Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Thorsten Behrens]

Paolo Vecchi wrote:
> > The evolving consensus in the board it
> > seems (though of course I cannot speak for them), is that TDF should
> > for the moment close the chapter of LibreOffice Online.
> 
> More than a consensus I believe that we may have to resign to the fact that
> we may have been left with not many options unless other members of the
> board and the community come up with some practical options.
>
Which seems to be essentially the same conclusion.

Let's end this thread here. If there's new ideas, or new, constructive
input on Marco's proposal, that is of course welcome (ideally as a new
thread, or as answers to the original email).

Best,

-- Thorsten


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi all,

I believe a few comments require notes and corrections as they may 
mislead the community:


On 26/01/2022 17:19, Thorsten Behrens wrote:

Not directly answering on a controversial proposal,
Members of the community are actually asking for answers and members of 
the board should help in providing them regardless of the level of 
controversy.

I understand you frustrations & your motives, but I mostly agree with
Paolo: claiming Collabora Online is still TDF's,

The statement is not correct.
I claimed that LibreOffice OnLine is still TDF's even if it seems we 
haven't yet found a way to move it forward, Collabora Online is a third 
party product.

  and then distributing
free binaries of it (which was the trigger for Collabora to leave in
the first place)

The statement is not correct.
Collabora actually agreed to negotiate the details of LOOL's binaries 
distribution so that is definitely not the trigger of the fork.



  - is quite a hostile move. It would also be beyond
tricky for TDF to message that to the general (FLOSS-affine) public.


I believe TDF has demonstrated to be everything but hostile even when 
the project it hosted and was part of the LibreOffice project has been 
forked without warnings.



The evolving consensus in the board it
seems (though of course I cannot speak for them), is that TDF should
for the moment close the chapter of LibreOffice Online.


More than a consensus I believe that we may have to resign to the fact 
that we may have been left with not many options unless other members of 
the board and the community come up with some practical options.

All the best,

-- 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



OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Thorsten Behrens]

Hi Marco,

it's unclear if we're talking past each other -

Marco Marinello wrote:
> it's of course legit to ask people contributing here to comply with the
> ML netiquette but I don't think closing the thread here is the solution.
> 
This part of the thread is a conversation about the past, and as such
has served its purpose.

> In my opening message sent on January 9th I made a proposal consisting
> of four points as an alternative approach to the current online
> situation and although the ML is named "board-discuss", nobody from the
> board commented on the merit of the proposal.
> 
There were board people answering, I counted two immediate follow-ups:

   Paolo: msg-id a2501c6d-5ed1-49bb-ebef-1e5a56cb6...@documentfoundation.org
   Michael: msg-id b44f7c5d-968d-0904-703a-e0a03b18f...@collabora.com

Plus a handful of good thoughts from community members, in the rather
massive side-thread that evolved from there.

> I'm geniunally interested in the opinion of who's currently driving the
> foundation and I don't understand why you, Thorsten, as current and
> future board member, are certainly following the thread but only asking
> to close it, instead of giving your contribution. So please, as for
> other board members, go back to my first mail here and reply to that.
> 
Not directly answering on a controversial proposal, that is triggering
quite emotional reactions, and has resulted in one of the longer
navel-gazing & history re-telling threads of the recent past - is
sometimes what is needed to not fuel the flames. I also had nothing
substantial to add, beyond the two existing answers.

I understand you frustrations & your motives, but I mostly agree with
Paolo: claiming Collabora Online is still TDF's, and then distributing
free binaries of it (which was the trigger for Collabora to leave in
the first place) - is quite a hostile move. It would also be beyond
tricky for TDF to message that to the general (FLOSS-affine) public.

There are aspects of your proposal that are really good ideas though,
c.f. the comments Simon made. The evolving consensus in the board it
seems (though of course I cannot speak for them), is that TDF should
for the moment close the chapter of LibreOffice Online.

All the best,

-- Thorsten


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Marco,

I have to agree with you here that maybe censoring threads isn't the 
best way forward and that surely isn't a message agreed within the board.


While there haven't been yet clear answers that can bring a solution, at 
least we all have a clearer view on how LOOL came to be, evolved into a 
viable product and then has been forked.


As a deputy member of the board and a member of our community I 
expressed my opinion about your 4 points:


https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00057.html

It's true that I may have been a bit harsh with my answers, and I 
apologise if you got upset by it, but while I understand your proposal 
we have also to deal with the reality that without a reconsideration 
from the company that made the fork we don't have yet the 
internal/external contributors that could allow us to revive the LOOL 
project.


Even if I get full support from the board to employ internal developers 
I don't think is a good idea to unilaterally decide to backport the 
forked repository to LOOL without a clear agreement with the company 
involved so that probably won't fix the issue either.


Surely the fastest and easier way to solve the issue would be to have 
the company that forked LOOL to concede that they may have overlooked 
the initial agreement with TDF and the community but up to now we 
received no new proposals from them.


Having said that and with my answers underlying the issues I've noticed 
do you see ways to reformulate your proposal?


Any other practical proposals from other members of the board and the 
community?


Ciao

Paolo


On 26/01/2022 12:47, Marco Marinello wrote:

Hi Thorsten, all,


it's of course legit to ask people contributing here to comply with the
ML netiquette but I don't think closing the thread here is the solution.

In my opening message sent on January 9th I made a proposal consisting
of four points as an alternative approach to the current online
situation and although the ML is named "board-discuss", nobody from the
board commented on the merit of the proposal.

I'm geniunally interested in the opinion of who's currently driving the
foundation and I don't understand why you, Thorsten, as current and
future board member, are certainly following the thread but only asking
to close it, instead of giving your contribution. So please, as for
other board members, go back to my first mail here and reply to that.


ATB

Marco


Il 25/01/22 21:34, Thorsten Behrens ha scritto:

Hi Paolo,

Paolo Vecchi wrote:

In regard to your questions:


[references to earlier emails]


I'll follow up on the board list also with the proposal to look more
in detail at what we host and status and future of the Android
Viewer.


Thanks. So let's end-thread here.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten


--
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



OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Marco Marinello]

Hi Thorsten, all,


it's of course legit to ask people contributing here to comply with the
ML netiquette but I don't think closing the thread here is the solution.

In my opening message sent on January 9th I made a proposal consisting
of four points as an alternative approach to the current online
situation and although the ML is named "board-discuss", nobody from the
board commented on the merit of the proposal.

I'm geniunally interested in the opinion of who's currently driving the
foundation and I don't understand why you, Thorsten, as current and
future board member, are certainly following the thread but only asking
to close it, instead of giving your contribution. So please, as for
other board members, go back to my first mail here and reply to that.


ATB

Marco


Il 25/01/22 21:34, Thorsten Behrens ha scritto:
> Hi Paolo,
>
> Paolo Vecchi wrote:
>> In regard to your questions:
>>
> [references to earlier emails]
>
>> I'll follow up on the board list also with the proposal to look more
>> in detail at what we host and status and future of the Android
>> Viewer.
>>
> Thanks. So let's end-thread here.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Thorsten

-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Thorsten Behrens]

Hi Paolo,

Paolo Vecchi wrote:
> In regard to your questions:
>
[references to earlier emails]

> I'll follow up on the board list also with the proposal to look more
> in detail at what we host and status and future of the Android
> Viewer.
>
Thanks. So let's end-thread here.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Thorsten,

this is the thread that Marco Marinello created to see if anybody can 
come up with other proposals that may bring back LOOL instead of just 
having to forget about it.


While sadly it seems like the original main contributors to LOOL don't 
seem to add much in terms of proposals, at least it's useful to have a 
clearer view and understanding of the past to try avoiding something 
similar happening in future.


I do understand the position of all the members of the board at the time 
and also yours, Thorsten, as I believe that at the beginning the 
intentions were those expressed on the page I linked. Surely no one 
thought that a friend and a member of the same community would have 
acted that way.


That's understandable and nobody here is blaming anyone for choices made 
at that time.


The more recent past shows us that now we have to look at things more 
carefully and think about the future of the projects we host.


In regard to your questions:

- concrete proposals what TDF should (or should not) do for future
  projects

In your "atticisation" thread I clearly stated what I think we should do 
for projects that could be taken out of the attic AND for current/new 
projects we host.


- fundamentally new or different ideas on how to deal with stale
  projects

As I stated in your "atticisation" thread we definitely need to check 
the projects that we are hosting and see what requires to be formally 
welcomed with an agreement as the main contributor is a commercial 
organisations, which projects are obsolete and which projects can be 
revived.


I'll follow up on the board list also with the proposal to look more in 
detail at what we host and status and future of the Android Viewer.


Ciao

Paolo


On 25/01/2022 16:31, Thorsten Behrens wrote:

Hi Andreas, hi Paolo,

this thread has been going on for some time, and the subject is still
"Counterproposal to the 'actization' of LibreOffice Online"

I don't find any new input for that discussion. All points have been
made already, most of them repeatedly.

The irony of someone on the board at the time complaining that the
board at the time made a mistake is not lost on me.

So can we now finally turn this into something constructive?

That would be, among other things:

- concrete proposals what TDF should (or should not) do for future
   projects
- fundamentally new or different ideas on how to deal with stale
   projects

Everything else is badly off-topic on this thread (and very likely
even on this list). For general discussions, please do move that over
to our disc...@documentfoundation.org list.

Cheers, Thorsten



--
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



OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Thorsten Behrens]

Hi Andreas, hi Paolo,

this thread has been going on for some time, and the subject is still
"Counterproposal to the 'actization' of LibreOffice Online"

I don't find any new input for that discussion. All points have been
made already, most of them repeatedly.

The irony of someone on the board at the time complaining that the
board at the time made a mistake is not lost on me.

So can we now finally turn this into something constructive?

That would be, among other things:

- concrete proposals what TDF should (or should not) do for future
  projects
- fundamentally new or different ideas on how to deal with stale
  projects

Everything else is badly off-topic on this thread (and very likely
even on this list). For general discussions, please do move that over
to our disc...@documentfoundation.org list.

Cheers, Thorsten

-- 
Thorsten Behrens, Director, Member of the Board
The Document Foundation, Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, Germany
Rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts
Legal details: http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint




signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Andreas,

I agree the narrative on Collabora's own site seems to clash a bit with 
what happened down the line.


I see that you were in the board at the time, as some of the current 
board members, so I guess you were as excited as others know that LOOL 
was going to be available for free to all. Maybe at the times there was 
no fear that it would have been taken away from us so nobody thought to 
make things clear with an official agreement which confirmed what 
Collabora had on its website.


One may hope that someone re-reads what it was suppose to happen and 
reviews some decisions.


In the meantime it is evident that we need to set some rules for the 
projects that TDF hosts so that we can have more clarity in future.


Ciao

Paolo

On 24/01/2022 18:00, Andreas Mantke wrote:

Hi,

the linked documents shows the different behavior / narrative during a
period without a commercial product and with the opposite.
During the first one it is a community project and it is one of the core
projects. It is welcomed that every community member (everyone)
contributes to the project, support it and use it for free (as product
of the community). It is also proposed that it will be supported as a
community project and get updates (etc.).
Once the project gets commercial ready this commitment was retracted.
And the speech changed to the statement that the project had only little
/ negligible contributions from the community.
If you analyze this statement you could get to the conclusion that the
contributions of one group of developers are not contributions to the
community. But if that would be the case, why could they apply for TDF
membership and so on?

And the statement, that Paolo linked in this thread, was made from TDF
in 2015 and you could find out who was on the board at that time:
https://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/board/2014-2016/

Thus it seemed very important to have clear rules for projects, that TDF
hosts and which were substantial driven by a professional entity.

And it's also obvious that a CoI could happen very likely, if one try to
wear two hats (on different sides of the table).

Regards,
Andreas

Am 21.01.22 um 19:10 schrieb Paolo Vecchi:

And also:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160320072620/https://www.collaboraoffice.com/community-news/libreoffice-online-questions-answered-what-who-how-and-when/ 




Maybe also that gave some people the impression that LibreOffice
OnLine, being hosted at TDF and "contributed to the LibreOffice
project", would have been made available to all but that may just be
my reading.

Ciao

Paolo

On 21/01/2022 18:31, Michael Meeks wrote:


On 18/01/2022 06:39, Andreas Mantke wrote:

only for background information I recommend to read:
blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2015/01/27/the-document-foundation-announces-the-results-of-the-android-tender/ 



and e.g. the annual report 2013 of TDF, page 9/10


And also:

https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#mobile-story

which has links to the reports, with the (core) commits. And:

https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#creators

may be interesting too; all of that a year+ old.

ATB,

    Michael.





--
## Free Software Advocate
## Plone add-on developer
## My blog: http://www.amantke.de/blog




--
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



OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Andreas Mantke]

Hi,

the linked documents shows the different behavior / narrative during a
period without a commercial product and with the opposite.
During the first one it is a community project and it is one of the core
projects. It is welcomed that every community member (everyone)
contributes to the project, support it and use it for free (as product
of the community). It is also proposed that it will be supported as a
community project and get updates (etc.).
Once the project gets commercial ready this commitment was retracted.
And the speech changed to the statement that the project had only little
/ negligible contributions from the community.
If you analyze this statement you could get to the conclusion that the
contributions of one group of developers are not contributions to the
community. But if that would be the case, why could they apply for TDF
membership and so on?

And the statement, that Paolo linked in this thread, was made from TDF
in 2015 and you could find out who was on the board at that time:
https://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/board/2014-2016/

Thus it seemed very important to have clear rules for projects, that TDF
hosts and which were substantial driven by a professional entity.

And it's also obvious that a CoI could happen very likely, if one try to
wear two hats (on different sides of the table).

Regards,
Andreas

Am 21.01.22 um 19:10 schrieb Paolo Vecchi:

And also:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160320072620/https://www.collaboraoffice.com/community-news/libreoffice-online-questions-answered-what-who-how-and-when/


Maybe also that gave some people the impression that LibreOffice
OnLine, being hosted at TDF and "contributed to the LibreOffice
project", would have been made available to all but that may just be
my reading.

Ciao

Paolo

On 21/01/2022 18:31, Michael Meeks wrote:


On 18/01/2022 06:39, Andreas Mantke wrote:

only for background information I recommend to read:
blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2015/01/27/the-document-foundation-announces-the-results-of-the-android-tender/

and e.g. the annual report 2013 of TDF, page 9/10


And also:

https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#mobile-story

which has links to the reports, with the (core) commits. And:

https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#creators

may be interesting too; all of that a year+ old.

ATB,

    Michael.





--
## Free Software Advocate
## Plone add-on developer
## My blog: http://www.amantke.de/blog


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

And also:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160320072620/https://www.collaboraoffice.com/community-news/libreoffice-online-questions-answered-what-who-how-and-when/

Maybe also that gave some people the impression that LibreOffice OnLine, 
being hosted at TDF and "contributed to the LibreOffice project", would 
have been made available to all but that may just be my reading.


Ciao

Paolo

On 21/01/2022 18:31, Michael Meeks wrote:


On 18/01/2022 06:39, Andreas Mantke wrote:

only for background information I recommend to read:
blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2015/01/27/the-document-foundation-announces-the-results-of-the-android-tender/ 


and e.g. the annual report 2013 of TDF, page 9/10


And also:

https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#mobile-story

which has links to the reports, with the (core) commits. And:

https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/#creators

may be interesting too; all of that a year+ old.

ATB,

    Michael.



--
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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi all,

On 18/01/2022 11:33, Simon Phipps wrote:

Hi Marco!

On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 9:06 AM Marco Marinello 
mailto:li...@marcomarinello.it>> wrote:


Hi Simon,

Il 17/01/22 18:15, Simon Phipps ha scritto:

I especially liked something in your first idea:

TDF should publicly endorse
this choice, stating that the project is now hosted on Github
and the
development is managed by a company of the ecosystem but is –
at the end
of the day – always LibreOffice Online


I think this is the seed of a great approach which we could
pursue in the context of the ingredient brand we have been
evolving. It would need to be designed to apply to any relevant
project, not just LOOL. We are more likely to see TDF's mission
advanced by encouraging and supporting fellow community members
who try to innovate than by discussing what others should do and
then looking for those others!

beware that the four bullet points I mentioned in the first email
are not intended to be split.


Thanks for the comment - I do understand, it is irritating when people 
cherry-pick a larger comment. Neverless, it's for a reason here. The 
other three bullets were specifically about LibreOffice Online and I 
agree with Thorsten and others that it's best to separate the 
attic-isation process from the specific use case, so I have focussed 
on your first bullet which I believe could form the basis for a 
general case.


I would say that the 4 bullet points are linked to the atticisation 
discussion as are related to the standard process of de-atticisation and 
for new projects led by commercial contributors.


As in this case, members of the community are wondering what they are 
getting back from the investment that they and TDF made on LOOL and at 
present we are unable to offer answers as we didn't clarify the process 
and the rules in advance.


Is there any other suggestions on how to deliver LOOL to our members of 
the community?


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

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Simon Phipps]

Hi Marco!

On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 9:06 AM Marco Marinello 
wrote:

> Hi Simon,
> Il 17/01/22 18:15, Simon Phipps ha scritto:
>
> I especially liked something in your first idea:
>
> TDF should publicly endorse
>> this choice, stating that the project is now hosted on Github and the
>> development is managed by a company of the ecosystem but is – at the end
>> of the day – always LibreOffice Online
>
>
> I think this is the seed of a great approach which we could pursue in the
> context of the ingredient brand we have been evolving. It would need to be
> designed to apply to any relevant project, not just LOOL. We are more
> likely to see TDF's mission advanced by encouraging and supporting fellow
> community members who try to innovate than by discussing what others should
> do and then looking for those others!
>
> beware that the four bullet points I mentioned in the first email are not
> intended to be split.
>

Thanks for the comment - I do understand, it is irritating when people
cherry-pick a larger comment. Neverless, it's for a reason here. The other
three bullets were specifically about LibreOffice Online and I agree with
Thorsten and others that it's best to separate the attic-isation process
from the specific use case, so I have focussed on your first bullet which I
believe could form the basis for a general case.

Cheers!

Simon
-- 
*Simon Phipps*
*TDF Trustee*

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Cor,

I'm sorry to say it in public but I'm honestly appalled by your comment 
which shows your insensitivity to the matter that is being discussed and 
is providing an example of how disinformation works.


On 17/01/2022 23:32, Cor Nouws wrote:

Paolo Vecchi wrote on 15/01/2022 20:56:


Maybe you missed the point here.

Some of us actually worked hard to prepare the ground to help others
trying to act in a fair and balanced way but after months of work and
negotiations someone decided that solidarity wasn't a priority.

Another perspective on that: "You rushed into the board with proposals
that would allow non-contributors to start competing with one of the
major contributors, by making use of the LibreOffice brand."
And .. then you were surprised that it wasn't welcomed with applause :)

Cor

I would suggest you to read the directors emails and RedMine tickets 
about LOOL since March 2020 to discover that the most ethical and 
professional thing you could do is to apologise to the members of the 
community for your unfortunate comment.


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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Marco Marinello]

Hi Simon,

Il 17/01/22 18:15, Simon Phipps ha scritto:
> I especially liked something in your first idea:
>
> TDF should publicly endorse
> this choice, stating that the project is now hosted on Github and the
> development is managed by a company of the ecosystem but is – at
> the end
> of the day – always LibreOffice Online
>
>
> I think this is the seed of a great approach which we could pursue in
> the context of the ingredient brand we have been evolving. It would
> need to be designed to apply to any relevant project, not just LOOL.
> We are more likely to see TDF's mission advanced by encouraging and
> supporting fellow community members who try to innovate than by
> discussing what others should do and then looking for those others!
beware that the four bullet points I mentioned in the first email are
not intended to be split.

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Andreas Mantke]

Hi,

only for background information I recommend to read:
blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2015/01/27/the-document-foundation-announces-the-results-of-the-android-tender/

and e.g. the annual report 2013 of TDF, page 9/10

Regards,
Andreas 

Am 17. Januar 2022 23:32:30 MEZ schrieb Cor Nouws :
>Paolo Vecchi wrote on 15/01/2022 20:56:
>
>> Maybe you missed the point here.
>> 
>> Some of us actually worked hard to prepare the ground to help others
>> trying to act in a fair and balanced way but after months of work and
>> negotiations someone decided that solidarity wasn't a priority.
>
>Another perspective on that: "You rushed into the board with proposals
>that would allow non-contributors to start competing with one of the
>major contributors, by making use of the LibreOffice brand."
>And .. then you were surprised that it wasn't welcomed with applause :)
>
>Cor
>
>-- 
>Cor Nouws
>Business Development
>Collabora Productivity Ltd.
>https://collaboraoffice.com/
>
>cor.no...@collabora.com
>Signal: +31 6 2520 7001
>Phone: +31 6 2520 7001
>jabber: cor4off...@jabber.org
>
>-- 
>To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
>Problems? 
>https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
>Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
>List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
>Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
>

-- 
Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Gerät mit K-9 Mail gesendet.

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Cor Nouws]

Paolo Vecchi wrote on 15/01/2022 20:56:

> Maybe you missed the point here.
> 
> Some of us actually worked hard to prepare the ground to help others
> trying to act in a fair and balanced way but after months of work and
> negotiations someone decided that solidarity wasn't a priority.

Another perspective on that: "You rushed into the board with proposals
that would allow non-contributors to start competing with one of the
major contributors, by making use of the LibreOffice brand."
And .. then you were surprised that it wasn't welcomed with applause :)

Cor

-- 
Cor Nouws
Business Development
Collabora Productivity Ltd.
https://collaboraoffice.com/

cor.no...@collabora.com
Signal: +31 6 2520 7001
Phone: +31 6 2520 7001
jabber: cor4off...@jabber.org

-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Cor Nouws]

Paolo Vecchi wrote on 15/01/2022 20:56:

> Maybe you missed the point here.
> 
> Some of us actually worked hard to prepare the ground to help others
> trying to act in a fair and balanced way but after months of work and
> negotiations someone decided that solidarity wasn't a priority.

Another perspective on that: "You rushed into the board with proposals
that would allow non-contributors to start competing with one of the
major contributors, by making use of the LibreOffice brand."
And .. then you were surprised that it wasn't welcomed with applause :)

Cor

-- 
Cor Nouws, member Board of Directors
The Document Foundation, Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin
Gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts
Legal details: http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint

GPD key ID: 0xB13480A6 - 591A 30A7 36A0 CE3C 3D28  A038 E49D 7365 B134 80A6
mobile  : +31 (0)6 25 20 7001
skype   : cornouws
blog: cor4office-nl.blogspot.com
jabber  : cor4off...@jabber.org


-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Michael Meeks]

Hi Simon,

On 14/01/2022 18:14, Simon Phipps wrote:

This has led to progress grinding to a halt through mistrust
If TDF is to satisfy its mission this has to stop. The new Board has a 
huge opportunity and responsibility to put all this behind them and lead 
positively. It must shun divisiveness


	Thanks for your apt and helpful analysis & reflection on the way ahead. 
As a counter-point to some other perspectives: I am really grateful that 
you take the time to intervene positively in our community, to provide 
the benefit of your wide experience, as well as this sort of incisive 
and clear perspective that helps to cut through the clouds of confusion.


	I too hope the new board will be able to start afresh with new vigor on 
the task of making LibreOffice a welcoming and pleasant place to 
contribute for all.


Thanks,

Michael.

--
michael.me...@collabora.com <><, GM Collabora Productivity
Hangout: mejme...@gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks
(M) +44 7795 666 147 - timezone usually UK / Europe

--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Simon,

On 17/01/2022 18:15, Simon Phipps wrote:
I suggest being very cautious with making "strong rules" in a 
volunteer community. While superficially they seem good at the time, 
our experience at TDF has been that strong rules made under 
challenging condition turn out to be problematic when conditions have 
changed, and can then be used disruptively. The more rules there are, 
the more games can be played with them.


I believe Marco supported my proposal because he read my various emails 
where I was clarifying that the rules weren't at all directed at the 
volunteer community in general.


Eg.: 
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00061.html


We surely don't want to make life difficult to individual volunteers 
contributing to LibreOffice and related projects.


For corporate contributors, shouldn't be a big issue as they already 
need to go through internal reviews to see what they can contribute and 
how so may as well make things clear for all and protect not only our 
community but also the corporate contributors that may inadvertently 
lead the community to believe that the whole project will be available 
for free and for all to use while they may have also other plans for 
portions of it.


Then surely once some rules are in place there will always be someone in 
bad faith that tries to circumvent them if at the time seems more 
convenient for them but at least we'll have to deal with a case where we 
know what the community was supposed to get out of it instead of wasting 
months in fruitless negotiations.


At present I don't have development plans for a new commercial project 
based on LibreOffice but if I had one I would ask TDF to work together 
to shape an agreement where I state the objective of the project, my 
plans to make it commercially sustainable (if that is an end goal as it 
may not be necessary the case/needed) and what the community could 
expect out of it under the TDF umbrella. Then it's up to the board and 
the community to decide if we should invest in the project.


(The above specific example would lead to a special situation as, being 
a member of TDF's board of directors, it would be even more important 
for me to present a clear project and let the rest of the board decide 
about it, without me or my business partners ever intervening, to avoid 
being perceived as more equal than others)


Wouldn't any company find it not just natural but essential to do that 
to protect their long term investments and show that it can be trusted 
by the community?


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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Simon Phipps]

Hi Marco!  Thanks for contributing.

On Mon, Jan 17, 2022 at 10:52 AM Marco Marinello 
wrote:

>
> regarding, as per subject of the thread, counterproposal(s) to the
> "actization" of LibreOffice Online, were barely discussed.
>

My apologies for the delay Marco, I had meant to comment on your proposal
but got distracted!


> I also think, and I hope those that have written here will agree, is
> clear that we need fixed and strong rules for projects hosted at TDF.


I suggest being very cautious with making "strong rules" in a volunteer
community. While superficially they seem good at the time, our experience
at TDF has been that strong rules made under challenging condition turn out
to be problematic when conditions have changed, and can then be used
disruptively. The more rules there are, the more games can be played with
them.

I especially liked something in your first idea:

TDF should publicly endorse
> this choice, stating that the project is now hosted on Github and the
> development is managed by a company of the ecosystem but is – at the end
> of the day – always LibreOffice Online


I think this is the seed of a great approach which we could pursue in the
context of the ingredient brand we have been evolving. It would need to be
designed to apply to any relevant project, not just LOOL. We are more
likely to see TDF's mission advanced by encouraging and supporting fellow
community members who try to innovate than by discussing what others should
do and then looking for those others!

Cheers,

Simon

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi all,

On 17/01/2022 13:08, Thorsten Behrens wrote:

Marco Marinello wrote:

I hope source-only projects will not happen again.


In fact, if you just count by the number of projects, almost all code
that is hosted at TDF is source-only.

There's a lot to discover and weigh here, and it's a challenge (in the
wider context) that the entire FLOSS universe is struggling with since
a number of years.

There is a lot to discover and we should fully evaluate what we are hosting.

Only a short while ago I discovered that the Android Viewer still gets 
contributions from Michael Weghorn:


https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg3.html

As it seems like there is still interest from the community we should 
have a look at how we can help.


While we go through the discovery process we might find other projects 
that we need to review and maybe publish, like the Android Viewer, and 
some that may require to be under a formal agreement.


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



OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Thorsten Behrens]

Hi Marco,

Marco Marinello wrote:
> I hope source-only projects will not happen again.
>
In fact, if you just count by the number of projects, almost all code
that is hosted at TDF is source-only.

There's a lot to discover and weigh here, and it's a challenge (in the
wider context) that the entire FLOSS universe is struggling with since
a number of years. I don't think we'll be able to solve that
conundrum anytime soon.

So again, I suggest we focus, and solve questions one by one. Next up
is the general attic proposal. Let's move on with that.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Marco,

thanks a lot for your engagement and your contributions to the discussion.

On 17/01/2022 11:51, Marco Marinello wrote:

Hi Paolo, hi all,

Il 16/01/22 11:01, Paolo Vecchi ha scritto:

IMHO what is being called "infighting" has been an excellent exercise
of transparency and exchange of point of view.

I agree, a lot of new (at least for non-board people) information came
out from this thread, although the topics I proposed in the first email,
regarding, as per subject of the thread, counterproposal(s) to the
"actization" of LibreOffice Online, were barely discussed.
I hope that the provided additional information has helped you 
understand why I have replied the way I did.


(original:
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00043.html

and with my answer:
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00057.html)

Where we stand at present, IMHO, there is nothing much TDF can do to 
revive the LOOL project as most of the developers involved are 
Collabora's employees so they now only contribute to Collabora's GitHub 
repositories.


Unless the valuable member of the ecosystem changes its mind, other 
members of our community have other proposals and/or want to help us 
restarting the development of LOOL I don't see many other ways forward.


It would be great to have more comments from the rest of the community 
about it.

I also think, and I hope those that have written here will agree, is
clear that we need fixed and strong rules for projects hosted at TDF. I
hope source-only projects will not happen again.
Thank you for supporting this proposal which is very much linked to the 
above issue.


I've been proposing this for quite a while and I hope the new board will 
support it so that we won't find ourselves in the same situation in a 
few years time.

All the best,

Marco


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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Marco Marinello]

Hi Paolo, hi all,

Il 16/01/22 11:01, Paolo Vecchi ha scritto:
> IMHO what is being called "infighting" has been an excellent exercise
> of transparency and exchange of point of view. 

I agree, a lot of new (at least for non-board people) information came
out from this thread, although the topics I proposed in the first email,
regarding, as per subject of the thread, counterproposal(s) to the
"actization" of LibreOffice Online, were barely discussed.

I also think, and I hope those that have written here will agree, is
clear that we need fixed and strong rules for projects hosted at TDF. I
hope source-only projects will not happen again.


All the best,

Marco


-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

All contributions intertwine (was Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online)

[Lothar K. Becker]

  
  
Hi Sophie, all,

what I find interesting is, that everybody in these thread(s) around
Sophie's mail is asking for balance. And let me add, I do too.

But what I could observe is, that independent of what is about in
the daily work, is it coming to decision making or formulating a
text or even just defining a reasonable and fair process to get such
a result/decision/text, everybody is within his/her own frame and
not much interested in getting a compromise/a consensus. Proposals
for such "coming together", no matter from where they come, are
often not enough "fitted" for the own interests (with some few
exceptions which were very hard work to get) and getting questioned
again and again in long and exhausting processes. 

And that makes it hard to get results and even more it bounds our
all time resources and motivation instead of doing other good
things. And I am thankful, that Sophie was speaking up for one
aspect of it, out of these bounded resources we all did not manage
to use our really good status in/of TDF during the pandemic for
helping, showing more solidarity with people who hit it a lot more
than TDF or even community members of TDF, of which we sometimes do
not know that they are suffering. 

So, my personal conclusion of this is, we could become better if we
all **really** value all sides of it more and show our respect to
"the others" in more often acknowledging a compromise even if not
all of the own interests are in it, or facilitating a consensus.
Coding contributions is a critical part and nevertheless as well as
all others like documentation, translation, marketing, quality
assurance, local activities of the volunteers independent where,
mentoring, certifying, organizing and maintain the
infrastructure,...

We would not have these good status of our foundation during the
pandemic when we did not have all of them. They are all intertwined
and dependent on each other. And indeed, we should use this status
more for doing good within the founders will.

It is never too late to do so. 

Thank you all for your various contributions,
Lothar 

Am 15.01.2022 um 17:26 schrieb sophi:


  Hi Simon, all,
Le 14/01/2022 à 19:14, Simon Phipps a écrit :

  
Hi Sophie,

I appreciate your comment here and (with some fear) have to respond to
amplify it.

  
  
Thank you for your support. You amplified more than my initial thoughts
which were only about solidarity, altruism and generosity.


  

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 11:14 AM sophi  wrote:



  
On my point of view, it was not about achieving market dominance but
about solidarity. And TDF has failed here, again on my point of view.




Yes, I have to agree with you. Freedom, equality and solidarity used to be
the norm at TDF.> Over the last couple of years that has largely ended at
the Foundation level (fortunately our community still has many parts where
this is not true). This has led to progress grinding to a halt
through mistrust. For example, both TDC and LOOL were ended just at the
point where the external conditions suggested they were going to flourish.
Little has been achieved in their place as you observe, and as the tired
bickering in this thread illustrates.

  
  
I don't want to go back in these stories of TDC and LOOL again but they
are two very different situations for me. What I can agree with you is
that both have damaged the community's confidence in what is TDF and
what it should represent.
I've read all the minutes of the board meetings, attended several of
these meetings, and I can say this board has took several actions during
this two very difficult years without having a chance to meet. My mail
was not to address reproaches to the board, but a reaction to what
Thorsten and Michael said on the pandemic period.

  

Egalitarianism was replaced by turning inwards to fight unproductively
among those privileged to be allowed information - and in the process to
slander those involved before. As a result of this the Foundation has
turned even more closed, with Board inflighting leaving the Trustees in the
dark while the arguments went on. There has consequently been no spirit of
solidarity to harness to do good outside the project. As you say, that is
tragic, and I really appreciate your observation of it.

  
  
Well that's not exactly what I said, and in my opinion the board was
more open to discussions than some years before. But I agree with you
that even arguments should be more transparent and the community should
be aware when things are going worse.

  

If TDF is to satisfy its mission this has to stop. The new Board has a huge
opportunity and responsibility to put all this behind them and lead
positively. It must shun divisiveness 

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Thorsten,

On 16/01/2022 01:48, Thorsten Behrens wrote:

Let's now stop this infighting.
IMHO what is being called "infighting" has been an excellent exercise of 
transparency and exchange of point of view.


It was probably overdue as some members of the community, due to lack of 
communication, formed their own view of what may have happened during 
this term.


More information is now available to all so that it will be easier to 
ask more questions and help us moving forward in a positive way.



Nothing good will come from it.
I do agree that lowering the quality of the debate characterising 
members of the community as "populist" or anti "commercial" won't bring 
anything good.


Everyone has the right to have opinions and it's our duty to allow 
everyone access to actual facts so that they can validate their opinions 
and bring something positive to the discussion.



In particular: this is a public list, so let me remind everyone that
our statutes suggest, and our code of conduct mandates:

- that we behave respectfully towards all others, including those that
   are different or think differently from yourself
- be helpful, considerate, friendly and respectful towards all other
   participants
- we don't condone harassment or offensive behaviour
It is a very good reminder for all, I'm sure that both Michael Meeks and 
Sophie Gautier, which are surely following with interest these 
conversations and are members of the Code of Conduct support team, would 
have flagged any behaviour that goes against the CoC.


More information and contact details here:

https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/code-of-conduct/

Thank you all for considering, and let's move on!

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Thanks for contributing to open and constructive conversations.

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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Thorsten Behrens]

Let's now stop this infighting. Nothing good will come from it.

In particular: this is a public list, so let me remind everyone that
our statutes suggest, and our code of conduct mandates:

- that we behave respectfully towards all others, including those that
  are different or think differently from yourself
- be helpful, considerate, friendly and respectful towards all other
  participants
- we don't condone harassment or offensive behaviour

Thank you all for considering, and let's move on!

Cheers,

-- Thorsten


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Simon,

I'm deeply concerned by your comments as you are presenting a very 
distorted view of reality contributing in creating more confusion, 
misinformation and divisions.


If you are unaware of what happened within the board in the past two 
years then it would be better for you not to say anything about it and 
support all of us in making the things Sophi asked for in her email 
happen as some of us tried but others decided to ignore us or actively 
block us.


Then just some brief comments below to correct what you said a bit.

On 14/01/2022 19:14, Simon Phipps wrote:

Hi Sophie,

I appreciate your comment here and (with some fear) have to respond to 
amplify it.


On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 11:14 AM sophi > wrote:



On my point of view, it was not about achieving market dominance but
about solidarity. And TDF has failed here, again on my point of view.


Yes, I have to agree with you. Freedom, equality and solidarity used 
to be the norm at TDF.


Maybe you missed the point here.

Some of us actually worked hard to prepare the ground to help others 
trying to act in a fair and balanced way but after months of work and 
negotiations someone decided that solidarity wasn't a priority.


You once again missed completely the point when in a public meeting 
(22/05/2020) you said that making LOOL available "poorly thought out 
proposal" and that we should have focused on your proposal for LOOL on 
Raspberry Pi.


I know you may not have been aware of the months of well documented 
negotiations that preceded that proposal which took in consideration the 
eventual economical impact for a valuable member of the ecosystem and 
the need to act in solidarity of the people badly affected by the pandemic.


Over the last couple of years that has largely ended at the Foundation 
level (fortunately our community still has many parts where this is 
not true).


Fortunately freedom, equality and solidarity are still in the core of 
what TDF does as some fought to keep it that way.



This has led to progress grinding to a halt through mistrust.


Life taught me that trust needs to be earned and should not be given 
blindly.


Also since my onboarding at TDF facts confirmed that whatever I've been 
told needs to be validated and supported by clear evidences.


That first day a member of the board shocked me when he said to me "TDF 
is utterly broken" and that made me think many things including "What 
have you been doing all these years instead of fixing things" and "This 
guy will have to work hard to earn my trust". Sadly that person did not 
put much efforts in trying to earn my trust, others didn't even try 
while fortunately I can say I found many more great people that 
demonstrated they can be trusted and are doing their best for TDF and 
our community.


For example, both TDC and LOOL were ended just at the point where the 
external conditions suggested they were going to flourish.


I guess by now most should know how LOOL ended and why.

I was hoping never to hear again about TDC but as you mention it that's 
another situation where the patience of the community and the new 
members of the board has been tested thoroughly.


I had some doubt about that project since I've heard of it and I even 
wrote to you before becoming a deputy member of the board to express my 
doubts about the way it was being setup.
Your answer didn't convinced me at all that the proposal was good for 
TDF and our community and it pushed me to look even deeper into the issue.


If I recall correctly you said you spent two years in making TDC happen 
as a fix for systemic issues within TDF.
That made me wonder if it wouldn't have been a better idea to invest 
those two years in fighting to fix the issues instead of creating a 
third party organisation to go around those issues.


Your answer made me also learn about a term, bike-shedding[1], its 
implications and to understand if we were trying to build a shed or a 
nuclear power plant.


It turns out that we have a lot of very clever and dedicated community 
members that spotted that the project that has been presented as a shed 
should actually have been considered as a power plant because there were 
many complex elements that haven't been considered and/or fully explained.


The board received a very long list of questions and doubts clearly 
showing that the presented project has been underestimated in both its 
complexity and its negative effect for TDF and our community.


It seems like once again you missed the point as instead of taking 
onboard the questions, evaluate their merit and provide convincing 
answers, which could have included "we may have to go back to the 
drawing board", you decided to feel offended and stopped responding.


Some members of the new board had to perform a full analysis of the 
project while the member of the board that were involved with that 
project kept hampering the process and sometimes coming up with 

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Simon Phipps]

Hi Andreas! Hi Sophie!

On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 8:55 AM Andreas Mantke  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Am 14.01.22 um 19:14 schrieb Simon Phipps:
>
> > If TDF is to satisfy its mission this has to stop. The new Board has a
> > huge opportunity and responsibility to put all this behind them and
> > lead positively. It must shun divisiveness and seek ways to rekindle
> > solidarity by emphasizing equality and promoting freedom. This will
> > not be done treating the motivations of some participants as suspect!
> > In fact almost everyone is pursuing an "interest", almost by
> > definition in a collaborative community!
> >
> Sure, without following an interest you wouldn't participate and invest
> your live time in that community.
>
> But at least if you are a member of a charity's body you need to be open
> and transparent about such interests and rethink, if following them
> foster the objectives of the organization. If following your interest
> (commercial or non-commercial) is in opposite to that, a member of the
> body has to put his interest last. If she / he is not able to follow
> such rule, she / he shouldn't reconsider his membership, because
> otherwise she / he most probably will get very soon into the situation
> to violate her / his duty as a member of the body.
>
> In short: if you wear to hats (TDF / personal interest) you as a member
> of a body has to wear the TDF hat in the first place.
>

I absolutely agree with you, Andreas. I especially agree with your
observation above that vested interests can be of various kinds, not just
commercial. I believe that's an area that needs attention, as most people
at TDF have a link with a community, political campaign, job, career
reputation or company (and so on) that could make them act in a way that
prioritises their interest over the charity.

I thought what Sophi said was relevant here:

On Sat, Jan 15, 2022 at 4:26 PM sophi  wrote:

We need to have a balance between commercial and charitable activities. In
> my very own opinion, we have moved away from this balance and we could
> have reshaped it during the pandemic.


I completely agree that things are out of balance, and I very much agree
that we should look to restore a balance of interests, but I don't think
the contrast is between "commercial and charitable". It is rather between
the interests of individuals and the interests of the charity as a whole.
We keep focussing on commercial interests, but in doing so we neglect other
motivations for taking a position on the functioning of TDF. To move on we
will need to recognise that TDF is a charity formed as home for a
convergence of interests and that a focus too much on the harms or benefits
of any one sort of interest is the origin of our problems.

Cheers

Simon
-- 
*Simon Phipps*
*TDF Trustee*

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[sophi]

Hi Simon, all,
Le 14/01/2022 à 19:14, Simon Phipps a écrit :
> Hi Sophie,
> 
> I appreciate your comment here and (with some fear) have to respond to
> amplify it.

Thank you for your support. You amplified more than my initial thoughts
which were only about solidarity, altruism and generosity.

> 
> On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 11:14 AM sophi  wrote:
> 
>>
>> On my point of view, it was not about achieving market dominance but
>> about solidarity. And TDF has failed here, again on my point of view.
>>
> 
> Yes, I have to agree with you. Freedom, equality and solidarity used to be
> the norm at TDF.> Over the last couple of years that has largely ended at
> the Foundation level (fortunately our community still has many parts where
> this is not true). This has led to progress grinding to a halt
> through mistrust. For example, both TDC and LOOL were ended just at the
> point where the external conditions suggested they were going to flourish.
> Little has been achieved in their place as you observe, and as the tired
> bickering in this thread illustrates.

I don't want to go back in these stories of TDC and LOOL again but they
are two very different situations for me. What I can agree with you is
that both have damaged the community's confidence in what is TDF and
what it should represent.
I've read all the minutes of the board meetings, attended several of
these meetings, and I can say this board has took several actions during
this two very difficult years without having a chance to meet. My mail
was not to address reproaches to the board, but a reaction to what
Thorsten and Michael said on the pandemic period.
> 
> Egalitarianism was replaced by turning inwards to fight unproductively
> among those privileged to be allowed information - and in the process to
> slander those involved before. As a result of this the Foundation has
> turned even more closed, with Board inflighting leaving the Trustees in the
> dark while the arguments went on. There has consequently been no spirit of
> solidarity to harness to do good outside the project. As you say, that is
> tragic, and I really appreciate your observation of it.

Well that's not exactly what I said, and in my opinion the board was
more open to discussions than some years before. But I agree with you
that even arguments should be more transparent and the community should
be aware when things are going worse.
> 
> If TDF is to satisfy its mission this has to stop. The new Board has a huge
> opportunity and responsibility to put all this behind them and lead
> positively. It must shun divisiveness and seek ways to rekindle solidarity
> by emphasizing equality and promoting freedom. This will not be done
> treating the motivations of some participants as suspect! In fact almost
> everyone is pursuing an "interest", almost by definition in a collaborative
> community!

Yes and I really appreciate the tools provided by the MC to rebuild trust.
> 
> As Maslow 
> observed, before higher-level behaviours can be cultivated, basic needs
> must be met - especially belonging and esteem. The Foundation needs to be
> more inclusive of all its trustees in its processes rather than just
> consulting them for votes once every two years. It needs to be realistic
> about the pragmatics of large-scale software engineering and how it's paid
> for and rein-in those trying to frame "commercial" as tainted. It has to
> seek ways to encourage both community and commercial activities inside its
> "umbrella" rather than treating some as clean and some as unclean.

This is not what I've seen in the project, commercial is not tainted. We
need to have a balance between commercial and charitable activities. In
my very own opinion, we have moved away from this balance and we could
have reshaped it during the pandemic.
> 
> I very much hope the new Board will engage positively and unanimously on
> these things. I'm not finding the current conversation encouraging but I
> have hopes the new team will take a firm hold and change things for the
> better.

Well this discussion has been proposed by a community member, and I find
it encouraging in the sens of I hope it will clarify who is TDF and what
it should do for its community at large.

cheers
Sophie

-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Emiliano Vavassori]

Hi Simon,

Sorry to be very direct in my answer.

Il 14/01/22 19:14, Simon Phipps ha scritto:
Yes, I have to agree with you. Freedom, equality and solidarity used to 
be the norm at TDF. Over the last couple of years that has largely ended 
at the Foundation level (fortunately our community still has many parts 
where this is not true). This has led to progress grinding to a halt 
through mistrust. For example, both TDC and LOOL were ended just at the 
point where the external conditions suggested they were going to 
flourish. Little has been achieved in their place as you observe, and as 
the tired bickering in this thread illustrates.


I feel exploiting a honest and community-felt thought as the one 
proposed by Sophie to attack other people is unneeded and unfair. As 
such, I will treat the rest of the mail.


We (the current board) spent nearly 1.5 years, and donor's money, to 
fully brainstorm around the creation of a third-party entity, finding 
out in the meantime that your (and other's) proposal had some issues:

* Due legal checking wasn't thoroughly done;
* Other kind of third-party entities (e.g. fully controlled ones), 
achieving the same goals, were possible (and their feasibility was not 
even assessed - it would have taken more time, that the current Board 
decided instead to invest);
* The proposed setup was (more or less debatable) potentially causing 
Conflicts of Interest;
* Being based in UK, Brexit could have impacted it (but this is simple 
to see now, in hindsight);
* Last but not least, we received strong opposing from the community to 
the proposal itself.


I think we should end here the quarrel, or risk more damage to TDF and 
other parties in the meantime.


There are positive aspects of your proposal, though, which I can surely 
recognize: it was immediately applicable and it would have impacted even 
in the pandemic already; and it sparkled a lot of constructive 
discussions inside of the Board, for which we are now more aware of 
issues that can appear, and more ready to prevent them, and/or even 
developed new and feasible ideas on how to better serve the community 
and the Foundation itself.


While mistrust is a pretty heavy word, I wonder if our "mistrust" has 
done more damage to TDF than "trusting" everyone and every action in the 
first place.


Let me close with a different mood: TDF appreciates your input, Simon, 
it is indeed great, insightful and wise, and (I have no doubts about it) 
provided in the best interests of the Foundation; we will always listen 
to you and thank you for your involvement in the project. We are just 
humans, and sometimes we simply fail (also, it's simpler to spot 
failures in hindsight); that's why we need to relate to a community that 
can point out what's going wrong.


Cheers,
--
Emiliano Vavassori
syntaxerror...@libreoffice.org

--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Andreas Mantke]

Hi,

Am 14.01.22 um 19:14 schrieb Simon Phipps:

Hi Sophie,

I appreciate your comment here and (with some fear) have to respond to
amplify it.

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 11:14 AM sophi  wrote:


On my point of view, it was not about achieving market dominance but
about solidarity. And TDF has failed here, again on my point of view.


Yes, I have to agree with you. Freedom, equality and solidarity used
to be the norm at TDF. Over the last couple of years that has largely
ended at the Foundation level (fortunately our community still has
many parts where this is not true). This has led to progress grinding
to a halt through mistrust. For example, both TDC and LOOL were ended
just at the point where the external conditions suggested they were
going to flourish. Little has been achieved in their place as you
observe, and as the tired bickering in this thread illustrates.

Egalitarianism was replaced by turning inwards to fight unproductively
among those privileged to be allowed information - and in the process
to slander those involved before. As a result of this the Foundation
has turned even more closed, with Board inflighting leaving the
Trustees in the dark while the arguments went on. There has
consequently been no spirit of solidarity to harness to do good
outside the project. As you say, that is tragic, and I really
appreciate your observation of it.

If TDF is to satisfy its mission this has to stop. The new Board has a
huge opportunity and responsibility to put all this behind them and
lead positively. It must shun divisiveness and seek ways to rekindle
solidarity by emphasizing equality and promoting freedom. This will
not be done treating the motivations of some participants as suspect!
In fact almost everyone is pursuing an "interest", almost by
definition in a collaborative community!


Sure, without following an interest you wouldn't participate and invest
your live time in that community.

But at least if you are a member of a charity's body you need to be open
and transparent about such interests and rethink, if following them
foster the objectives of the organization. If following your interest
(commercial or non-commercial) is in opposite to that, a member of the
body has to put his interest last. If she / he is not able to follow
such rule, she / he shouldn't reconsider his membership, because
otherwise she / he most probably will get very soon into the situation
to violate her / his duty as a member of the body.

In short: if you wear to hats (TDF / personal interest) you as a member
of a body has to wear the TDF hat in the first place.

Regards,
Andreas

--
## Free Software Advocate
## Plone add-on developer
## My blog: http://www.amantke.de/blog


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Simon Phipps]

Hi Sophie,

I appreciate your comment here and (with some fear) have to respond to
amplify it.

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 11:14 AM sophi  wrote:

>
> On my point of view, it was not about achieving market dominance but
> about solidarity. And TDF has failed here, again on my point of view.
>

Yes, I have to agree with you. Freedom, equality and solidarity used to be
the norm at TDF. Over the last couple of years that has largely ended at
the Foundation level (fortunately our community still has many parts where
this is not true). This has led to progress grinding to a halt
through mistrust. For example, both TDC and LOOL were ended just at the
point where the external conditions suggested they were going to flourish.
Little has been achieved in their place as you observe, and as the tired
bickering in this thread illustrates.

Egalitarianism was replaced by turning inwards to fight unproductively
among those privileged to be allowed information - and in the process to
slander those involved before. As a result of this the Foundation has
turned even more closed, with Board inflighting leaving the Trustees in the
dark while the arguments went on. There has consequently been no spirit of
solidarity to harness to do good outside the project. As you say, that is
tragic, and I really appreciate your observation of it.

If TDF is to satisfy its mission this has to stop. The new Board has a huge
opportunity and responsibility to put all this behind them and lead
positively. It must shun divisiveness and seek ways to rekindle solidarity
by emphasizing equality and promoting freedom. This will not be done
treating the motivations of some participants as suspect! In fact almost
everyone is pursuing an "interest", almost by definition in a collaborative
community!

As Maslow 
observed, before higher-level behaviours can be cultivated, basic needs
must be met - especially belonging and esteem. The Foundation needs to be
more inclusive of all its trustees in its processes rather than just
consulting them for votes once every two years. It needs to be realistic
about the pragmatics of large-scale software engineering and how it's paid
for and rein-in those trying to frame "commercial" as tainted. It has to
seek ways to encourage both community and commercial activities inside its
"umbrella" rather than treating some as clean and some as unclean.

I very much hope the new Board will engage positively and unanimously on
these things. I'm not finding the current conversation encouraging but I
have hopes the new team will take a firm hold and change things for the
better.

Best regards

Simon
--
*Simon Phipps*
*TDF Trustee*

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Sophie,

thank you for reminding us what TDF and its community is all about.
It is also great to see that members of TDF team are passionate about 
what they are doing within TDF for the community.


I agree with you that we failed to act. Some of us tried to deliver the 
information and the packages needed to setup LOOL wherever it was needed 
but failed.
We were probably also too busy in trying to get a bad situation sorted 
to find other ways to act.


That's why we need even more the team and the community to shout out 
when they see that we are not reacting to something that we must act on 
so that everyone in the board gets the message.


I've been following what Framasoft have been doing for quite a while and 
have seen how they coordinated with the CHATONS to offer many of the 
services that were needed since the beginning of the pandemic.


I managed to follow their example and invested personally and through my 
company to help other people, I would have been great if we could have 
done the same through TDF.


I think we should get in touch with Framasoft to support them and also 
to (re)learn from them how to get the community more engaged so that we 
can get the community to help us in steering TDF and its projects in the 
right direction.


Already during last board meeting I've proposed to setup a PeerTube 
instance, mostly to lead by example in terms of Digital Sovereignty and 
to give a privacy friendly option to those that would like to view our 
videos, together with a donation to Framasoft to thank them for their 
efforts.


Maybe you could facilitate a call so that we see how we could join 
forces to promote and support each others?


Ciao

Paolo



On 14/01/2022 12:13, sophi wrote:

Hi Michael, all,
Le 13/01/2022 à 18:44, Michael Meeks a écrit :

Hi Marco,

[...]


 I also agree with Thorsten that the stories about achieving
market dominance during the COVID crisis with this approach are
impossibly naive. From a hardware provision perspective alone - being
backed by a giant monopoly (which we are not), really helps to front
the Eur 10's of millions of infrastructure cost needed to provide a
large-scale free service. Also - I expect that selling users' private
data or insights gleaned from it (something TDF would never do) also
gives a significant cost edge against us.

On my point of view, it was not about achieving market dominance but
about solidarity. And TDF has failed here, again on my point of view.
When I see what Framasoft (an association with 35 contributors and 10
employees) has been able to achieve during these days/years, I feel sad
that we were not part of this framework. See the CHATONS initiative
which has played an incredible role for teachers, students, families and
even in the health field by helping doctors, during the lockdown periods:
https://www.chatons.org/en

If I read through this article detailing what they have done during 2020,
https://framablog.org/2020/12/08/review-of-framasofts-actions-in-2020-excluding-the-lockdown-period/

I don't read only about products, but about sharing, empowering of
people, solidarity and creativity, all in the FLOSS spirit. TDF for me
is not only hosting a product, but has a culture, has a knowledge, has a
lot of creative people around, meaning we have a lot of resources, but
we have done nothing to share them during the critical period families
and students were fronting.

Cheers
Sophie



--
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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[sophi]

Hi Michael, all,
Le 13/01/2022 à 18:44, Michael Meeks a écrit :
> Hi Marco,

[...]

> 
> I also agree with Thorsten that the stories about achieving
> market dominance during the COVID crisis with this approach are
> impossibly naive. From a hardware provision perspective alone - being
> backed by a giant monopoly (which we are not), really helps to front
> the Eur 10's of millions of infrastructure cost needed to provide a
> large-scale free service. Also - I expect that selling users' private
> data or insights gleaned from it (something TDF would never do) also
> gives a significant cost edge against us.

On my point of view, it was not about achieving market dominance but
about solidarity. And TDF has failed here, again on my point of view.
When I see what Framasoft (an association with 35 contributors and 10
employees) has been able to achieve during these days/years, I feel sad
that we were not part of this framework. See the CHATONS initiative
which has played an incredible role for teachers, students, families and
even in the health field by helping doctors, during the lockdown periods:
https://www.chatons.org/en

If I read through this article detailing what they have done during 2020,
https://framablog.org/2020/12/08/review-of-framasofts-actions-in-2020-excluding-the-lockdown-period/

I don't read only about products, but about sharing, empowering of
people, solidarity and creativity, all in the FLOSS spirit. TDF for me
is not only hosting a product, but has a culture, has a knowledge, has a
lot of creative people around, meaning we have a lot of resources, but
we have done nothing to share them during the critical period families
and students were fronting.

Cheers
Sophie

-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi all,

I won't comment about the rest of the email as I've already provided 
plenty of additional information here:


https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00029.html

However, the following comment made by our fellow member of the board 
needs to be framed correctly.


On 13/01/2022 18:44, Michael Meeks wrote:

Sadly, the distraction from this topic has really impaired the
board's ability to do good things around the LibreOffice Technology
and our desktop product.


The LOOL topic has indeed used up plenty of the board time but has not 
impaired the board's ability to do good things.


Quite the contrary.

The process of understanding why the community wasn't benefiting from 
LOOL and the (painful) negotiations that followed started the overdue 
marketing plan from which our fellow member of the board's company and 
other members of the ecosystem are happily benefiting.


This "distraction" has, indeed, taken away a lot of resources and time 
that could have been invested in doing better things but it has now been 
dealt with and has confirmed that the relationship between a major 
corporate contributor to a project and TDF must be clarified very early 
on in the process.


Things would have been a lot easier if our fellow member of the board 
looked objectively at the project's direction years ago when his new 
company took over it and, as he was also a member of the board at the 
time, proposed an agreement that would satisfy both his commercial 
ambitions and the need to have a positive outcome for the community out 
of TDF's investments.


This issue which hasn't distracted our fellow member of the board for 
many years has finally been tackled.


Another lesson learned from this "distraction" is that we haven't 
invested enough in internal developers which can not only help in 
mentoring new community developers but can also help in dealing with 
fixes and features that may be uninteresting for commercial contributors 
which may prefer to focus on their products.


Having internal developers will also help us in evaluating better what 
we can deal with internally, help new projects that want to be hosted at 
TDF and structuring better the tenders for development we'll need to 
delegate to external organisations while also being able to validate the 
quality of the deliverables.


So, to conclude, this "distraction" has actually helped the board in 
dealing with a situation which impaired its freedom to act in a well 
informed and structured way and created a new situation where, thanks to 
important and in some cases overdue work done by the board during this 
term, we know where we stand, we know that we can do a lot more that 
some thought we could and we can finally move forward and do more good 
things for the community.


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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Michael Meeks]

Hi Marco,

On 09/01/2022 16:05, Marco Marinello wrote:
> I also would like to emphasize the fact that, in the current situation,
> building a competing product starting from the frozen repo with no
> companies working on it and the one on GitHub 1 year ahead, would just
> be impossible.

Thank you for recognising the importance of companies working
on the project to do much of the heavy lifting too; that's
appreciated.

I wonder though if building a competing product is a useful
goal for TDF to consider. I would hope instead that TDF can
collaborate well with others to drive its mission. Every organization
has strengths and weaknesses, things it can, and cannot do - and by
working together to complement each other - much can be achieved that
would be otherwise impossible.

Beyond that I see your proposal as fundamentally the same as
previous approaches here - which I mentally group under the heading
"lets de-fund the developers".

As you know TDF previously had an agreed[1] position around
online. It was pretty ugly and displeasing to many; no-one was very
happy with it. Confidence in the durability of this compromise broke
down completely with the results we know. The up-side of that is that
now - I believe we have moved to a new and better model for everyone:

Now we have clear credit for the work via clean branding. We
use Italo's clever framing to credit via the LibreOffice Technology
that we build on and those that write it. The documentation you need
is open. There are no user-limits in the binaries so they can be used
in schools for free etc. We didn't break the economics ie. we still
empower "makers" over "takers", which continues to fund work on the
LibreOffice core. To top it all we can remove a massive source of
contention.

Re-opening the can of worms as you suggest doesn't look
constructive. And I don't believe it is necessary.

If competing organizations want to re-build COOL and re-brand
it or deploy it themselves, that is fine - it is FLOSS - people
already do that left and right.

Lending them our brand to promote competing products, without
the expense of them having to contribute anything significant, and
without any track record of doing so would be unfortunate. As is - it
risks use the LibreOffice brand to make it socially acceptable to set
the price-point at zero for collaborative online office suites, and (I
assume) remove the nudges to get support and services.

I hope you can see that just de-funds the developers.

My ecosystem paper[2] tries to explain the basics:

-> marketing/branding -> leads -> sales -> investment -> ...

where a chunk of such investment goes back into the
LibreOffice core that is foundational to TDF's mission; as well as
marketing to go around the next virtuous circle.

We have lots of hard data that shows the LibreOffice brand
will crush the ecosystem's brands in a side-by-side comparison. So at
one level you're right - it would be ideal in some sense to use the
LibreOffice brand in a fair way to drive leads and sales to fund
development - however this has been repeatedly shown to be
structurally impossible for TDF. Quite probably that is a feature not
bug for a non-profit.

So here we are.

Who benefits from a proposal to remove the author's names and
credit from the brand of the product, and to leverage the community's
brand to drive competing products ?

TDF's previous approach had a message:

"This is an un-supported version of LibreOffice. To avoid the
 impression it is suitable for deployment in enterprises, this
 message appears when more than 10 users or 20 connections are
 in use concurrently."

I believe we can only harm the LibreOffice brand by blessing
services that are not effectively supported - ie. backed by competent
(certified) developers. If someone wants that - they should build it
and use their own brand (as they always could).

I associate (perhaps unfairly) the suggestion for TDF to make
this easy to do with those who want to promote their own hosting
services with a zero-price complement.

Fostering the development of Free software is tough, with
everyone from Sun/Oracle onwards struggling with that. As of today we
have no big 'strategic' investor. If we want to create more good Free
software we need to care about the side-effects of otherwise
well-intentioned actions.

The thought that TDF could first de-fund and then hire
developers to do the work itself is interesting, but is fundamentally
a negative-sum-game. We have a positive sum option: to keep the wider
ecosystem around -and- spend that money to improve the software (for
example by hiring extra mentors or tendering).

Sadly, the distraction from this topic has really impaired the
board's ability to do good things around the LibreOffice Technology
and our desktop product.

Re: [board-discuss] Counterproposal to the "actization" of LibreOffice Online

[Paolo Vecchi]

Hi Marco,

see below.

On 09/01/2022 17:05, Marco Marinello wrote:

Based on this two quotes, I’d like to make a counterproposal for the
online project:
     1. Since not only Collabora-affiliated developers but almost
everybody that was previously involved in development of Online moved on
Github, contributing to Collabora’s repo, TDF should publicly endorse
this choice, stating that the project is now hosted on Github and the
development is managed by a company of the ecosystem but is – at the end
of the day – always LibreOffice Online.
I don't think TDF can and should endorse or promote third party products 
as I think you proposed.


Collabora made the choice of moving what was LOOL away from TDF 
infrastructure and made a considerable effort to remove as much as 
possible the references to the fact that it was a shared project 
(removing "This file is part of the LibreOffice project", renaming 
variables from LOOL to COOL, etc.).


Unfortunately what is in that GitHub repository is not LOOL any more so, 
IMHO, it has little to do with TDF now.

2. Provide stable libreoffice-branded builds (on a nightly/weekly
basis) of LibreOffice Online on the Docker HUB (possibly also DEBs/RPMs)
starting from the Collabora repository. This can either be done
internally by TDF or tendered.
True, we could even backport the lot and rebrand it but I believe TDF 
should lead by example by confirming that, while it would be only fair 
for the other party to actually deliver their side of the agreement, we 
don't want to damage any valuable member of the ecosystem by cloning 
their product as it is.


As said in other threads, negotiations for a mutually beneficial 
agreement were ongoing before they decided to go their own way and it's 
up to them to recognise that their actions went against what TDF and the 
LibreOffice community stand for and eventually come back to the 
negotiation table.


If Collabora decides to backport to TDF's LOOL repository or agrees that 
it's fair for TDF or external partners to do it then we could consider it.



     3. Update the documentation at TDF’s wiki. As above, internally
done, volunteered or tendered.


Before updating the documentations we should know in relation to what, 
the outdated LOOL we have in the repository or a product that is not 
LOOL any more?



     4. Grant, as already happens e.g. for Play Store / Windows app
store, the permission to release the builds with the “LibreOffice
Online” trademark to companies of the ecosystem that ask for that.
I'm not fully sure about it as it may lead to the same difficult 
situation we have now with LOOL.


If companies of the ecosystem would like to contribute to LOOL hosted by 
TDF this time it should be done under a clear agreement, the one also 
proposed for the "de-atticisation" process, so that the LibreOffice 
community will also benefit from it.


If they should be allowed to use the "LibreOffice Online" name is 
something to discuss as I think all members of the ecosystem should find 
ways to differentiate themselves in terms of brand and services they 
provide. Then we could evaluate if they could use the LibreOffice 
Technology brand while they use LibreOffice projects hosted by TDF to 
which they actively contribute.



This 4 bullet points would allow, at least in my opinion, TDF to
acknowledge Online as “still part of the LibreOffice ecosystem” and
continue with his distribution/marketing, in order to build a real
market surrounding LOOL.


I believe it's clear to most that LibreOffice Online is the original 
project hosted by TDF which should have led to a platform freely usable 
by anyone under.


The issue now is how to bring it back to a state where people can 
actually use it.


Let's also keep in mind that while you can create Marco's Office that 
anyone can download and use, LOOL needs a more complex setup.
I believe that ownCloud, NextCloud and others would have accepted to add 
LOOL by TDF as a free community option to their marketplace to make it 
easier for non IT specialists to use but otherwise it is not that simple 
to deliver to the users.



All the best,
Marco
Maybe others from our community have other ideas and comments for these 
proposals?


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




OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature