I’m in favor of this vote/decision!
Regards,
Andreas
I’m in favor of this vote/decision!
Regards,
Andreas
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!
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:
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
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)
Reabrir el repositorio de LibreOffice Online en TDF para recibir contribuciones
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
Trabajar activamente con la comunidad para identificar cómo fomentar LibreOffice Online, incluida la base tecnológica
+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.
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.
Hi Tuomas,
Nice to meet you.
I’m struggling to reconcile these two thoughts. Collabora is a FOSS company. You seem to suggest that either we go proprietary (‘open core’), or dramatically reduce our contribution (which means moving staff and investment elsewhere).
I don’t accept that - there are lots of other options.
TDF sawing off the branch it sits on doesn’t benefit TDF. It is really bad both for LibreOffice, and also even more for Online where we do most of the work, and bad for its mission.
In my experience “going open core” just moves the battleground from “please don’t re-brand and pretend our code is made by TDF” to “please don’t write FLOSS alternatives for our proprietary bits”. Open-core is not only against the Free Software ethos, it is powerless to solve this issue - it just moves the problem somewhere much worse.
TDF cannot become a marketing arm for Collabora - of course. But these days TDF works hard to avoid crediting Collabora in a way that works.
That is exactly why forking COOL and re-branding our work as LOOL is pure vandalism for the project. The most simple option is retaining the status quo of five years now - whereby credit is sensibly shared between two projects and entities. TDF is in good financial health and growing its revenue, it doesn’t need to do this.
TDF board members should certainly carefully consider the impact of their decisions and whether they align with TDF’s mission, and privileged tax-exempt status. But this decision appears to be simply pure damage.
Regards,
Michael.
When and how was 5 last times TDF credit Collabora ? What not work about it ?
You seem to love statistics, why don’t you tell us? Or, alternatively, please do not keep hijacking threads.
Open-core is not only against the Free Software ethos, it is powerless to solve this issue - it just moves the problem somewhere much worse.
It depends on how open core is interpreted. Easy access to Zotero, for example, allows LibreOffice to shine without breaking their business model. Digital Scholar (the company behind Zotero) can develop expertise in an area, LibreOffice focus on our essentials. And ultimately it’s the freedom of choice if users pick open or closed sources, free or paid software, Zotero or Endnote to stay with the example (if integration was easy for any reference manager).
We all have set up TDF with specific ideas in mind. TDF is the independent foundation, not depending on one single sponsor, but working with many. We are the home of LibreOffice, we are here to foster, support and strengthen the community, the project and the software.
(I’ll spare quoting from the statutes, the incorporation discussions and the Next Decade Manifesto, as then we’ll probably dive again into eternal debates that lead nowhere.)
There a setups where one single company runs the project, develops the software, and supports the community. That might be a legitimate model - but it is not TDF’s model. TDF is not a company. TDF is not owned by anyone. TDF does not favor anyone. TDF is not to be controlled by anyone alone. This is the main thing to understand and accept. This is why people are here at TDF and not elsewhere.
This is our model, and it will not change, and it will not be circumvented.
The bittersweet irony of all this is that together we all could achieve so much more. We still have a stable foundation, we have a good reputation, a strong brand, and most important, a lot of dedicated, active and passionate community members. The fact that so much time is spent on the whole situation and on debating makes me very sad. It is time we could use for something good for society: develop code, localize, test, package and make available for download.
Doing something good for society strengthens TDF, but at the same time, it strengthens the ecosystem. A prominent brand, a good reputation, this is what helps also the companies. Maybe the market is not easy, but it is not TDF to blame for that. TDF should not build artificial scarcity, that doesn’t do any good to anyone, at least not in the long run, not sustainably.
If we look in the archives, nearly every press release featured name of ecosystem members, so did the slides for our advisory board. Conferences had strong visibility for companies who sponsored. Our download page literally had a big blue button titled “Business user?”, which pointed to the offers of the ecosystem. Just earlier this month, I gave a talk in front of the chamber of commerce, where I clearly indicated that for support, services, migration, LTS support, custom developments and the like, there is an ecosystem out there. IMHO there were (or are?) even recurring marketing calls between TDF and ecosystem members. Just looking in the current release notes, I see credits for the ecosystem companies.
The 26.2 release notes have the word “Collabora” thirty-seven times! What would be the proper amount of crediting? 50 times? 100 times? What is “enough” credit?
Let’s also not make the mistake to focus only on code, because then we miss the bigger picture. There is an infrastructure operated on which LibreOffice is developed. I don’t see Guilhem and Cloph credited 37 times. At least in the past there used to be a help system integrated, that - correct me if I’m wrong, of course - was developed also with the help of TDF. I don’t see Olivier credited 37 times. The translations - also here, correct me if I’m wrong, of course - were at least in the past done also by TDF people. I don’t see Sophie or Tuomas credited 37 times. Or Italo for the press releases, or Mike for the social media.
And there’s much more. Everyone contributes their share. Code might be tangible and visible, other things less, but that doesn’t meant they are not important.
The joy of FLOSS is that people are working together, to achieve something together. To see the bigger picture. Not to count lines of contributions. I review 60 pages of accounting each month, with dozens of lines each. Shall I claim that number now? I won’t. Because I add my share to our joint success, like many others do.
FLOSS is not about a “me”, but about an “us”. It is not about money, but about achieving something.
So: Can we PLEASE get our stuff together and do something for the common good, which is why we are here at TDF?
Hello Michael,
I’m saying that there are options you could take, if needed. The all-or-nothing approach to FOSS is not something imposed on you by TDF or anyone else. You’re intentionally playing the game of software entrepreneurship on hard mode, as it were. If it works out for you, that’s fantastic of course, but I don’t think anyone would judge you for switching to normal mode, either.
For TDF however, getting to legal compliance is not an optional challenge.
Is this a common occurrence in the real world, though? If the proprietary bits are actual “enterprise” features, I doubt there will be many hobbyists with the time, expertise and motivation to re-implement them.
I’d suggest to take a look at the approach Element (of Matrix fame) have taken:
So if feature sponsorship and support contracts are not enough, what did we do instead? We need some way to hold back value without limiting growth of the eco-system at large.
Element’s approach balances open source freedom with practical sustainability:
- FOSS (Free and Open Source Software): Core features that empower end-users, including standard client functionality, cryptography, spaces, and threads.
- Paid features: Specialised enterprise functionality such as clustering, high availability, or regulatory compliance.
They tried a pure FOSS approach for many years, but switched to open-core for their server-side software last year, IIRC. It doesn’t sound like to me that they’re experiencing a “battleground” where hordes of hobbyists are cloning their enterprise features.
Hi Tuomas,
You’re intentionally playing the game of software entrepreneurship
on hard mode, as it were. If it works out for you, that’s fantastic
of course, but I don’t think anyone would judge you for switching to
normal mode, either.
You’re right - this is playing on hard-mode. However it is made significantly harder by having TDF’s rump-board un-necessarily attack our business and brand - for the most incredible reasons eg. “Yes, COOL is Free Software, but we want something called LibreOffice” for example.
For TDF however, getting to legal compliance is not an optional challenge.
Let me be very clear. There is no real legal issue with TDF collaborating nicely with other FLOSS projects, this is a deliberate and aggressive choice. The COOL they want to take will not work by itself anyway - it requires working together with software from Nextcloud, pydio, ownCloud, OCIS, openCloud, E-Groupware, seafile etc. etc. to store its files and authenticate.
mmeeks:
*In my experience “going open core” just moves the battleground from /“please don’t re-brand and pretend our code is made by TDF”/ to /“please don’t write FLOSS alternatives for our proprietary bits”/.Is this a common occurrence in the real world, though? If the proprietary bits are actual “enterprise” features, I doubt there will be many hobbyists with the time, expertise and motivation to re-implement them
Again I find the open-core suggestion objectionable. I do agree that “enterprise” vs. “citizen” is a rather sensible division of domain of focus. Unfortunately TDF has decided recently to focus on providing free binaries to governments, paid for by individual citizen donors. The rump board has voted to remove the ‘Community’ branding on their product that was somewhat helpful here too, so the direction of change is clear.
Furthermore there is past form here. Paolo (who seems to have an enterprise use-case for his hosting business) proposed a vote for TDF funding of a duplication/removal of all of our proprietary value-adds. That was a key driver behind the move away of the COOL team, opening our proprietary bits and instead focusing on building our brand.
I’d suggest to take a look at the approach Element (of Matrix fame) have taken:
I’ve enjoyed spending quite a bit of time 1:1 with both Matthew & Amandine at Element. We support joint customers, and they rock, and I’ve talked and listened to them extensively on this topic.
They tried a pure FOSS approach for many years, but switched to open- core for their server-side software last year, IIRC. It doesn’t sound like to me that they’re experiencing a “battleground” where hordes of hobbyists are cloning their enterprise features.
And yet Element have institutions out there cloning their enterprise features, with governments forking their product to avoid buying maintenance subscriptions. As you say running a FLOSS business is really playing on ‘hard mode’. Unfortunately TDF seems to be dedicating to using the LibreOffice brand we know, love and built
together to do this exact same bad behavior, and make life harder for its main contributor.
As a note - as you’re interested in FLOSS business (and thanks for engaging on the topic, it is helpful to go deeper), you can read Element’s financials. I would recommend carefully reading this year’s and last year’s filings. Things are getting better there but still - Element is a VC funded company running at a (shrinking) loss.
I hope that helps,
Michael.
Hi Michael,
I’ve kindly asked several times to avoid posting false and/or misleading statements which seem to have the only scope of creating divisions and mistrust.
If these false and/or misleading statements were made in the members mailing list then many would look at them and discard them as they would know that what you are stating is factually incorrect.
On a public forum things are a bit different as some, lacking the background information that would invalidate your statements, might see what you write as plausible which in the past led to articles that some could see as defamatory for TDF.
In this case I’m pleased to see an article that actually sticks to the reality of this announcement:
That’s straight to the point and without speculating on plans that do not exist as now it’s up to the community to help us planning a way forward for LibreOffice Online as stated in the vote:
So instead of wasting time with false and/or misleading statements wouldn’t it better for you to invest time in helping creating a way forward for LibreOffice Online, a project that was started by SUSE employees (including you) well before your company existed, as a community project around which a wider and more diverse ecosystem can be created for the benefit of all?
As you know, our passion is also to do something good for society, this is why we avoid open-core, and create an organic, FOSS company. When it comes to societal good: will aggressively attempting to de-monetize LibreOffice’s main contributor in some zero-sum scarcity mindset do something good for society? and/or LibreOffice? and/or ultimately TDF ?
This is a fair point. Let me expand on why I tend to say effective crediting’. TDF is skilled at crediting in a way that is ineffective ie. it does not work. As you say the release notes do contain a link to a wiki page that mentions us. However - all previous research I’ve seen suggests that these wiki pages containing the credits you celebrate are seen by next-to-no-one.
Again - there is a big gap between people reading your quote: “LibreOffice 26.2 shows what happens when software is built around users, not business models, …” and those following an embedded link, and also noticing that huge chunks of the work were actually funded by Collabora’s business model. A huge gap of thousands of people to one I expect. Or to take another crediting example the idea in this thread that LibreOffice Online started thanks to substantial funding from TDF which is not only unhelpful but untrue.
Traffic metrics are/were somewhat similar for the other business pages you raise - checkout what is point zero five percent from some years back. So there is crediting, but it is ineffective.
But what do I mean by effective ? apparently this is also unclear:
The TDF staff you list above do great work, but the reason Collabora wants crediting is not for some ego-trip. It is to make people aware of the existence of subscriptions and services that will make their experience and migration massively better. Not only that - but that by buying that they inject funds which can be re-invested into even more open source code - ie. the credit is ultimately what pays our developers. There is a need here to build a virtuous cycle of improvement that benefits society.
The TDF staff you list above (who, again I agree, also do great work), are already systematically credited with the creation of LibreOffice, and are also paid by TDF from donations given on the partial belief that TDF creates LibreOffice. As an aside - they are also encouraged to keep the release notes wiki page up-to-date.
So it is just not reasonable to contrast TDF staff who are already visibly paid in full, with ecosystem contributors whose businesses are effectively systematically hidden, and even criticized, and whose work is minimized, and who have a need to be visible in order to be able to re-invest in the project.
The words sound good, and yet - economics drives paid people - including yourself. I fear you see this as a zero sum game. TDF’s funding comes primarily from individuals, ours comes from enterprises. There is just no need for TDF to position itself for the enterprise market, and then use citizen’s donations to subsidize non-donating business’ needs - it is a very strange choice. To effectively mislead people about the source of LibreOffice’s development is self defeating, and deeply unhelpful.
The previous setup of separate projects allowed credit (and so leads which drive funding) to be somewhat reasonably distributed, this divisive change creates friction. I agree TDF cannot spend it’s time and energy talking about Collabora for many reasons - but it can easily choose not to try to pass off our huge investment in Online as its own in a counter-productive way.
I’ve written long texts on this which were apparently not understood, but perhaps in a fictional world it’s easier to expore the meta-problem here in comic form.