[VOTE] Revoke votes related to LibreOffice Online atticiziation and freezing of repository

+1

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I vote +1.

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-1

I vote in favour.

Best,
Jean-Francois Nifenecker

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+1

Kind regards,
Regina Henschel

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not conditional anymore ?

Open letter for revive LOOL, add your +1 if you agree - #11 by mariosv

The great news of course is that there is one: Collabora Online - it is available for free download by anyone interested. The slightly sad news is that some people don’t know that yet.

Sadly this is just incorrect. There are a couple of FAQ entries “who created LibreOffice Online” and “Who contributed to the mobile work” that present the facts (as of ~five years ago, when the entire development community around LOOL moved away to COOL, there is now a rather larger team working on COOL). We tried hard there to credit both volunteers and those who actually funded things (alongside Collabora’s now multi million Euro investment)…

Your mail also ignores the rather clear reasons for the move away from TDF. Your short history ignores the many months during which no-one showed up to maintain TDF’s Online. Even the atticization vote (where the ecosystem members abstained) gave extra time for serious people to show up, tackle the security concerns, and keep it alive, but no-one did. Subsequently de-atticization was requested, and independent ESC members assessed that (as now) the activity didn’t meet even the basic threshold necessary to re-open the project. If there is a viable project now - why not just re-open LOOL following the agreed procedure ?

One of the major reasons for the COOL move was around branding and visibility. It seems your post starts with an unwillingness to direct people to Collabora’s work - and continues with the deeply inaccurate claim that TDF has substantially funded Online. That doesn’t seem like a promising start of a discussion that meets the ecosystem’s need for visibility to drive lead flow, sales a return on investment, and hence more investment into the software in a virtuous spiral leading to much more and better Free Software.

In conclusion: there is already a thriving Collabora Online community, which is a true FOSS project like Fedora, openSUSE, Nextcloud, ownCloud, openCloud, BigBlueButton etc. etc. - with an open bug tracker, forum, matrix channel, weekly public developer call, ~weekly public training calls, mentoring, and constant development.

Collabora Online is a friendly place, where contribution and do-ers are respected and appreciated for what they contribute by a large peer group of skilled developers. I encourage anyone interested in driving the state of the art forward around collaborative office - to join us on our mission to make open source rock.

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Dear Michael,

Thank you for sharing your perspectives and historical context. I will be brief in my answer, as I am not a fan of exhaustive debates that distract us from executing our mission; I prefer to focus our energy on what is essential for the future of our foundation.

I would like to summarize my point of view based on the following pillars:

  • The reality at FOSDEM: During my time at the FOSDEM booth, I spoke personally with many people who were asking for an online version of LibreOffice. There is a legitimate expectation from the community that TDF, as the guardian of the project, provides a clear and accessible path for its users.

  • Recognition and support: In all of these interactions, I was the first to state, “If you need professional support for LibreOffice, whether for desktop or online, Collabora is the company in the ecosystem with the technical expertise to do so.” This demonstrates that my position is not an attack on the commercial ecosystem, but a recognition that we have different and complementary roles.

  • Investment and nature of FOSS: We are immensely grateful for the investment Collabora has made in the code. However, anyone who runs a business understands the inherent risks and strategic decisions involved; in Open Source Software, code must be shared. The fact that other projects already use this code base only reinforces that the software is free and that innovation cannot be contained.

  • Technological evolution and mission: For LibreOffice to remain relevant, it must keep pace with technological evolution. We cannot allow the foundation to remain stagnant while the world moves toward online collaboration; LibreOffice must be where technology evolves.

  • Commitment to the global community: Our commitment is to our donors, our volunteers who dedicate their time, and our millions of users. Providing the infrastructure for a repository at TDF ensures an independent institutional home for the project. This allows the community to create and share innovations under the identity that serves as a global reference for our work.

We must overcome narratives of conflict. Free software is about freedom: those who want to collaborate, collaborate, and those who want to use it, use it. We must not be restricted in our ability to fulfill our mission. Reopening the repository is simply honoring our mission and respecting everyone who donates, collaborates, and believes in LibreOffice.

All the best,

Eliane Domingos

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Dear Trustees,

-1

My dissenting opinion: this vote based also on false accusation, namely: There was also external funding for projects using the LibreOffice Online name … (NLnet; LibreOffice/Collabora Online typography ). More information: Questions on NLnet fundings with the LibreOffice name - #23 by nemeth (and other comment of that thread).

I’m in favor of this vote/decision!

Regards,
Andreas

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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 7 Board of Directors members have participated in the vote.

The vote is quorate.

A quorum could be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.

Result of vote:
5 approvals: Eliane, Paolo, Sophie, Mike, Osvaldo
0 abstain
2 disapprovals: Simon, Laszlo

Decision: The proposal has been accepted.

Dissenting opinion from Laszlo: My dissenting opinion: this vote based also on false accusation, namely: There was also external funding for projects using the LibreOffice Online name … (NLnet; LibreOffice/Collabora Online typography ). More information: Questions on NLnet fundings with the LibreOffice name - #23 by nemeth 1 (and other comment of that thread).

I congratulate and applaud the board for taking this so important decision. It corrects a massively problematic situation from the past, addresses the needs, wishes and requirements from the community, and helps TDF to fulfil its mission: make LibreOffice available on as many platforms and for as many people as possible.

I look forward to the discussion how to provide an Online version of LibreOffice that benefits end-users, governments, the commercial ecosystem, our community and contributors, building trust and confidence in TDF as an independent organization.

Only together we can achieve magic things, and this is a very important first step. Thanks to everyone who made this possible!

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Traducción del post original basada, mayormente, en Deepl

Estimada comunidad:

FOSDEM ha sido otro evento en el que la gente ha preguntado por la disponibilidad de una versión en línea de LibreOffice o, para aquellos que conocían su existencia, por el estado y los planes futuros de LibreOffice Online. Esto sigue la línea de preguntas similares en muchos otros eventos, según informan las comunidades locales.

Como muchos en nuestra comunidad saben, LibreOffice Online comenzó gracias a la importante financiación proporcionada por The Document Foundation. Las contribuciones de código fueron realizadas en gran parte por empresas del ecosistema, mientras que los voluntarios de la comunidad contribuyeron con la documentación, la localización y el sistema de ayuda. LibreOffice Online era muy conocido a nivel mundial gracias a la marca LibreOffice, lo que le permitió prosperar, y gracias a las contribuciones de la comunidad y las empresas del ecosistema hasta que fue bifurcado por un miembro del ecosistema comercial en octubre de 2020.

Las juntas directivas anteriores, con miembros que actuaban en conflicto de intereses en todas las etapas de los procesos, votaron a favor de «congelar» el repositorio y, finalmente, lo archivaron y lo vincularon a sus propios repositorios de terceros.

En 2022 se publicó una carta abierta (Carta abierta para revivir LOOL, añade tu +1 si estás de acuerdo). También hubo financiación externa para proyectos que utilizaban el nombre LibreOffice Online NLnet; Collabora Online/LibreOffice Accessibility y NLnet; LibreOffice/Collabora Online typography.

Reconocemos la importancia que tiene para la comunidad una versión en línea de LibreOffice y la necesidad de corregir una situación que ha sido insatisfactoria durante demasiado tiempo.

Muchos de los detalles en términos de procesos y tecnologías que podrían utilizarse en el futuro deben aclararse en un debate abierto con la comunidad, incluidos los socios del ecosistema, a quienes invitamos explícitamente al debate, por lo que este es ahora un punto de partida.

Para iniciar el proceso de liberación de LibreOffice Online y comenzar el camino que conducirá a tener una versión en línea por la comunidad y para la comunidad, proponemos la siguiente votación:

  1. Revocar las decisiones de congelar el repositorio de LibreOffice Online
    https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/vote-libreoffice-online-freeze-related-topics/8907
    https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/vote-libreoffice-online-repository-and-translations/8893
    https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/vote-libreoffice-online-information-in-the-release-notes/8911

  2. Revocar la decisión de poner LibreOffice Online en el «ático»
    [[DECISION] Delayed atticization for LibreOffice Online](Online en el «ático» [DECISION] Delayed atticization for LibreOffice Online)

  3. Reabrir el repositorio de LibreOffice Online en TDF para recibir contribuciones

  4. Proporcionar advertencias sobre el estado del repositorio hasta que el equipo de TDF considere que es seguro y utilizable, al tiempo que se anima a la comunidad a contribuir con código, tecnologías y otras aportaciones que puedan utilizarse para avanzar

  5. Trabajar activamente con la comunidad para identificar cómo fomentar LibreOffice Online, incluida la base tecnológica

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+1 for me

Hi @PaoloVecchi,

with your vote now being counted by @floeff and no further explanations - in light of earlier discussions around your personal business interest in LibreOffice Online, and the (edit: corrected the link) requirements to disclose any CoI on the board (and people usually abstaining if/when):

Can you please clearly and unambiguously answer the following questions:

Thanks for considering the questions, all the best, Thorsten

Thanks for reminding me that I never changed my user profile since 2018, 2 years before joining the board.

I suppose this will answer your questions:

You linked an old version of the Conflict of Intererest policy, here’s the new one:

Dear Eliane & Florian,

Hopefully somewhere there is room for discussion, since (depending on how this is implemented) this could have a significant negative impact on both LibreOffice and Collabora Productivity. The vote seems to put TDF five years backwards cf. my E-mail of the time explaining why - at that time - all the active developers of LOOL moved to publish their Free Software product elsewhere. And I quote:

I am of course grateful that you Eliane have helpfully pointed people to our services - but it is not possible to invest hundreds of thousands of Euros per month based on the hope of leads converting that were generated by word of mouth at FOSDEM. Indeed - given the contempt for developers livelihoods shown by several board members - and the ongoing mass-destruction of trust at TDF, it would seem to be madness to rely on that.

This marketing / crediting / lead generation problem is acute. Effectively hiding from enterprise users that Collabora Online code is ~95%+ the result of Collabora & our partner’s investment is unfair. Confidence is very low here - as an example this vote and process started with TDF’s Chair inaccurately claiming that TDF substantially funded, and/or started Online, and pairing with that a very unbalanced view of the history here.

Then in this same week we have the LibreOffice 26.2 release announcement - which you would never know Collabora played a huge part creating the majority of highlighted features if you read it (check it out to see if anyone is credited). What you do learn from Florian’s quote is:

Emphasis mine. If TDF persists in a magical view of where the software comes from from non-developers, and hopes to apply this ‘magic’ to Online as well as core the situation looks bleak.

The pipe-dream seems to be that TDF would control everything through it’s brand by choosing where to direct interested users. This was done in the past eg. TDF used the LOOL page to promote another companies’ Online derived products ahead of Collabora’s - despite them doing ~nothing for the codebase (aside from demanding free changes to suit their users). That left a terrible taste.

In recent times, I’ve been drawing a comic to try to help explain my thoughts on the intersection of communities, software and companies. The story, names, characters, and incidents portrayed are fictitious, no identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products are intended or should be inferred.

Nevertheless, perhaps explaining the economics with pictures can be helpful, even humorous. Why is it that apparently both LibreOffice and Collabora want to present ~Collabora’s work on Online as their own ? well first leads are important, so is getting the credit which is critical for growth, deliberately hiding the workers is distressing and counter-productive, but being fun and fair can have a really positive impact.

Competing with products sold or distributed gratis based ~95% on our work under the popular “LibreOffice” brand - while Collabora continues to sustain, maintain, and improve the software in an effectively invisible way is deeply problematic. Is there any friendly way of differentiating ourselves, our work & product from TDF’s? How does your ask to not create narratives of conflict fit with that ?

It is surprising to talk about keeping pace with technological evolution without any plausible business plan for funding the very significant engineering work that will continue to be needed. Are there any (really any?) sensible proposals on how to solve this dilemma ? so far I didn’t see any - except what was the status quo before this vote.

Regards,

Michael.

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Hi @PaoloVecchi,

thanks, fixed the link to the CoI policy in my post (with an edit note - and wondering if a non-versioned link to a file the board can edit at will is appropriate here).

No. A revoked vote from a situation more than 2 years ago probably has very little bearing on the current decision (even if the rationale ‘more gratis binaries never create conflict’ would be true, which it is not).

My questions are very easy to answer in the affirmative. I wonder why instead you chose the indirect reference to a last year’s vote from your friends on the board?

Best, Thorsten

Hi @mmeeks,

how would you deal with users repeatedly coming to your company’s forum posting messages full of misleading and/or false statements and narratives which seem to have the intent of creating artificial divisions within the community?

Asking for a friend.

It is unbalanced as I don’t think a public forum is the right place to publish documents and board minutes providing a much clearer view of the history.

That was recognised in 2020 and work started to support the companies of the ecosystem

You were in the marketing meetings as well providing the input that you deemed relevant. Works were well underway with the aim of creating the needed visibility and marketing that would support your company but you, without warnings, decided to fork LibreOffice Online.

The motivation for forking? Reading your post seems to be related to the lack of marketing and visibility, the very thing that was being planned at the time with you in the middle of it.

5 years after having destroyed with your actions the marketing plan you needed so badly you are complaining about a lack of it.

Of course we are all eager to promote the valuable members of the ecosystem and all the contributors as we clearly did in the release notes

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/26.2

I’m sure that we could do more in terms of marketing for the valuable members of the ecosystem in future especially if we can develop synergies around LibreOffice OnLine where TDF could contribute also with more developers.

Plans for LibreOffice OnLine aren’t set yet so you are very welcome to contribute with your ideas.

I don’t think anyone here is demanding that you run your company into the ground by trying to contribute to LibreOffice in an unsustainable way. I know I’m certainly not. I therefore have a couple of simple suggestions:

  • If you can’t sustain your current level of contributions into LO – don’t. Please, by all means scale back your contributions to a sustainable level, whatever that may be.

  • If you can’t give all of your code away for free – don’t. Please, by all means adopt an open core model if you need to.

The livelihoods of Collabora’s developers are Collabora’s responsibility. The livelihoods of TDF’s developers and other staff are TDF’s responsibility. Getting these responsibilities entangled in an unhealthy way is a recipe for legal trouble and interpersonal conflict, as we all should know by now.

TDF cannot legally and statutorily become solely a marketing arm for a single for-profit company, no matter how much good that company may have done. (And to be sure, I’m aware of the breadth of Collabora’s contributions.) FOSS is a good thing, but it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card that absolves us of all other legal and ethical considerations, the least of all in the eyes of German authorities.

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