Hello,
as a member of the board of directors at OpenOffice.org Deutschland
e.V., the German nonprofit we are talking about, let me jump in.
First, we have established our association back in 2004, and it seemed
to be absolutely logical to chose that name. Our statutes, however, are
not solely tied to OpenOffice.org, but speak about free software in
general, especially productivity tools. So, our current doings are in
total compliance with our own statues.
Second, legally spoken, OOoDeV is behind TDF right now, but this is only
for a temporary phase until TDF legally exists. From then on, TDF and
OOoDeV will be two separate entities again, with different boards,
statutes and legal frameworks.
Third, we indeed intend to change our associations' name. The board of
directors has made a clear statement pro-TDF and pro-LibreOffice that we
have not only sent to our members, but also made publically visible on
our website http://www.ooodev.org. Given the current developments, it
makes not much sense to keep the current associations' name. We are
right now in the process of finding a new name, and that name will
neither contain OpenOffice.org, nor LibreOffice, nor TDF, but will be
completely product- and vendor-neutral. The final name has not been
decided upon yet, and our members meeting have to agree to it, so it
will most likely take some time until the change is legally in effect --
the way to it, however, has already been opened.
Fourth, wearing my Document Foundation hat now, we have always said that
we are open and transparent. We don't force anyone to decide on one
specific "side". As I have written in my letter of resignation to the
OpenOffice.org Community, I still don't see two different sides,
competing products or conflicts of interest. But, let's not open a
political discussion here -- my personal take is that ODFAuthors is such
an independent name that it can cover all suites, without forcing people
to decide, helping to combine the best of all worlds, being open in any
direction for the future, not tied to one specific product or vendor.
Fifth, those who think we are the ones who want to "split", read what
happened. People selling proprietary products and making a living out of
that accused us, the volunteer community, of a conflict of interest,
which I still find just ridiculous. The decision and ommission of the
name OpenOffice.org was not our decision, but rather there has been lots
of discussions on the lists, and people were finally forced to leave and
resign from their roles. I was even asked to not use my @openoffice.org
e-mail address in the future, which I consider a very clear statement.
The statutes of OOoDeV are that we support open source and respective
productivity tools in general. Even if our focus now is indeed on TDF
and LibO, we don't exclude others, so I guess we should give up thinking
with those barriers in mind. The only limitation I see is using the name
OpenOffice.org: Given the current situation, we just cannot promote
products that contain the name. The statements we received have been
very clear in that point, so hosting a site called OOoAuthors.org could
indeed be problematic for us as association (and also foundation).
Regarding Alexandro's concerns, I really don't know where he stands. On
http://www.documentfoundation.org/supporters/ he strongly supports TDF,
on this list it looks like he has concerns. Let me quote: "I
congratulate the efforts to finally go ahead with the plans of an
independent foundation and I think that with the 10 year anniversary a
new era in OpenOffice.org to grow and become even more free and open to
a mature community that has achieve the wide spread recognition of its
product. I applaud the efforts of such and want to provide the resources
and support from OOoES." said Alexandro Colorado, OOoES president
My personal take is: If you have a group with a stable infrastructure,
capable and engaged people, it would be wise to accept their offer. I
know how hard it is to get the required infrastructure for hosting, and
I doubt it will be possible to get the required structure from others on
time. Just putting online calls for helps really brings you nowhere.
Been there, done that, know the results. Personally, hosting
ODFAuthors.org just requires me more time I have to spare, so I really
don't gain anything personally from it, just work, so you can consider
the above as a friendly advice :-)
Hope that made things a bit clearer. If you have any questions, let me know.
Florian
--
Florian Effenberger <[email protected]>
Steering Committee and Founding Member of The Document Foundation
Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff | Twitter/Identi.ca: @floeff
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