2012/5/20 Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamil...@acm.org> > Please Paolo, > > What does this refer to: > > "Do you need to fill a form when you decide to help a friend > or someone unknown? Most of people don't think they need. > So, some of us will submit their requests for contributors. > Some will not." > > I have no idea how this relates to the Apache OpenOffice project and those > communities that adopt, share and advocate use of the software. > > Ok. Let me try to explain again. Maybe the language barrier could be making me diffiicult to do that.
1- When OpenOffice.org were living, we had a great and promising community in Brazil. 2 - In that time, we had not to fill any kind of form to contribute and to be accepted as a contributor. Everyone was watching what we were doing and that was enough. 3 - I don't know if you are aware about what has happened to brOffice.org NGO. It's a long and disgusting story I could tell you in another opportunity. But that divided our community in those who had commercial interests in brazilian market and those who contributed freely and had their work stolen, when TDF was formed. 4 - Suddenly, TDF was requesting that every person who wanted to be called a "contributor" should fill a agreement request in order to be "recognized". So we became to be concerned about that huge amount of people who contributed and didn't want to fill a formal agreement to a foreign organization that don't speak their language and has a lot of "channels", many of them obscured. 5 - In addition, people who we were fighting bacame key persons in TDF. One of them became a "brazilian" member of the BoD, with 70 votes, when brazilian accepted members in Brazil were less than 15 and most of them didn't vote for him. 6 - Facing all those issues, many of us got out. Some have gone to take care of their own lives. Some were seeking some other project to contribute for. We are the remains of those who were seeking a project to contribute for. 7 - Some of us are not intending to fill a form in order to became a "contributor". They don't think it's necessary, and I don't think either. despite of that they continue to do a great job marketing AOO, without your knowledge. You don't know them, but we, brazilians, certainly do. 8 - This discussion was already made in TDF mailing lists, without success for us. 9 - I don't want to bring a polemic issue like that here, because I know you would ask more and more about it, and some answers cannot be exactly what you want to see. 10 - I am tired of discussing this issue. I had a wearing discussion with TDF BoD once and, if brazilian people don't want to speak for themselves, I'll be quiet also, because I am telling you what is/was happening, but I am not a spokesman for anyone. And Rob... There's no "abstract vollunteers" up here. There are vollunteers you don't know and who are doing a great job, despite the fact you don't know them. > - Dennis > Regards. -- Paulo de Souza Lima http://almalivre.wordpress.com Curitiba - PR Linux User #432358 Ubuntu User #28729
