We seem to run in circles here.
I’ll not continue the discussion what people think I might have written in the statutes, because my memory serves me quite well.
As such, I do remember we agreed on a Next Decade Manifesto before setting up TDF, and subsequently turned those ideas into what is now The Document Foundation. Even several years later, that manifesto was referred to as “the vision behind all our work”. In another press article, it was refered to as (DeepL) “alluding to the second decade of the project, the founders have set out their plans and ideas for the future”. In our very incorporation blogpost, we state that the statutes “ensure the promises that TDF has made in its manifesto”. During the incorporation phase of TDF, we also communicated that “our ideas and visions have made their way into our Next Decade Manifesto”.
And this Next Decade Manifesto clearly spells out “free of charge”. That is part of the aforementioned vision behind all our work, that is part of the plans ideas for the future, that is part of the promises we made, and that is part of the ideas and visions.
Making LibreOffice available not free of charge, or only in source code form, is the same if our volunteer translators ask for money, or hand us over a dictionary instead of a translation.
We are working here to do something for the common good, to give people access to good software. We need the freedoms for our mission, but we also need free of charge. TDF is in the privileged situation that the good we do for society doesn’t exhaust itself, that it can be reproduced and shared. And I would like to stick with the promise we made.
Many of us bring in their skills, talent, time, passion and love into this project. Many of us do so with the Next Decade Manifesto in mind, that amongst other things states the idea that this common work, this joint effort, is made available to anyone. Also our donors donate to us because they are happy for a software anyone can easily access and use.
Keeping the option to ask for money at some point in time makes it a fundamentally different TDF than the one many of us contribute to.
When setting up TDF, we gave a promise, and I am happy to repeat that promise, and I am glad that others do the same.
We don’t need to discuss about statutes, anyone can make a simple and easy commitment like this.
The fact that this doesn’t happen, worries me quite a lot.
