and have been in top management positions since I was 28, so I have witnessed power struggles in companies and associations and I know all the strategies.

And because I am already aware of the objection to the previous paragraph, and because I try to maintain a consistent attitude and my independence of thought in all situations, I express my disagreement with the decision not to confirm the TDF member status of Thorsten Behrens and Gabriel Masei, while I agree with the decision not to confirm the TDF member status of Cor Nouws, because I still consider the candidacy for the membership committee to be an extremely irresponsible and damaging act for the foundation.

I am still convinced that the mistakes made in the past, as evidenced first by the opinions of the lawyers and then by the results of the two audits, were made in good faith and without any intention to harm TDF. At this point, there were two options: (1) to sit around a table and start working seriously on solving the problems, seeking a solution that would protect TDF without harming the companies in the ecosystem (except to an acceptable extent), or (2) to compete over who had the heaviest accusations and start shooting at their opponents, using their energies destructively rather than constructively.

I think it is pointless to recall the exchange of messages in public, which was probably only a percentage of the exchange in private. This was followed, shortly afterwards, by the hostile actions of one against the other, which, again, I think it is pointless to recall. All in all, a spectacle unworthy of a foundation created by a group of people who, at the time, seemed to be motivated by the same goal: to develop free and open source software for digital sovereignty, based on open standards.

I repeat for the umpteenth time. In the early years of the project, we all made mistakes: myself first, and deliberately so as not to create friction with the developers, which would have served no one at the time. Today, the time has come to correct that mistake, even if it costs me friendships within the project. Before I address my mistake, however, I would like to come full circle to the Board’s mistakes.

It is very difficult to define what the original mistake was, because we are now faced with an almost inextricable web of interconnected problems, one a consequence of the other (and in some cases attempts to prove that the previous ones were not mistakes). The tendering mechanism and related contracts? The free use of the brand? TDC (The Document Collective)? The use of the Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest as a weapon? The staff policy? The paroxysmal recourse to law firms in search of a favourable opinion? The restrictive interpretation of the term LibreOffice Enterprise, so much for the marketing plan?

I would also add less visible mistakes, and certainly without direct consequences for TDF, such as the use of the English language as a means of pressure on native speakers. We are all different in terms of culture, personal experience and character, and we are all entitled to the same level of respect when expressing ourselves or trying to understand a language that is not our own and that we use with less familiarity, especially under pressure.

If I were to reread all the documents for the umpteenth time - but frankly I am tired of spending weeks on an exercise I already know is completely useless - I could probably find more mistakes made by Board members and used as indictments in some of the exchanges. Unfortunately, I am spoilt for choice, but it is a slaughter game I am not prepared to start.

To sum up. We made mistakes, which were first highlighted by the lawyers’ opinions and then by the results of the audits. There is a way to resolve these mistakes, which unfortunately will not always be pleasant for everyone, but I believe it is still possible if everyone (EVERYONE) puts aside their accusations, no matter how legitimate or supportable, and everyone (EVERYONE) cooperates in the search for a solution. This is certainly not the path that has been taken in the last few months, and especially in the last few weeks.

And since I want to be clear on all points today, it is certainly not by playing games such as those related to the elections of the Membership Committee, or the payment of invoices, or the captious interpretation of the words of others, or the sending of ‘verbatim’ messages that are only personal interpretations (he who has ears to hear…), and I’ll stop here, but the list could be much longer, that we pave the way. On the contrary, the risk is to make even those who are very patient, like yours truly, nervous.

So either you all (ALL) calm down and start assessing the issues for what they are, without making stupid assumptions (but if he proposes this, then it means that… and vice versa), avoid attempting ascensions to the Board and Membership Committee that make no sense at all in a community-based project, and work TOGETHER for the future of the project without trying to speculate on the intentions of the next one - which hopefully do not exist - in search of a point of attack, or in a year or so we will all be mourning the project that was and is no more.

I will end by revealing what my mistake was. I always thought, and still think, that the Engineering Steering Committee was a very nice way of creating a gatekeeper to development. I have been familiar with the problem since 1984, when, with a degree in humanities and two masters, one in marketing and one in management, I was given the task of coordinating the development of a new impact printer (the only technology there was at the time), at the head of about 150 hardware and software engineers.

When the head of the 150 engineers, who felt that he had been usurped in the role of project manager for this printer, involved me in the first meeting with his staff by presenting me with the technical drawings of the mechanics and the listing of what he thought the firmware should be, using a language of numbers and diagrams, I immediately understood the characteristics of the trap. For this reason, the next meeting was organised outdoors, where there was no chance of me being embarrassed in front of documents I could never understand, even after years of study.

And so, sitting on the grass around a tape recorder, we had one of the best brainstorming sessions I have ever attended, trying to imagine who would buy the printer and for what application in two or three years’ time (when the printer would be announced). The Compuprint 4/66 was the first printer on the market with a display (12 characters) and a keyboard (4 keys), a quantum leap forward from DIP switches (anyone who has seen them can only agree with me).

On 12 February 1987, at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, the Compuprint 4/66 printer won the RITA (Recognition of IT Achievement) award for the most innovative product of 1986, and I was interviewed by the BBC. By the end of 1987, the 4/66 had achieved a 40% share of the European professional impact printer market, a record still unrivalled today.

So if anyone ever wondered why I never attended an Engineering Steering Committee meeting, even when I was invited to do so, the reason is very simple: I already knew how it would end, so I preferred to avoid it. The ESC is an elegant way of keeping away from development those who have no technical expertise in the development itself, but who might have interesting ideas about how the product should evolve (such as the display and keyboard in an impact printer, which previously allowed no user interaction).

If I had written these things in 2011, I would probably be out of the project today, because the developers would have done everything they could to get rid of me. Today, I allow myself the luxury of writing this in public, knowing that I will raise a few eyebrows but still be heard. And this time I would be wrong not to write it. Let us make ESC a resource for looking far, not for controlling what happens in development. TDF needs our collective intelligence, not our personal squabbles, to move forward.

Today, we don’t even need a lawn and a tape recorder to get together and discuss how to solve problems. We can even do it from a distance, around a virtual table. All we have to do is agree on the timing. I’ll be out here waiting, let me know.

Just a couple of additional information:

(1) I have left tdf-internal mailing list, which means that I am not reading your replies there (if any).

(2) I am deliberately trying to focus on my tasks, which means that I am not reading emails since I have sent my last message to tdf-internal. If you have emailed me since January 1st, please resend your message after January 6.

(3) If you really think that I should read your message before next week, please use Signal or Matrix, as there is too much background noise on Telegram.

It is extremely dismaying to see you give up on this. While we disagree on some of the details and causes - I was really encouraged to vote for you, and to see you elected and engaging with the problems. Even more encouraged to see you making some progress too against the odds. Thank you so much for diligently working to get something positive actually done! Thanks too for being a person who reaches out and listens to others across the aisle - we badly need more of that in board work.

It is very far from clear to me why, despite me repeatedly signalling a willingness to talk and help solve these open issues, that no-one is talking and/or proposing even silly ideas for sensible ways ahead: instead there is just brutal escalation. So - thank you in particular for not having that attitude - and always being open.

I completely agree that people should be co-operating in a search for a fair solution - which starts and ends with talking constructively (by which I mean with a focus on building something better). I hope there are still enough board members with the skill & experience to do that in TDF’s interest, although we have lost an unfortunate number of experienced people this term both in the board and membership.

I’m particularly grateful for the self awareness you brought to the role, as well as accurate communication and framing: that these problems are difficult - there are many factors that feed into them, there is no panacea, and the blame is widely distributed etc. That seemed a wise and winsome approach to me.

Anyhow - thanks so much for the time you put in; I really hope you can make good progress on the various important activities you have underway - and that you’ll be able to have the satisfaction of finishing them up; and perhaps a small final hope - that the situation improves enough before you leave - so that doing so will be no longer necessary.

Best wishes, Michael.

That’s good. And the usual procedure.

And hopefully everyone also agrees that a ‘fair solution’ must fulfil the requirements of the charitable TDF’s statutes and the legal provisions.

Best,
Stephan

It is very far from clear to me why, despite me repeatedly signalling a willingness to talk and help solve these open issues, that no-one is talking and/or proposing even silly ideas for sensible ways ahead: instead there is just brutal escalation.

Let me see if I can unravel this mystery from my perspective.

First, as a general observation, I notice that your conception of the way ahead for TDF seems to involve some kind of technical challenge that will get programmers excited. I think the P2P LibreOffice project is one and I wish it success. While getting new programmers involved and giving fresh challenges to the veterans is a commendable goal, I’m afraid no amount of singing Kumbayah between programmers is going to solve TDF and ecosystems’ problems at the leadership level, where the real conflicts are.

Second, I don’t think more silliness or off-the-wall ideas is what TDF needs right now. On the contrary, I think many of us trustees would appreciate a more serious attitude toward the legal issues TDF is facing. Right now I can’t be sure if everyone taking part in these conversations agrees that the laws of Germany do, in fact, apply to TDF and will override any previous arrangements held together by duct tape and common sense. I’m sure the companies in the ecosystem do not go about flouting the law while doing business themselves! That we’re not hearing a resounding commitment by the key players in the ecosystem to seeing TDF through the current troubled legal waters is rather worrying, in my opinion.

Third, this is not the first time we’re having discussions about the future of TDF and LibreOffice. Those who were around in 2020 will remember that after long discussions with the ecosystem, an agreement was reached - and then almost immediately disregarded by Collabora, who proceeded to fork LibreOffice Online. However valid the reasons for the fork may have been from Collabora’s perspective, I think this kind of surprise manoeuvre resulted in a lot of trust and goodwill burned. The ecosystem needs to win that trust back. It’s no use spending lots of time and effort crafting lofty plans and pronouncements if one of the parties can simply flush everything down the drain on a whim afterwards.

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Hi Tuomas,

I think it is good that you bring these things here clearly; let me answer in the same spirit.

I’ve never noticed anyone saying, writing or suggesting that German law does not matter or can be ignored. I do have seen various statements of the opposite, people confirming they do respect law and want to act accordingly. It is possible that you find these reassuring statements much less, than those insinuating as if ‘some do not mind’, and even slanderous and defamatory statements. Responding to all kind of frames and rumors however, would clearly increase the amount of noise even more - with people rightfully complaining about that already now.
If you find statements, say e.g. about an audit, that suggest there are issues, then please do remember that there are well documented controversies about the facts, but not about the law. I think it would be very helpful to the situation if all cooperate to have these controversies sorted out… Quoting Michael (from above here):

A last topic.

Without having a date, I’m sure the compromise was there well before 2020. The description of the situation can still found on the LibreOffice website. However someone (having business interests but no relevant contributions) who entered the TDF board, started to attack the agreement, finally resulting in Collabora moving the development (that of course remained open source and providing gratis versions too) to another place.
(Note: I was working most of my professional time for Collabora during that period.)

So there was a situation with LibreOffice Online development (almost completely by Collabora) at TDF that was not competing with the ecosystem company, responsible for developers’ salaries and that brought (and brings) a lot of important improvements for LibreOffice in all areas, benefiting all kinds of LibreOffice users. Any sensible person will understand that also from TDF’s own best interest, it would be clearly unwise to try to do that different. It was not Collabora that started breaching trust.

HTH,
Cor

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We have seen you and Michael Meeks repeatedly spreading the implausible theory that lawyers have been intentionally mislead and that the advice received is just a result of “garbage in, garbage out”. This combined with your actions and inaction gives this impression of not caring about the law or what happens to TDF.

Hello Cor,

If my rhetorical exaggeration wasn’t clear enough, I don’t think anyone here literally believes that German law has no bearing on TDF whatsoever. The crux of the mattter is, in plainer language: do people believe that complying with the law is actually vitally important to TDF? If they do, why don’t they act like they do? I’m seeing the kind of carefree, dismissive attitude that’s quite unexpected and concerning for a matter of this importance.

I think it would be very helpful to the situation if all cooperate to have these controversies sorted out…

Indeed. If you really believe that, though, why did you spend much of last year starting a fire and then happily throwing more fuel on it?

Hi Ilmari,

Apart from the ways in which, at various occasions, I’ve expressed my increasing amazement about the fact that there is no interest to even look at possibilities to provide more complete and better information - which could only lead to a situation with less risks for TDF - that is clearly no indication whatsoever of any disrespect for the law.

Hi Tuomas,

Maybe my explanation wasn’t clear enough either. When I write:

for me that just means complying.

This seems confused. It is clearly the case that if you don’t provide all the necessary background to your counsel, and/or worse mis-inform them - that you can get nonsense out of the very best counsel; for an easy example see: attacks over claims that TDF makes itself on its own website.

In more recent time - you can read the vote to approve a procurement policy that contained an Arbitration Clause:

The arbitrator(s) have the power to issue preliminary measures including a temporary order to award the Tender to the plaintiff and TDF will be bound by any such determination, order or award, relieving TDF of any liability. <!-- FIXME: add clause →

And also this:

11.4 “Developer shall compensate FhG for all damages that result directly or indirectly from the termination of the agreement” -

Where FhG turns out to be Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

Apparently not proof-read; furthermore in that vote thread, no answer has been provided if a Rechtsanwalt had reviewed the policy for compliance before voting it through.

It seems at least well within the bounds of plausibility that there might be serious problems with how TDF handles legal matters.

This impression is far from the truth. We are incredibly blessed to be based in a developed nation underpinned by the rule of law - and we should not just follow, but honor the law.

What actions and inactions are you thinking of? I spend my time trying to encourage board members to engage in real dialog to resolve these issues - often with many months of non-response in between: it takes two to talk - and I pro-actively reach out.

For my part it is really hard to understand why TDF engaging a mediator / facilitator and a lawyer to try to help improve things at TDF is/was somehow bad. Particularly given the state TDF was in relationaly at the time.

TDF staff do good work every day; I helped to found TDF; I care about what happens to it - particularly that it remains true to being a Free Software project driven by its contributors, and ideally is returned to effectiveness again.

I believe that the current situation is the result of a history of years of miscommunication (probably, the worst example of communication I have witnessed in the past 50 years as a communicator) and its consequences. Today, it is difficult to trace back what we can define as original sin, because the problems have superimposed themselves on the problems, to the point that there are opposing but equally legitimate interpretations for each of them, obviously depending on the point of view.

I do not believe that anyone has ever deliberately acted against the law, but that bad communication has crystallised the respective opposing positions, and this has meant that those who had a majority in the BoD have tried to use legal advice in an instrumental way, to support their point of view.

If the first legal opinion that raised the issue of trademark licences had been immediately followed up, today - years later - we would not still be discussing how to solve the problem, which is now crossed with tenders and other issues.

And here we come to the two examples cited by Michael.

Personally, I believe that the decision to use the term LibreOffice Enterprise was an egregious error, the result of the BoD’s misinformation of the law firm ( the BoD completely ignoring the decisions made by the BoD itself in approving the marketing plan). An egregious error, which today - in light of other definitions - should in my personal opinion be categorised as a partial misuse of TDF funds.

Moreover, since - unlike others - I am perfectly aware that it is possible to make mistakes even in good faith, I protested against the decision at the time but was completely ignored by the BoD, despite the fact that I was the one who had written the rules (and therefore knew them perfectly well), but I did not accuse anyone of criminal behaviour, as others have done several times for even much less serious things. Let us also say that the fact that my protest was ignored is perfectly in line with the incredible number of mistakes made by the BoD in 2020/2022 and 2022/2024.

As far as the Procurement Policy is concerned, I have already made it clear that the errors contained in the first version that was published have been corrected in a version 1.1 that I hope will be published as soon as possible, and that in any case even version 1.1 cannot be considered final because it only addresses a partial case of tenders, i.e. those for which the skills are widely distributed within the community and not concentrated within the companies of the ecosystem. A fact that is quite obvious to those who have even a minimal knowledge of LibreOffice developers, such as myself, but evidently not obvious to those who have an obviously inferior knowledge to mine but think instead that they have a good grasp of the project.

Once all this has been clarified, I repeat my point of view for the umpteenth time.

At this time, I believe it is appropriate for everyone to avoid going back over points that have already been clarified, as if the clarifications had never happened, or to continue in accusations that are almost always the result - to a large extent - of communication crimes committed in the past by the majority of BoD members (this is a professional judgement, for which I can provide all the supporting evidence).

I believe that it would be much better for everyone to do a good examination of conscience, with a cool head, trying to understand how and where we may have gone wrong by creating in others the perceptions that - in the long run - turned into the current frictions. Assuming that we have all done something wrong, and nothing we have done is perfect. Not even in all those cases where we are adamantly convinced that we have done the right thing, even from a legal point of view.

I, too, would like to understand the criterion on the basis of which the auditor determined that some consultancy expenses represent a misuse of TDF funds and others do not. This is to help me in my decision-making. In fact, while I can understand the two decisions, I would like to be sure that my point of view is the same as the auditor’s.

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Hi Tuomas,

Assuming you are referring to e.g. ‘extremely irresponsible’, then please read this:

Further more it appears to me, that also the 2023-audit shows that I rightfully considered it completely normal and within possibilities, to prevent any possible involvement from me as MC member in the audit, by recusing myself: three members just did that…

Talking about starting of a fire: I think there can be no misunderstanding about my intentions for the MC. But possibly this brings you closer:

I hope that you find it justified that I stand up for my rights and (even though actual responses seem to be few in number) defend myself. Really: to me this is not ‘happily throwing fuel on…’; I can fully concede with you though, in expressing hope that this can be closed soon in a fair and sensible way!

@ilmari : Unfortunately, given some of the rhetoric we’ve been reading these past few months (mostly by @PaoloVecchi and @elianedomingos in name fo the BoD, but to some extent also from @italovignoli), I have to say this theory is not implausible. But regardless - secret legal advice visible to only one side of an argument are really not something worth consideration. You know, I contracted a very respectable lawyer who advised me that all of my claims are valid and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong… but I can’t publish his advice because it’s very sensitive. Or just because. :frowning:

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(Sorry for the late reply to the initial post, I’ve been catching up on the tedious arguments in tdf-internal)

I am sad to hear this news, @italovignoli - much more about your decision to withdraw from trusteeship than even your upcoming resignation from the BoD. Even though I have some strong disagreements with you, your willingness to engage - and invest/waste a lot of time talking to disgruntled trustees with oppositionary views like myself - is and has been very much appreciated, by myself and many many others (which I’m sure you know but it never hurts to say it :slight_smile: ).

I will say that, from my perspective, that it is an excessive expectation, not to have to “share presence with people [you] would try to avoid outside the project, because they are are completely alien to my way of seeing and doing things, incapable of building a constructive relationship with other people, and toxic to any kind of environment.”

Certainly, some of us have alien behaviors to one anothers, some of us may be incapable of being constructive, and some of us may be toxic. Well, sometimes and to some extent, anyways. But - being an LO trustee requires contributing to the project, not capability of constructive relationships or non-toxicity. Society as a whole is not made up of virtuous people, and LO contribution is not really a virtue filter on quality of character. And of course, different TDF trustees believe that different other trustees are those “bad apples”, toxic and intolerable. We are stuck with each other, because of our goal, of perfecting and expanding the use of LibreOffice; in that sense, TDF trusteeship is not entirely voluntary - if we want to be involved, we also put up with people we don’t like.

Of course you’re fully within your right to choose to withdraw. You’ve earned it, not to “take so much crap”, after long years of contributions and community activity. But then - you have also chosen to put yourself in the heart of it as a BoD member. … well, a change of heart is also legitimate. I still want to ask you to consider, upon your resignation as a BoD member, not to resign from the board of trustees. Even if you reduce your level of activity, please don’t give up on us all the way.

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just to emphasize that these kind of legacy considerations are totally opaque to (most?) readers.

this “term” seems only vaguely used in LibreOffice in business :thinking:

we strongly recommend using LibreOffice Enterprise versions from one of our ecosystem partners
LibreOffice Enterprise doesn’t refer to a single product, but a family of products built upon LibreOffice with the additional benefits mentioned above.
LibreOffice Enterprise versions of the suite are ideal solutions for businesses that want to regain control of their data and free themselves from vendor lock-in.

Additional info welcome.

Hi Eyal,

would you find it plausible that Michael, which stated he spent money with his own lawyer, or Thorsten and Cor that asked the legal firm they had exclusive access to, while being in CoI and without the board’s knowledge, about these legal issues, did not get anything that they could have used against the statements and advice provided by 7 other lawyers?

I have no doubt that if they found even a comma that could have been used to discredit all the other lawyers they would have used it years ago and made the world know that they were right and all the lawyers were wrong because of that comma.

Not having found that comma some resort to nitpicking from other documents:

I got surprised as well to see an error in that document (FhG) as I’ve corrected it a month earlier but an old version of the PDF has been published.

Of course, as expected, that has been used to imply that the current board might be incapable of handling legal matters correctly.

I guess you mean legal details or information that should not be shared with people that are in conflict of interests. Not that it mattered that much as since Caolan left and Thorsten disbanded the legal group, that was supposed to work on these matters avoiding influence from the directors in CoI, they were all over the places despite advice from the lawyers to stay out of it.

As stated a while back, I believe by Italo, legal documents or a summary of them will be shared with the trustees as soon as the matters at hand are solved.
I would be for sharing the whole lot including whole email threads showing who has said or done what as it would clarify once and for all the roles and the responsibilities of each director.

Just a note about this:

We have discussed the matter at length at the time and, while there have been a case of miscommunication and different opinions, the specific matter of stating “X is an enterprise version of LibreOffice” on the app store, the actual term “LibreOffice Enterprise” was not found, discussed or used at all in that context, had zero (0) influence on the general legal matters at hand at the time or currently.

The majority of the board that sent that letter, after having warned Michael that we had to take actions on the relevant legal statements we received, did not consider the use of “X is an enterprise version of LibreOffice” as being the same thing as sporting a “LibreOffice Enterprise” logo/statement so we did not contact you for that.

The solution to the matter was very simple as it can be seen even today, eg: “X is an enterprise-ready office suite based on LibreOffice technology…”, that in my opinion is OK as it states a similar thing, without stating that it’s a different software, and of course if should state that X provides enterprise services and support.

Then if X is actually a different software which provides features that LibreOffice doesn’t have it’s an entirely different matter but at the time I was not aware of that being the case.

The attorney in question has not been “misinformed”, the attorney has been asked to check the compliance of the corresponding app store pages following the expiry of the trademark license.
No instructions have been given to look at or not look at something to ensure that the attorney would do an objective and impartial job and to ensure that nobody could claim that there has a preferential treatment as it would have gone against the application of the arm’s length principle recommended in the legal documents we received.

The attorney reported the findings that have been shared with Michael, as they were, together with an additional explanation complementing the previous warnings that unfortunately these were steps we had to take.

These are the facts supported by evidence.

If you want to claim that in your opinion I was one of the person involved in a misuse of TDF funds then you should report it to our legal team, the auditors and the supervisory authorities, together with the evidence supporting your claim if you have any, to complete the 2022 audit and to see if they share your opinion.