[VOTE] Adoption of Code of Ethics and Fiduciary Duties

I fully support the motion

Paolo

+1

Sorry - let me put my hand in the air to have a major objection.

These documents include an incredibly partisan and unhelpful “Context” preamble based on a mis-translation of the German statutes and the meaning of Free Software. I’ve had on my TODO a plan to write that up.

I strenuously object to part of this “Context” - we should refer to the authoritative German statutes instead.

This looks like a partisan demand to mandate that all future Trustees and Board members adopt this contested interpretation - and to drive away all those who think free should be as in freedom, not free as in beer (ie. free as in unsustainable).

Whatever people think of this divisive issue, mandating that all trustees sign up to this perspective is highly objectionable.

I will try to write up more detail on that in a bit - I’m sorry for not speaking up sooner - but … life intrudes sometimes.

Regards,

Michael.

Our statutes are based on our manifesto. I’ve highlighted the relevant part in it:

+1 on my side
Sophie

Hi @mmeeks,

how many times should I ask you kindly to check your sources before posting things in public?

Then if you really had doubts you could have asked about the source of the Context preamble instead of calling it “partisan and unhelpful”.

I hope Florian’s hint about its provenance made it clear that your rude comment was totally uncalled for.

I vote against this motion as the policy has not had adequate review by the Trustees.

S.

Hi @webmink,

you think that 3 years is not a long enough period for the Trustee to comment on it?

I’ve posted publicly one of the first versions, as a reply to one of your messages, back in October 2022:

You did not object or comment about the policy during the past 3 years so one might guess that it was fine for you.

I see that you did not vote for having the policy checked and validated by the legal team:

Maybe you overlooked that as you overlooked the exchanges with the trustees, it happens.

Are there any improvements that you would like to recommend?

Hi @floeff ,

our statutes are based on many things, but they are the sole ‘constitution’ of the foundation. The statutes are also the text that got written, reviewed by & then agreed to by all founders, quite a while after the manifesto (so it is the newer reading). It is therefore rewriting of history to claim that the wrong English translation would somehow capture the ‘original meaning’ - quite the contrary, the German version is the sole authoritative text. What is more, IIRC that leading paragraph was written by you, full-well knowing the meaning of the word ‘freie Software’ and ‘freie Nutzung’ in German. So that was what all founders signed off on, and is therefore the founders’ will.

Best, Thorsten

Hi!

I am not referring to that extended history, which is common for any complex or important document. For a document of this importance “adequate review” refers solely to the version that is being presented for approval. That version has not had adequate open review.

I am currently reviewing many important documents at ETSI. There the standard of comment is not sending private comments to the pen-holder (or “rapporteur” as it is called) for their sole consideration. instead it involves fully shared comments with the responses openly recorded and the final text based on demonstrated consensus of the full group of authors. That’s what is needed here.

We did have a good process for that initially for the policies Carlo Piana was retained to write. The documents were placed on Gitlab, those of us with comments were able to record them and the discussions about them were mostly recorded.

To adequately review the final version of this policy it should be placed on Gitlab or Github for open review by the trustees and brought to the board for approval when that is completed. This will be a useful test-run for a similar open review of the proposed Bylaws.

Best regards,

S.

wouldn’t it be at least polite to at least have the minutes of the call available before closing the case by a vote ?

indeed.

be … ?

this wiki one ? Board of Directors Rules of Procedure - The Document Foundation Wiki

So when board want, all LibreOffice program download cost money in future.

Contributor translate but no payment. Designer design but no payment.
But user must pay for use software.

:frowning: :frowning:

Absolutely not. “Free of charge” is a worse standard than “free/libre/open source software”.

Something that is free of charge has no guaranteed freedoms apart from price, whereas FLOSS has free-of-charge source code AND the full freedom to use, study, improve and share for any purpose by any person in any place.

I am amazed to have to explain this here.

Hence why for the bylaws you want the board to not respect the statutes and overlook them, strange.

I think I’m still a founder of the foundation, unless my history has changed over the time. I think also I brought several people to our fork/foundation a that time, let them believing in a product available for them at no cost whatever the country they live in and the language they speak. Which is very different of what you are saying now.

You are saying that John Mc Creesh were lying in his manifesto which is for me really unbelievable! John was at the essence of the foundation. For those who don’t know him, here he is and will ever be R.I.P. John McCreesh - The Document Foundation Blog
Really ?

Again, I thought as me as a founder, even if German is my third language. I didn’t think that only German speakers are part of the founders, I was not aware of that :frowning: I still understand it as John and Florian’s meaning. And I think it’s the understanding of most of the community contributors. Otherwise it would damage a lot of language contributors where the meaning is to provide for them a way to express themselves in their own language in secured way at no cost.

2 Likes

I’m sorry for what you read here.
Be sure, I’ll never let you and other contributors down in that story.
This is absolutely not the project I’m contributing to and working for.

No particular problem with the manifesto - or the statues (when properly FOSS contexualized and translated). You will notice “giving everyone access to office productivity tools free of charge to enable them to participate as full citizens in the 21st century”. Surely - no citizen (or no-one) should be shut out from participating. Again I am in favor of LibreOffice for PCs being a free download forever. Collabora makes its mobile app available for free too.

Free Software doesn’t have domain of use restrictions, so of course it is also free of charge for corporate use. But - this does not mean that we need to harm our project by demanding that hosters (Paolo?), and Governments and large enterprises should get the best software for them, provided free of charge - funded by citizen donors. At best this seems like an arguable point of difference inside the statutes.

Mandating that as a signed article of faith is controversial and unhelpful.

I’m not a native German but I believe my expert friends who say “Office-Software zur freien Nutzung durch jedermann” is unambiguous in the context of FOSS. If we want a definition of Free Software we really want to checkout the FSF: [What is Free Software? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation] and I quote:

“Free software” means software that respects users’ freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.

In contrast - this change mandates that Libre-Office Trustees sign up to a vision that is gratis. That will do our users and our developers a huge dis-service as well as confusing decades of careful Libre vs. Gratis messaging. So this paragraph:

“*It was created in the belief that the culture … will deliver free of charge the best software, in … binary form, for … corporations, companies, enterprises *”

Is, I think, a mis-description of the beliefs that TDF was created with - which were, and should be anchored in a traditional understanding of free software. So - I object.

1 Like

I support the adoption of Code of Ethics and Fiduciary Duties

–Osvaldo

Sounds like a very selective support for LibreOffice.

So you’d be against any other version of LibreOffice that TDF, with the support of of the community, could develop in future?

There is no “but”, if you start trying to put limitation then what you produce is not Free Software anymore.

That’s the vision written in the Next Decade Manifesto, which I thought you read before becoming a member, so it’s only natural to have it confirmed in the preamble.

Hi @sophi ,

A strange accusation indeed. Could you expand please, where I’m asking for the bylaws to violate the statutes?

I don’t think it is appropriate to put words into my mouth here. All I said, is that the statutes (as the sole constitution of the foundation) do not require gratis downloads for all of TDF’s software, as @floeff seems to claim.

So if you want to argue in favour of gratis, please do that without pointing to the statutes. And as others have already mentioned, even the (carefully weighted) wording in the New Manifesto, that John was authoring, is quite different from the blunt absolutism we now find in the Code of Ethics.

Indeed I have read the New Manifesto, and I have read, reviewed & edited (parts of) the statutes. And I certainly object against turning TDF into a Freeware Foundation, by sneaking this wording into a Code of Ethics and making it an article of faith for all members. It will undo decades of work by others, and not a single FLOSS license requires it.

Finally, and to make it clear: I’m not against free binary downloads per se. I’m against requiring them, everywhere, for everything TDF does.

Best, Thorsten