[VOTE] Adoption of Code of Ethics and Fiduciary Duties

Hi @mikesaunders ,

thanks for your otherwise thoughtful post - but one remark on the leading statement:

I don’t think we fundamentally disagree on what TDF should be (perhaps a bit more so on what TDF should do). But since this was mostly about the gratis downloads, I said this before:

Or phrased differently: it really makes a lot of sense, in a lot of places, to have readily-available gratis downloads. But Free Software is much more than gratis binaries, and sometimes (e.g. for enterprise use), it serves the larger goals better to not have them. Binding TDF’s (and the community’s) hand here as suggested, is unwise.

Best, Thorsten

Hi Florian,

Can you update the decision with my dissenting opinion as it was intended, please? (After that, I will remove this comment.)

Thanks,
László

– Sharing Simon’s opinion, the policy has not had adequate review by our trustees.

– During the vote period, a serious issue detected by our trustees:
changing our statutes silently. The consequences of which are unforeseeable
without legal examination of the issue, but I am convinced that it could
result in the foundation and LibreOffice losing their FLOSS status.

Hi Eyal, hi all,

I have very good reason to believe that this document was prepared with the intention of changing our statutes, purely on the basis of creating as strong a legal precedent as possible for a different legal interpretation. This new legal interpretation would be fundamentally contrary to the founders’ intentions as set out in the statutes, i.e. the objectives of the foundation. In my strong opinion, based on facts, this vote, which creates a legal precedent, confirmed by uninformed trustees, board and MC members, is a huge step in this very bad direction.

Without legal examination, but based on facts, I am convinced that removing FLOSS from our statutes, as very possibly covered by the this vote, has a deterrent effect, as it clearly appears to have real legal consequences, which are serious negative consequences for the sustainability of LibreOffice development, for our community, for TDF and for the whole FLOSS society. A local government, a charity, enterprises, including FLOSS-committed development companies or a committed free software activist, moreover, none of our trustees would no longer be safe if they wanted to use LibreOffice in accordance with FLOSS principles, because they would face a real (and unfortunately now real) legal threat from the foundation, from supervisory authorities, the German government, or even a well-intentioned or malicious actor. The possible legal situation and its deterrent effect precludes LibreOffice from becoming successful, competitive FLOSS software and likely also from being considered free software at all.

TDF is a respected member of the free software community. As soon as it abandons the FLOSS principles and uses or allows to use its new principles against the FLOSS community (for which the new legal documents would provide all the tools likely), it will become a pariah. That’s what I meant when I wrote that the foundation would lose its FLOSS status.

Best regards,
László

Please do share those facts and the amendments you requested in this document while it was being edited during the past 3 years.

Hi Laszlo,

I’m really not sure what you mean by this message. Why would TDF “abandon FLOSS principles”, when the Community Bylaws shared today state them clearly in the goal: “develop a next-generation set of digital productivity and creativity tools, by fostering a sustainable, independent and inclusive community to produce and publish Free, Libre and Open Source Software”?

Exactly the opposite is happening with these governance updates. These are not mutually-exclusive, either-or things. The Community Bylaws explicitly put FLOSS into the goals of the foundation. The Code here helps to ensure that any future Board of Directors of TDF, especially one dominated by commercial interests, cannot arbitrarily remove binary versions of the technology that the community has worked on together.

Mike

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Just done, but I suggest to leave this message here as is, because I refer to your request from this message.

These documents write many things down which should be common sense. However, as the past years have shown, these rules were not always followed.

The documents were discussed for many years, the latest since September 2022. They were also reviewed by a previous external consultant, contracted by the previous board. The reviewed documents unfortunately were never shared with the full board, until this board inquired with that previous consultant and discovered they were part of recommended governance changes.

I am very happy that these rules are finally in place two years later. They strengthen TDF’s governance and ensure our nonprofit goals and our dedication and committment to FLOSS, as intended by the founders and the authors of the Next Decade Manifesto. They make TDF a good FLOSS citizen and shows we act responsibly and mature.

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Traditional Chinese translation

文件基金會董事會道德守則與受託責任.pdf (571.1 KB)

Ah, OK, I undid the deletion.

Thanks, Florian!

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TDF obviously not “caritative

duplicate → Code d'éthique et obligations fiduciaires du conseil d'administration - The Document Foundation Wiki

To inform the community:
In the meantime, we also have received the signed documents from Paolo Vecchi and Osvaldo Gervasi.

Also Sophie has signed the document and sent it today.

This very moment, also the signed document from Mike Saunders has arrived.

was this spam really necessary ?

and duplicated @ tdf-internal tdf-directors tdf-members ! :face_with_thermometer:

with the mention of " Postings on this list are considered private. Please do not share outside this circle. "
who decides what is private what is not ? :thinking:

I think that whatever we do, some people will be unhappy about too little transparency, others will be unhappy about too many e-mails. I try to communicate many things, as you can see on tdf-internal and board-discuss, in order to inform the community as best as possible.

my question was rather about informing : why these signatures would matter in real time?

and the decision about privacy or not : can the tag line in the mailling lists be removed and/or the sender would be required to clarify what’s “private” if ever.

ps.
“as best as possible” is nice but just arbitrary and often does not help much about transparency.
visibility and logic could / would often help greatly :expressionless:

Because this can be considered a very important milestone. As said, some people would complain to not be informed, others would complain to be informed too frequently - it’s hard to make everyone happy.

The tagline is there for a reason. However, it is obvious that if something is made public on board-discuss, there is no need for confidentiality. Happy to hear proposals how to improve the wording, but removing it is not a good idea I think.

I don’t think it’s arbitrary. This board has published a ton of previously unpublished decisions and minutes.

I also published a lot of background information.

Some decisions are not made public or are redacted when they concern individuals, e.g. [DECISION] Revoke "Legal review of the MC decision" regarding a membership refusal

" For the sake of transparency this is a public (not archived) mailing list; please clarify if/why some content is considered confidential. "

who would decide ?

in the sense that no one knows what is to be expected and when.

the fact that BoD calls can happen without publishing the minutes of the previous one is quite concerning.

yep. in your very example again, how to connect the dots for pending questions …
" we are working on to get published " ? :thinking:

tdf-internal is not a public mailing list. It is members-only discussion.

If in doubt the board or the MC.

I am not happy we don’t have the minutes in time - but usually this is just work overload, vacations, sickness leaves and other things getting in the way. So far, this board has published all the minutes, including the private parts. Maybe sometimes a bit too late, but regularly after the calls.

What do you refer to?

Hi y’all,

Indeed, board work is volunteer time (even if the board member is TDF staff). Incidentally: the above points are to a large extend also the reason, why the previous board was even more behind on minutes (plus some internal challenges, which not even recordings of the calls could fundamentally fix).

Given the holiday season is near - let’s cut each other some slack? :slight_smile:

Cheers, Thorsten