Hi all, On 10/02/2022 12:59, Thorsten Behrens wrote:
Hi *,Paolo Vecchi wrote:On 09/02/2022 15:57, Jan Holesovsky wrote:It is important to understand that "community" means "contributors"; as opposed to "users". "Users" are not part of the "community", until they start contributing; via code, QA, translations, marketing under the TDF umbrella, etc.I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree with your statement.In fact Paolo wasn't disagreeing so much, just stressed that users should be encouraged to become contributors.
I was actually disagreeing with a statement saying that users are not part of the community.
On the statement per se, that we (as in, TDF, and its board in particular) predominantly need to care and listen to our contributors, I would believe there's hardly any disagreement in the community.
Sure that we have to listen but that doesn't mean we have to do all what contributors say as some ideas passionately promoted by some contributors within the board turned out to be suboptimal and cost months of work and arguing.
I think that, as part of the on-boarding process, we should include a session hosted by Florian and Mike Schinagl that clarifies to all why TDF has been created, what its role is and what we should all keep in mind while performing our duties as members of the board.While it is important for the new board to know what TDF can, and cannot do (and in fact Paolo will find an email in his inbox, where Florian is announcing exactly such an onboarding), the role of the board is the opposite - to lead, within the limits of the charitable laws, where the community needs us to go.
From the exchanges I've seen it seems like it's really important to make clear what TDF is and what was set up to do.
Looking at the reasons why TDF was started almost 12 years ago shouldn't be the sole guiding principle. Living in the past is not a good board strategy.
While we should clearly evolve and grow, TDF has been setup for a specific reason and it has been incorporated on purpose as a Foundation (Stiftung) to preserve its guiding principles. It seems like it's more important than ever to remind ourselves of that and have a nice session with Florian and Mike Schinagl to tell us more about it.
The feedback we are receiving and the legal consultations we had confirm that employing developers to contribute directly to LibreOffice fits perfectly with TDF's purpose and objectives and allows to do more for our community.
Paraphrasing slightly what someone said quite a few years ago "Ask not what your community can do for you - ask what you can do for your community" so TDF should lead and do before expecting others to do.
I'll not comment on the quotes out of a press article, shown without much context and lacking a link to the original source (which would be good practice). The article (https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/16/libreoffice_ecosystem_beyond_utterly_broken/) was written in the context of the LOOL and MarComm plan discussions, and the fallout around the LibreOffice Personal / LibreOffice Community arguments. I recommend reading it in full.
I did not link the article on purpose as it really doesn't make the two person involved look good at all, it denigrates TDF, it reports misconceptions that have been clarified, it states that TDF cannot do things that are actually in the statutes and in general did not reflect the thoughts of the majority of the board.
It nearly got a quite strong public answer but some preferred to avoid it.
Finally, on the apparent contradiction between what Andreas (lawyer, TDF founder, long-term board member) and Paolo state on what TDF is permitted to do: this is part of an ongoing discussion with various experts. I would much prefer not discussing difficult legal matters on a public list.
They are not difficult legal matters, they are just basic legal consultations that gave us confirmation that we can do much more that previously thought.
I'm quite sure that Andreas (lawyer, TDF founder, long-term board member) would agree with Paolo (nothing much apparently) if he were a board member in this term and participated to the legal consultations. There is also no contradiction as Andreas summarised well the final scope for the employment of the developers which is the same scope for our tenders.
Cheers, -- Thorsten
Ciao Paolo -- Paolo Vecchi - Deputy Member of the Board of Directors The Document Foundation, Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, DE Gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts Legal details: https://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint
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