[VOTE] approval of preliminary budget for 2022

Dear Mr Meeks,

thank you for providing your opinion as the general manager of one of our 2 commercial contributors.

I really appreciate the technical contributions that your employees/affiliates provide while formulating request for tenders, rank them in the ESC, rank them in the board of directors, vote them in the budget and then bid for them.

You may understand that an external observer may not see the procedure as being fair and conflict free so it would be a very good idea to improve the process so that all the commercial contributors, existing and new, will have the same fair opportunity to participate to the tendering process.

Creating a narrative of division and exclusion is, IMHO, not only irresponsible but also a demonstration of wanting to keep a process that to some seem to be beneficial only for a very few.

Changes must be discussed publicly and then implemented.

Best regards

Paolo

Hi all,

it would be great if someone would stop to unilaterally declare that a very informative thread should end.

Censorship does not help in moving forward and we should show that we respect the freedom that anyone should have to express their opinion (possibly backed by facts and evidence).

Ciao

Paolo

If you take me as an external observer, the opposite is true. Collabora is home for many experts, every single one always supportive, and never acted against the interests of the project.

In an ideal world we would have volunteers with 20 years knowledge and 100% spare time. Unfortunately bills need to be paid and we need to care about the ecosystem. At least not to work against them.

But I'm much concerned about the tone in the discussions lately (replying just here). I suggest to start with the assumptions that contributing to an open source project in general and LibreOffice in particular
* is primarily idealistic and fun,
* has never the goal to destroy the project (neither the power to do so),
* and brings together people with same interests.

All the time and effort you spend in the project shows this and I'm grateful to have someone to bring up the painful subjects. We all should consider everyone else having the same dedication too.

Cheers,
Heiko

Hi Heiko, all,

You may understand that an external observer may not see the
procedure as being fair and conflict free...

If you take me as an external observer, the opposite is true.
Collabora is home for many experts, every single one always
supportive, and never acted against the interests of the project.

it's great to have a lot of certified developer, which are able to work
on LibreOffice. But if you have a look on e.g.
https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ you see that most
of them are contracted by Collabora. And if you make a small research
inside the git log, you'll find out that the list at the website is not
up to date. There seemed to be further certified developers, stated as
unaffiliated, which are working for the company (with an appropriate
account).

In an ideal world we would have volunteers with 20 years knowledge and
100% spare time. Unfortunately bills need to be paid and we need to
care about the ecosystem. At least not to work against them.

Yes, TDF needs to care about the ecosystem, but that ecosystem should be
divers and not dominated by only one or two companies. Thus TDF needs to
work on a strategy to solve this issue and attract more supplier (small,
mid sized or big). One strategy to get ahead on this topic could it be
to contract full-time developer (by TDF).

But I'm much concerned about the tone in the discussions lately
(replying just here). I suggest to start with the assumptions that
contributing to an open source project in general and LibreOffice in
particular
* is primarily idealistic and fun,
* has never the goal to destroy the project (neither the power to do so),
* and brings together people with same interests.

All the time and effort you spend in the project shows this and I'm
grateful to have someone to bring up the painful subjects. We all
should consider everyone else having the same dedication too.

I think the whole discussion is about this painful subjects and the
process to solve the issues. The later one is not for everybody fun. But
it's necessary for the reputation of TDF to make the process more
transparent and less risky.

Regards,
Andreas

Hi Andreas,

In an ideal world we would have volunteers with 20 years knowledge and
100% spare time. Unfortunately bills need to be paid and we need to
care about the ecosystem. At least not to work against them.

Yes, TDF needs to care about the ecosystem, but that ecosystem should be
divers and not dominated by only one or two companies.

Of course it is good when there are more companies and more paid developers involved. And I think, looking from where we came (OpenOffice.org with one company having ~all the saying and control) I understand your concerns about a balance.
Also I think we did a wonderful job by how we set up TDF: it brings together all sort of stakeholders, people with all sorts of interest in the software we develop and makes sure that it is impossible that any single entity has a power that comes only close to what was in the past: representation in ESC, Board, MC from one single entity is max 33%.

And how much we as TDF can work to make the community an attractive place to be and to invest, so little influence we have on how the software market will develop. As is the case for our ecosystem partners too. But business people look to the world with different eyes, searching for or creating opportunities, which is an art on its own.
No doubt, it is pretty hard for a community, foundation, as TDF, to have influence on the powers in the market, other then what we do by our open development, efforts in mentoring, and the possibilities and demands of the software license.
And of course by tendering parts of development that are good for the whole project, but apparently are not picked up y community/ecosystem developers. And probably there is even a place for in house development to help areas that mostly left orphaned.

Our tenders also bring in a possibility for (relative) new-comers to find a place in the community. Tenders have a clear description, people around that can give more info, a number of expected number of days involved (as set by the ESC and/or developer providing info on the wiki). Getting more involved in the development of the software, for sure is one thing that may help growing a position in the market around LibreOffice.

And while not always perfect, I'm convinced that we are doing a great job in working in a fair, compliant, and transparent way. This is of major importance to help that people and companies feel welcome. Actions that may give the impression that companies are seen as threat, are not.

Thus TDF needs to
work on a strategy to solve this issue and attract more supplier (small,
mid sized or big). One strategy to get ahead on this topic could it be
to contract full-time developer (by TDF).

Indeed, I really look forward to spent my time for TDF/the BoD on the real needs of our community: how do we get more people in, more developers, more companies that put trust in us.

Cheers,
Cor

Hi all,

The unfortunate reality is that we are now definitely too close to the deadline to start a new budget round from scratch.

I agree that the Foundation spending must include a stricter compliance check for CoI; I think people sitting on different sides of the table and playing with different hats to wear can be an issue to the Foundation.

That said, the implemented workflow (up to now) to get the budget done was designed to approve it as quickly as possible; CoI compliance and charity compliance are left to each own Director's judgement, which is now pretty evident that can be easily misplaced, misguided and/or exploited.

That had additionally the unfortunate drawback that some strategic decisions that should have been included in this round of budget were not thoroughly discussed, and as such delayed to a later point in time.

To better understand the situation, I'd like you to picture the following process if a balanced and fair procedure would be factored in.

We receive a long pre-ranked list of potential proposals from ESC, for which we mostly have no evidence if any CoI compliance procedures has been carried out (we know for sure that in ESC there are overlapping loyalties, like it is in the Board). Imagine 60+ items to be evaluated inside the Board of Directors, from a CoI, charitable, strategic and adherence to Foundation's goal points of view. Each one of those should be inspected and discussed (even briefly) with all the Directors, then in case of a potential CoI and presuming no duty to disclose or no abstension has been carried out (~all the cases from the ESC list) likely at least 7 rounds of voting has to be carried out to see if some of the Directors has to be excluded to vote the single element of the list because of a Conflict of Interest. The non-conflicted Directors can then vote the single element of the list. Finally, all those proposals have then to be ranked (which can be done mostly automatically), and this final ranking has to be approved by the Board to be filed to the authorities. Getting to the end of the list would take most of the time of a Board's term. And we didn't mention strategic decisions or Directors' own proposals.

The context of the budgeting round is all but positive and perfect, and must be improved: it has to undergo a necessary revision, implementing as early in the process (e.g. starting with the ESC) as possible some safeguards around overlapping loyalties, while keeping the whole process as lean, agile and quick as possible.

I think this revision should be in the top priorities of this term of the Board of Directors, and kindly ask all the fellow Directors to put their efforts into it as soon as possible. We should also think about having it as a recurring item during Board's meeting.

Also, I want to point out that abstention by explicit declaration of some (likely conflicted) Directors was part of the understanding for this additional round of vote. The fact that my vote is still missing (and will likely confirm the approval of the budget) but yet no explicit abstention has been presented to the public is telling a specific story here, and it does not help showing fairness and loyalty to the Foundation.

That said, and balancing out all the considerations:

On behalf of the Board, I therefore call for the following VOTE:

Approval of the preliminary budget for 2022
as summarized in https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/dlUqWosS6dnXs8bWoXl2vC6a
and discussed in the private board meeting on 2022-03-28

Approved by my side.

Regards,

Hi all,

And while not always perfect, I'm convinced that we are doing a great job in working in a fair, compliant, and transparent way.

The system is clearly not perfect and it has been said that changes are necessary for a long time so the fact that your are convinced that we have been doing a great job seems to indicate that warnings are still being ignored.

This is of major importance to help that people and companies feel welcome.

Commercial contributors are surely welcome especially those that work out business models that do not base their profitability on tenders or in weakening TDF's brands to become monopolies.

Actions that may give the impression that companies are seen as threat, are not.

Nobody sees companies as a threat but some representative of the commercial contributors in the past wanted to push projects and narratives that would have damaged TDF and the wider community, those threats have been neutralised after long battles but we must remain vigilant as they may be pushed forward again in future.

Ciao

Paolo

Hi Andreas,

Andreas Mantke píše v Pá 08. 04. 2022 v 17:38 +0200:

there is no such document, which collects all answers.

I see, so all this was a "you have to believe me because I say so" from
the very start.

E.g. I'd expect you wouldn't find it usual, if an employee (e.g. from
Collabora) would have the power to decide on his own about his salary
and the employer had to pay this amount of money. I have never heard
about such behavior e.g. in European country.

This is a completely different topic of course, and has nothing to do
with your accusations. But if you wish - trade unions are designed to
do what you outline above, and usual eg. in European countries.

All the best,
Kendy

Hello,

in the private part of Monday's board call, the Board of Directors discussed the concerns raised with regards to the budgetting process.

The Board decided to run another approval vote on the preliminary budget for 2022, as all board members and deputies who might bid on the approved tenders and projects decided to abstain by explicit declaration.

On behalf of the Board, I therefore call for the following VOTE:

Approval of the preliminary budget for 2022
as summarized in https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/dlUqWosS6dnXs8bWoXl2vC6a
and discussed in the private board meeting on 2022-03-28

The vote runs until Monday, April 11, 0800 Berlin time (0600 UTC).

The Board of Directors at the time of voting consists of 7 seat holders (not including deputies). In order to be quorate, the vote needs to have 1/2 or more of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4.

A total of 4 Board of Directors members have participated in the vote.

The vote is quorate.

A quorum could be reached with a simple majority of 3 votes.

Result of vote: 4 approvals, 0 abstain, 0 disapprovals.
Decision: The proposal has been accepted.

Two deputies support the motion as well.

Florian

Hi Kendy, all,

Hi Andreas,

Andreas Mantke píše v Pá 08. 04. 2022 v 17:38 +0200:

there is no such document, which collects all answers.

I see, so all this was a "you have to believe me because I say so" from
the very start.

I don't know what you expect from me as a sheer volunteer? I don't do a
(pro bono) legal service. I could only give some hints and explain my
personal opinion. You could take the hints and my opinion and use or
not. It's up to you.

If that is not enough for you, you could ask e.g. your director
colleague or the executive director or spent some money for a personal
legal advice service.

E.g. I'd expect you wouldn't find it usual, if an employee (e.g. from
Collabora) would have the power to decide on his own about his salary
and the employer had to pay this amount of money. I have never heard
about such behavior e.g. in European country.
This is a completely different topic of course, and has nothing to do
with your accusations. But if you wish - trade unions are designed to
do what you outline above, and usual eg. in European countries.

I'd tried to give an example which explains it independent from the
tender topic, but I had to state that I wasn't successful.

Regards,
Andreas

If you take me as an external observer, the opposite is true.
Collabora is home for many experts, every single one always
supportive, and never acted against the interests of the project.

  Thank you for your kind words Heiko - much appreciated.

it's great to have a lot of certified developer, which are able to work
on LibreOffice. But if you have a look on e.g.
https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ you see that most
of them are contracted by Collabora.

  A quick count shows 20/57 - around a third - which doesn't seem unreasonable.

And if you make a small research
inside the git log, you'll find out that the list at the website is not
up to date. There seemed to be further certified developers, stated as
unaffiliated, which are working for the company (with an appropriate
account).

  Interesting, this "list is not up to date" is a novel problem.

  Quite possibly our affiliation database etc. is out of date, and indeed keeping the certified developer list up-to-date takes time & effort, but - I'm struggling to see who you are talking about. Collabora has a commercial interest in having as many certified developers listed as possible - rather than hiding them =)

  For those interested in the minutia can see:

https://git.libreoffice.org/gitdm-config/+/refs/heads/master/domain-map

  That is already not very simple - but in some cases it's more complicated than a straightforward affiliation; eg. you will see rather rare examples like:

commit 828504974d70111e4a35b31d579cf42fe660a660
Author: Armin Le Grand (Collabora) <armin.le.grand@me.com>

Hi Paolo,

More than happy - as always - to discus ways to improve. Naturally we will then have to distinct between assumptions, anxiety, facts and framing.

Since wisdom in discussions in not a given per see, and confusion may settle all too easy, let's at least start in the board.

Cheers,
Cor

Hi Michael, all,

I'm not used to an email thread where the subject was changed without
notice (for the second time).

If you take me as an external observer, the opposite is true.
Collabora is home for many experts, every single one always
supportive, and never acted against the interests of the project.

Thank you for your kind words Heiko - much appreciated.

it's great to have a lot of certified developer, which are able to work
on LibreOffice. But if you have a look on e.g.
https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ you see that most
of them are contracted by Collabora.

A quick count shows 20/57 - around a third - which doesn't seem
unreasonable.

The whole discussion in the original thread was about the way decisions
were made by TDF and its board. It's not possible to have board members
responsible for the whole budget on one side of the table and a
contractor, which is connected with some board members and bids on parts
of the budget, on the other side of this table.

This was completed by the ranking from the ESC / certified developers on
tender proposals, because there are also a number of developers
involved, which are connected to those companies/organizations.

Thus there is no room for biding on a tender of the 2022 budget from
those companies / organizations. If TDF wouldn't follow such rule, it
has a compliance issue and an issue with its reputation as charity
organization.

Regards,
Andreas

Hi Andreas,

     Let me re-pose the questions that perhaps you missed here:

> https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ you see
> that most of them are contracted by Collabora.

     Which seemed inaccurate to me, and:

> And if you make a small research inside the git log, you'll find out
> that the list at the website is not up to date. There seemed to be
> further certified developers, stated as unaffiliated, which are
> working for the company (with an appropriate account).

     Which you seemed to avoid substantiating too.

     I would really appreciate you either clarifying and reporting
something actionable there, or withdrawing this statement which seems
to suggest something underhand is going on when it is not.

     ATB,

         Michael.

Hi Michael, all,

Hi Andreas,

Let me re-pose the questions that perhaps you missed here:

> https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ you see
> that most of them are contracted by Collabora.

Which seemed inaccurate to me, and:

if you  refer only to that list on the website without reconsideration
who is available as contractural partner, your statement could be correct.

But if you have a closer look onto that list, the majority of certified
developers are contracted by Collabora or already had been contracted by it.

It's up to the public to form an opinion about how divers is the eco
system around LibreOffice / TDF.

> And if you make a small research inside the git log, you'll find out
> that the list at the website is not up to date. There seemed to be
> further certified developers, stated as unaffiliated, which are
> working for the company (with an appropriate account).

Which you seemed to avoid substantiating too.

I would really appreciate you either clarifying and reporting
something actionable there, or withdrawing this statement which seems
to suggest something underhand is going on when it is not.

If you look into the git log you find the developer email:
muhammet.kara@collabora.com

Was his contract with Collabora canceled recently? If I don't overlooked
it, his Collabora email address is not listed on the LibreOffice git
page, you linked in a former post:
https://git.libreoffice.org/gitdm-config/+/refs/heads/master/domain-map

Regards,
Andreas

Hi Andreas,

> https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ you see

...>> > And if you make a small research inside the git log, you'll find out

> that the list at the website is not up to date. There seemed to be
> further certified developers, stated as unaffiliated, which are
> working for the company (with an appropriate account).

    Which you seemed to avoid substantiating too.

    I would really appreciate you either clarifying and reporting
something actionable there, or withdrawing this statement which seems
to suggest something underhand is going on when it is not.

If you look into the git log you find the developer email:
muhammet.kara@collabora.com

     Thanks for reporting this - it is really easy to put it to rest.
You'll see the last commit to core from 2021 like this:

Author: Muhammet Kara <muhammet.kara@collabora.com>

Was his contract with Collabora canceled recently? If I don't overlooked
it, his Collabora email address is not listed on the LibreOffice git
page, you linked in a former post:
https://git.libreoffice.org/gitdm-config/+/refs/heads/master/domain-map

     Good point; Muhammet moved on to do new things from August 31st 2021
(~9 months ago) - I believe he notified people of that and the developers
page was updated so it is accurate.

     We should prolly tweak domain-map as you say but it's not hyper-urgent,
worst case we may double count people vs. a commit with a new address - do
submit a patch if you like.

     You mentioned "further developer/s/ stated as unaffiliated" - anyone
else there ? it's good to put any uncertainty and doubt to rest here.

     Regards,

         Michael.

Hi there,

   Good point; Muhammet moved on to do new things from August 31st 2021
   […]
   We should prolly tweak domain-map

AFAICT gitdm accurately reflect Muhammet's affiliation no?
https://git.libreoffice.org/gitdm-config/+/master/domain-map/#174

If I don't overlooked it, his Collabora email address is not listed on
the LibreOffice git page, you linked in a former post:
https://git.libreoffice.org/gitdm-config/+/refs/heads/master/domain-map

It doesn't need to since it's covered by the domain fallback (@collabora.com
Collabora).

Lookup keys are pairs (commit author email, commit author date) not mere
email addresses, so as long as Muhammet doesn't make more commits with
his @collabora.com address there is no need to update the affiliation
database.