Hi all, On 25/11/2022 18:17, Jan Holesovsky wrote:
That is not true. That version is not balanced, and Paolo’s unwillingness to find balance there was one of the main reasons to my resignation.
That's a very interesting statement which doesn't seem to be supported by publicly available facts and evidence.
Last public comments for version 2.9 show that we were making good progress in a very civilised way:
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00993.htmlAs agreed we had the proposal checked by our legal counsel, fixed very amicably a few more things and up to that point all was fine.
There was only one last sentence left which created some discussions:"TDF in-house developers will not compete with commercial contributors and will not develop alternative implementations of Open Source projects actively maintained by LibreOffice volunteer or corporate contributors – like Collabora Online, mdds, or cppunit."
I tried in various way to point out that if any third party organisation, being members of the ecosystem or not, want to impose limitations on TDF's employees or other general activities then an employment proposal is not the best place to put that limitation.
There is also the issue that you can't just impose limitations on TDF just like that and by doing it while being affiliated by the interested party of that limitation and specifying the product in questions doesn't really look good either.
You tried several variants of sentences that were trying to achieve the same results and you even received clear legal advice against it.
I've also pointed out that we agreed months ago on the relevant text necessary to handle these exceptions. As from page 1 of the proposal: "Eventual limitations related to tasks, areas, projects or bugs on which the in-house developers should not work, eg. third parties are already engaged with them, shall be regulated through separate agreements and relevant communications between TDF and the third parties."
It seems like a win-win agreement between TDF and a third party that tackles the specific issues was not what you were looking for.
Between our constructive discussions and your resignations there were only those 2 sentences.
If the above is the reason why you resigned then it's quite sad as, while we had some very frank exchanges of opinions, we generally found ways forward and workable compromises. It is also sad that you came out with that comment as your own emails and comments in the document clearly contradict you.
All the previous versions with comments can be seen here: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/zfoRygFbBgJZZcj
The latest version is here: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/qofn646Jg6bmPYB
For many years, TDF was celebrated as an organization that is always able to find balance of many interests.
This developer proposal shows that it has been hard and it took a disproportionate amount of time but at the end the document is quite balanced.
The "many interests" that cannot and should not be included in such a proposal will be discussed and drafted in separate dedicated documents as we agreed months ago.
I’m afraid this is not true any more - which is very sad :-(
I'm afraid that one's belief that some clauses make a document more balanced is a legal minefield for someone else.
If your definition of "balanced" is to add rules and limitations that make some third parties more equal than others then it seems like you skipped meetings that clarified concepts about fiduciary duties and regulations.
Fortunately you had a fellow member of the board that helped you out in seeing these issues even if you didn't seem to have appreciated it.
Seeing the lack of votes from directors that publicly supported the proposal and agreed on the way forward it seems like you email had the effect to get directors to pause their vote while checking if your statement had any connection with reality.
By now directors should have verified and confirmed that what I stated is correct and they'll show their support with their votes.
Ciao Paolo -- Paolo Vecchi - Member of the Board of Directors The Document Foundation, Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, DE Gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts Legal details: https://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint
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