date:20200709

Hi Paolo,

I acknowledge the answers. Thanks.

Regards,
Aravind Palla


Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Thursday, July 9, 2020 10:36 PM, Paolo Vecchi 
 wrote:

> Hi Aravind,
>
> please read the answers you received before firing off new ones:
>
> https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04604.html
> https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04636.html
> https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04638.html
>
> Ciao
>
> Paolo
>
> On 09/07/2020 18:49, Aravind Palla wrote:
>
> > There is no need to downplay the LibreOffice (Community Edition) in order 
> > to lure the proposed enterprise edition. The sudden and unexpected 
> > additions in the development branch to the extent that 'you are using a 
> > Personal Edition which is intended for individual use' has, undoubtedly 
> > created commotion among the community.
> > LibreOffice was and is regarded as a Freedom Software and many volunteers 
> > and including the eco-system companies (I believe) have contributed the 
> > vast-majority of the code without any commercial/enterprise edition. The 
> > office suite has achieved great heights all these years.
> > It is purely a moral obligation on the individuals / non-individuals to 
> > give back to the community.
> > Even if it is only to lure the governments/commercial entities to sell the 
> > proposed LibreOffice Enterprise edition, I reiterate that there is no need 
> > to downplay the standard edition.
> > What will be 'special' and what will be the exclusive 'support', etc., in 
> > the proposed enterprise edition? Can the board clarify?
> >
> > -   Aravind Palla
> >
> > ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
> > On Thursday, July 9, 2020 10:04 PM, Michael Stahl m...@libreoffice.org 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > On 09.07.20 18:19, Andreas Mantke wrote:
> > >
> > > > and there are three reasons, why TDF is "Gemeinnützig":
> > > >
> > > > -   der Volks- und Berufsbildung,
> > > >
> > > > -   der Wissenschaft und Forschung, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der
> > > > Informatik,
> > > >
> > > > -   des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements zugunsten gemeinnütziger Zwecke.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > (non binding English translation:
> > > >
> > > > -   Public and professional education
> > > > -   Science and research, particularly in the field of computer science
> > > > -   Civic engagement for non-profit purposes)
> > > >
> > > > There is nothing in this lines about the promotion of an ecosystem of
> > > > service providers (etc.).
> > > > i don't believe anybody is claiming that promotion of an ecosystem of
> > > > service providers should be a goal of TDF - what i understand is being
> > > > claimed is that it can be a good means, a tool to eventually help
> > > > reach the actual defined goals of TDF to a fuller extent, and the
> > > > proposed marketing plan is a way to increase the ... leverage(?) ... of
> > > > the means/tool.
> > >
> > > 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
>
> --
>
> Paolo Vecchi - Deputy Member of the Board of Directors
> The Document Foundation, Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, DE
> Gemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts
> Legal details: https://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint



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Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

Thanks for clarifying.

Speculations arise when there is uncertainty. The proposal for two different 
editions is an unexpected and unprecedented move.

The word 'personal' is not same in "personal computer" and "personal edition". 
Personal computer can be used in offices, but is "forbidden", whereas the 
proposed "personal edition intended for individual use" (i hate the name and 
tag) works in your office and is "unrestricted".

‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Thursday, July 9, 2020 10:24 PM, Italo Vignoli  wrote:

> On 7/9/20 6:35 PM, Aravind Palla wrote:
>
> > -   that there will be no change of license;
>
> Based on what you assume there can be a change of license, the marketing
> plan says exactly the opposite, i.e. we do stay loyal to the copyleft
> license, which is one of the pillars of the project.
>
> > -   that there will be no 'exclusive' features for the proposed enterprise 
> > edition other than dedicated support like priority bug-fixing, help, etc.;
>
> Same as above.
>
> > -   that the LibreOffice Community Edition will function as effectively as 
> > the proposed LibreOffice Enterprise Edition without any restrictions;
>
> Same as above.
>
> > -   that the intention of the board is not to commercialize the office 
> > suite which creates commotion among the great community that has been 
> > supporting LibreOffice since years;
>
> Same as above.
>
> > -   that the board respects the principles of freedom (libre) software.
>
> Same as above.
>
> Sorry, but speculating on topics which are not even mentioned by the
> marketing plan does not help at all. Using the word personal, as in
> personal computer, does not imply anything of the above.
>
> Yes, the word "personal" can be misunderstood by community members, as
> only one person - a Fedora contributor - got it right, but it was chosen
> also to avoid the potential issues of the word "community", which is
> used by many open core projects for the free and feature limited version
> (a quick search provides the following: Alfresco, Bacula, Bonita Studio,
> FengOffice, GitLab, Knowage, Liferay, MySQL, NXLog, Odoo, OnlyOffice,
> OpenClinica, OpenKM, OpenProject, OpenVPN, Shopware, SonarQube, SugarCRM
> and Visual Paradigm).
>
> Best regards.
>
> 
>
> Italo Vignoli - LibreOffice Marketing & PR
> mobile/signal +39.348.5653829 - email it...@libreoffice.org
> hangout/jabber italo.vign...@gmail.com - skype italovignoli
> GPG Key ID - 0xAAB8D5C0
> DB75 1534 3FD0 EA5F 56B5 FDA6 DE82 934C AAB8 D5C0
>
> -
>
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Re: [board-discuss] UPDATED Draft Marketing Plan 2020-2025

2020-07-09 Thread Uwe Altmann

Am 09.07.20 um 17:18 schrieb Italo Vignoli:
> The two slides are extracted from the dashboard, and they are about all
> contributions to the project which are parsed by the different tools,

Slide 16 starts with statements about code contributions and therefor is at 
least misleading so far. This should then be fixed/made clear.
-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Uwe Altmann

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Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

There is no need to downplay the LibreOffice (Community Edition) in order to 
lure the proposed enterprise edition. The sudden and unexpected additions in 
the development branch to the extent that 'you are using a Personal Edition 
which is intended for individual use' has, undoubtedly created commotion among 
the community.

LibreOffice was and is regarded as a Freedom Software and many volunteers and 
including the eco-system companies (I believe) have contributed the 
vast-majority of the code without any commercial/enterprise edition. The office 
suite has achieved great heights all these years.

It is purely a moral obligation on the individuals / non-individuals to give 
back to the community.

Even if it is only to lure the governments/commercial entities to sell the 
proposed LibreOffice Enterprise edition, I reiterate that there is no need to 
downplay the standard edition.

What will be 'special' and what will be the exclusive 'support', etc., in the 
proposed enterprise edition? Can the board clarify?

- Aravind Palla

‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Thursday, July 9, 2020 10:04 PM, Michael Stahl  wrote:

> On 09.07.20 18:19, Andreas Mantke wrote:
>
> > and there are three reasons, why TDF is "Gemeinnützig":
> >
> > -   der Volks- und Berufsbildung,
> > -   der Wissenschaft und Forschung, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der
> > Informatik,
> >
> > -   des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements zugunsten gemeinnütziger Zwecke.
> >
> > (non binding English translation:
> >
> > -   Public and professional education
> > -   Science and research, particularly in the field of computer science
> > -   Civic engagement for non-profit purposes)
> >
> > There is nothing in this lines about the promotion of an ecosystem of
> > service providers (etc.).
>
> i don't believe anybody is claiming that promotion of an ecosystem of
> service providers should be a goal of TDF - what i understand is being
> claimed is that it can be a good means, a tool to eventually help
> reach the actual defined goals of TDF to a fuller extent, and the
> proposed marketing plan is a way to increase the ... leverage(?) ... of
> the means/tool.
>
> ---
>
> To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org
> Problems? 
> https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
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Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

I think a clear-cut statement from the Board can answer a lot of questions and 
reduce a lot of negativity.

The Board should clarify:
- that there will be no change of license;
- that there will be no 'exclusive' features for the proposed enterprise 
edition other than dedicated support like priority bug-fixing, help, etc.;
- that there will be no terminology/tags that might demotivate the 
non-individuals (be it small communities/NGOs/governments/ big enterprises) to 
use the LibreOffice Community Edition (I believe that the board will not chose 
the Personal Edition name). The recent inclusions in the development branch 
like 'Personal Edition' and the tag 'intended for individual use' surely 
demotivates the non-individuals to use the software;
- that the LibreOffice Community Edition will function as effectively as the 
proposed LibreOffice Enterprise Edition without any restrictions;
- that the intention of the board is not to commercialize the office suite 
which creates commotion among the great community that has been supporting 
LibreOffice since years;
- that the board respects the principles of freedom (libre) software.

A statement clarifying the above may help answering a lot of community members.


‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Thursday, July 9, 2020 9:18 PM, Michael Meeks  
wrote:

> Hi Alex,
>
> On 06/07/2020 10:27, Alexander Werner wrote in bugzilla at
>
> > https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c23
> > Cleary, The Document Foundation must release a version that is open
> > to all intended audiences. As clearly stated in the statues, the
> > intended audience is: everyone, explicitly including COMPANIES and
> > PUBLIC AUTHORITIES.
>
> Some comments on that; the statutes are public here:
> https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/
>
> > I quote from the preamble:
> > "The objective of the foundation is the promotion and
> > development of office software available for use by anyone
> > free of charge."
>
> A tag and about box text doesn't modify any of this. The
> fundamental license and availability for use by anyone free of charge
> stays.
>
> Clearly that is so. Beyond tweaking the brand with a tag - no
> change is suggested to the software or its distribution at all.
>
> Moving on let me include the omitted second paragraph:
>
> "The foundation promotes a sustainable, independent and
> meritocratic community for the international development of
> free and open source software based on open standards."
>
> These mission goals are not optional. We need to be
> sustainable - How large a community do you think it is necessary to
> have to sustain the software ? how do we promote that ?
>
> > The issue gets even clearer:
> > "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for
> > their own files, including companies and public authorities,
> > ensuring full participation in a digital society and without
> > detriment to intellectual property."
>
> So - LibreOffice Personal -as-now- will be openly available
> for free use by anyone; so that is also clearly met.
>
> -   Some background on the history & philosophical context here:
>
> -   Free Software has for decades been fighting against the
> idea that it is free-as-in-beer, and talking of
> free-as-in-freedom.
>
> -   RMS regularly distinguishes Libre from Gratis, and talks
> about the vital freedoms. Arguably the Open Source movement
> itself is a reaction against this "free of price" frame.
>
> -   if we take an extreme view of this paragraph in our statutes
> that would lead me to the conclusion that we are mis-named:
> we should be called "GratisOffice" - if freedom from price
> is the core purpose of the project. Perhaps we're overdue
> for a re-brand:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre
>
> if our core purpose is Gratis; it's just horribly
> confusing to call ourselves Libre.
>
> -   Many commnity members I've spoken to have little sympathy
> for enterprises that just take, and contribute nothing
> back except bug reports & associated aggravation.
>
> -   They have even less sympathy for those who charge for using
> our brand and software in the enterprise, and then
> contribute nothing back.
>
> -   By focusing here, it -can- sound as if you arguing that
> our core purpose is to give free stuff to large, rich
> enterprises ? that we should sweat and toil for free,
> for the good of IBM, or Oracle, or ... =) surely not.
>
> -   for me that's not a motivating factor whatsoever, I want
> to collaborate with other contributors to promote and
> develop an office suite available for use by anyone
> free of charge; in a sustainable way.
>
> LibreOffice Personal/Community could be how we promote that.
>
> But really, how it is marketed, what tags go on the spl

Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

2020-07-09 Thread Kev M

Hi Paolo,

I think as stated earlier, as part of the consultation regarding the marketing 
plan there should be a discussion around tag names. Collectively calling the 
ecosystem "Enterprise" has connotations of different editions, even if it's 
stated that there will be no difference in versions.

Community could be the result but it seems based on comments here Italo 
disagrees with using that term and both Michael and Italo have commented here 
that Personal is still on the table. I apologize for my abrasiveness (I wish no 
ill-will against Michael or Italo and I apologize if they feel that way), I'm 
just responding based on the comments on this mailing list as to what I see. If 
there are in-person discussions that allow for more nuanced understanding 
because of how we humans communicate, that's great.

Regarding software solutions; I don't want to prescribe anything. It should be 
up to the staff at TDF to determine what they're comfortable working with. I 
think the democraciaos suggested by Daniel, or Loomio might be solutions worth 
investigating though to facilitate more stakeholder collaboration.

I would suggest that multiple FOSS projects are using open source forum 
software to engage their communities. Discourse and NodeBB are two popular, 
modern looking ones with many community enhancing features (upvoting, badges, 
signatures, polling, easy screenshot attachment, gifs, stickied posts, etc.) 
that could increase engagement and accessibility in the project. These software 
have been production ready for 4+ years. I would think, if I were maintaining a 
community such as this, doing a review of community engagement software every 4 
or 5 years would be appropriate to stay up to date with the times while not 
being too intrusive to established workflows. Maybe that's too rapid for some.

Consider that the Apache OnlyOffice forum is being used today by people looking 
for LibreOffice support. ie. rather than getting community support from the 
askbot, people are going to a different organization's dated phpbb forums to 
ask for support, because of the familiarity and comfort with using forum 
software. There are also limitations with askbot that have been identified 
multiple times over the past 6 years on the LO askbot site, and these were 
ignored by TDF. I hear now there's a plan to transition to a forum, that's 
great!

These software being able to be self-hosted I am sure TDF could find a hosting 
provider that is GDPR-compliant that would be willing to provide hosting and 
maintenance for those software without a significant cost.

Personally, I think a dedicated modern open-source forum will go a long way to 
providing support and building a community engagement with the project, if 
moderated correctly and with the usage of polls, etc. I even think it's worth 
paying a small annual fee to be able to post (but not view), or to receive a 
badge. I also don't see forum software disappearing in a few months/years as 
they've been established for a long time.

I would suggest these could be used to replace the mailing list as well as they 
do offer threaded functionality and can be archived for accountability. At 
least some mailing list discussions should move to a forum, notably the 
marketing and discussion forums. We now have conversations occurring on 
Telegram, LO blog posts, mailing lists, and external sites outside of TDF 
moderation. Further with the mailing list I can't edit or be moderated for the 
insensitive statements I made earlier which doesn't bug me as much but I do 
feel bad if others are continuously offended.

I would try to provide more thoughts but I've reached what I have time 
available for to contribute to the "Community Edition" of LibreOffice and I 
have to get back to work.

Cheers,
Kevin

> On 09/07/2020 14:48 Paolo Vecchi  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Kev,
> 
> thanks for your feedback and see inline my comments.
> 
> On 09/07/2020 19:41, Kev M wrote:
> 
> > > It would be better to call it "LibreOffice Unsupported" 
> and "LibreOffice Paid Support" instead of using the terms "LibreOffice 
> Enterprise" and "LibreOffice Personal".
> > 
> > > Note that we are talking about adding a tag line, if the Community 
> > agrees, and that you are very welcome to propose the tag line you would 
> > like to LibreOffice which, apart from the tag line, won't change in 
> > anything else.
> 
> As described in the proposed marketing plan, in the communication we sent 
> out Monday and on various channels there won't be any product called 
> "LibreOffice Enterprise" coming out of TDF, that's only a collective name we 
> are proposing for the members of the ecosystem.
> 
> > > 
> > 
> > You're arguing that using the term "community" creates confusion 
> > because of other open source projects providing the same tagging. But some 
> > of those projects also use "Enterprise" to describe their paid versions, 
> > and those versio

Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

2020-07-09 Thread Kev M

I am sorry Simon, and sorry to whoever else was offended by my ageist/crude 
language.

What I was trying to communicate is that Gen Z developers have low interest in 
looking at Gerrit, Bugzilla, Mailing Lists, or AskBot if there are projects 
that are using modern, visually pleasing and easier to interact with tools. 
There are some steps that can be taken to appeal to this generation of coders 
and increase community involvement in the project.

Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

I second the opinion of Alex (a...@documentfoundation.org).

The moment any kind of restriction is imposed or proposed to be imposed on the 
user (be it individual, be it an NGO, be it a community, be it an enterprise) 
is no more a Freedom Software. As such the proposed LibreOffice Community 
Edition / Personal Edition cannot be a free software and it cannot be called 
"libre".

LibreOffice has reached this stage following the free software principles. 
There is no reason to commercialize the project for want of more contributions 
by 'demand'.

I also noticed (from Slide 16) that 68% of the contributions are from 
eco-system companies. They contributed their code without any enterprise 
edition. LibreOffice had evolved to this stage and can continue to evolve 
without any need of enterprise edition.

If at all TDF wants to focus on an enterprise edition, it is appropriate if 
they do it on a separate brand name, but not on LibreOffice. The draft 
marketing plan makes it clear that the eco-system companies' focus in future 
might be on the enterprise edition, leaving the 'actual' LibreOffice behind.

LibreOffice has been an outstanding freedom software suite till date. The 
proposed marketing plan may kill the positive direction in which the office 
suite had been heading. I feel that the board has already decided the matter 
since the Development Branch already has the personal edition tag without any 
sound discussion before the community.

- Aravind Palla

‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
On Thursday, July 9, 2020 8:00 PM, Alexander Werner 
 wrote:

> Dear board, dear community,
>
> Abstract:
> I request the board to:
>
> -   provide software in accordance with the statues.
> -   remove parts of the software that are of no use for the intended
> audience, hereby meaning the support key "feature" of LOOL.
>
> -   undo the "Personal" edition branding.
>
> I am very concerned about the recent developments regarding the
> strategic future of LibreOffice and The Document Foundation. As this
> concern is shared by many no quick decision should be taken.
>
> I want to remind all of you what The Document Foundation is all about,
> as stated in the unalterable statutes
> (https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/):
>
> "The objective of  the foundation is the promotion and development of
> office software available for use by anyone free of charge." - this does
> not restrict the target audience.
>
> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for their
> own files, including companies and public authorities, ensuring full
> participation in a digital society and without detriment to intellectual
> property."
>
> I would like to remind all members of the board of directors that first
> and foremost you are obliged to pursue these statutes. As a consequence
> you must not restrict the target audience of LibreOffice to a specific
> user group in any way.
>
> But this already happens for quite some time and is now getting worse:
>
>
> 1.  LibreOffice Online - Unsupported Warning
>
> The website for LibreOffice Online states: "The Document Foundation will
> not be maintaining binaries for enterprise use". This is clearly in
> violation of the statutes.
> (https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/)
>
> The website also includes a picture of a warning message that often
> appears
> (https://www.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/LibreOffice-Online-limit.png),
> and it is also stated: "... is designed for personal and/or development
> use ..." This is not only in violation of the statues, but also very
> questionable behaviour for Free/Libre and Open Source Software.
>
> I hereby request the board to take action to provide the software in
> accordance with the statutes.
>
> 2.  LibreOffice Online - Containing Support Keys
>
> Looking through the source code of LibreOffice Online, it can be easily
> found, that there is a build option for support keys, this makes
> absolutely no sense in our software product.
> 
> (https://git.libreoffice.org/online/+/refs/heads/master/wsd/LOOLWSD.cpp#1259)
>
> I hereby request the board to take action to remove parts of the
> software that are of no use for the intended audience.
>
> 3.  LibreOffice "Personal Edition"
>
> As I have already mentionend in my comment to the Bug Report
> (https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c23), I see
> any restriction or even suggested restriction of the intended audience
> in violation of the statutes.
>
> I would also like to remind, that there are still and fresh versions
> existing right now (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan),
> and that the still versions are intended for "conservative, corporate
> deployments". Will the "still" "Personal Edition" then be recommended
> for "corporate de

Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

Hi Kev,

thanks for your feedback and see inline my comments.

On 09/07/2020 19:41, Kev M wrote:
> It would be better to call it "LibreOffice Unsupported" and
> "LibreOffice Paid Support" instead of using the terms "LibreOffice
> Enterprise" and "LibreOffice Personal".
Note that we are talking about adding a tag line, if the Community
agrees, and that you are very welcome to propose the tag line you would
like to LibreOffice which, apart from the tag line, won't change in
anything else.

As described in the proposed marketing plan, in the communication we
sent out Monday and on various channels there won't be any product
called "LibreOffice Enterprise" coming out of TDF, that's only a
collective name we are proposing for the members of the ecosystem.
>
> You're arguing that using the term "community" creates confusion
> because of other open source projects providing the same tagging. But
> some of those projects also use "Enterprise" to describe their paid
> versions, and those versions have different features than their
> community editions. So I don't get the argument that allowing for the
> "Enterprise" tag is OK, but a "Community" tag is not.
Once again there won't be any "Enterprise" tag in any version of
LibreOffice.

Community makes sense to us as we are the LibreOffice Community and I
also like it as potential additional tag for LibreOffice but...
out there, for people that don't know anything about Open Source
communities, the term community means something else like a help group
that helps you kicking the habit.

It's like FLOSS, we know what it means but my kids find it annoying. It
seems like they prefer to go to the dentist than flossing their teeth ;-)
>
> I've read and understand the context of the marketing plan, as well as
> Michael's article on business models. I understand the intent; but
> there is uncertainty about LibreOffice as a sustainable project as is
> being alluded to by Michael and other ecosystem partners and this is
> being used as a veiled threat to introduce changes that haven't
> received proper community consultation. A statement by TDF saying
> there is no plan to do these things, while continuing to discuss
> moving to an edition system, is the left hand washing the car while
> the right hand throws dirt --- or some better idiom than this.
We are tasked to propose and promote changes that help
sustaining/growing the Community which develops LibreOffice.
You, being part of the Community, have the right and the duty to do the
same and to stand for election next time so that you can propose your
ideas to the Board, you can do it also now without being in the Board
BTW, discuss them, see if they make sense, and then propose them to the
Community. This is what we are doing now.

AFAIK Michael complains and says that we are all doomed every so often
but when he doesn't do that he's a nice chap and a very valuable member
of the Community. At least we have a wide range of views ;-)
>
> To point to links and mailing lists that anyone under the age of 40
> probably does not use regularly is not a good way to engage with your
> community. Several suggestions have been made and it seems like
> certain people are resistant to them without giving legitimate reasons
> beyond "this is always how we've done it, you should have checked
> instead. It's your fault for not flooding your email inbox with chatter."
One of the things I most hate is hearing/reading people saying "this is
always how we've done it", those are the people that keep doing the same
stuff because are scared of change or can't be arsed to change.

I'm over 40 and I've used/I'm using quite a number of communication
channels, mailing lists are not sexy but are still a decent tool for
asynchronous communication that can be threaded.

Could you recommend other tools that could be even more efficient which
would not make us dependent on a third party and that really care about
everyone's Privacy?

It's easy to use new toys that pop in and disappear after a few months
or years but we think that we should host as much as possible ourselves
to satisfy even the most paranoid Privacy activist (here I am) and
archive our mailing list to be accountable.

Please do offer us your advice.

> (There are 40 upvotes and 0 downvotes on this comment: 
> https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2020/07/07/libreoffice_community_protests_at_introduction/#c_4067368
> ) Obviously how it's been done before is not working because people
> are upset and concerned about the project. So I'd encourage some
> self-reflection in resisting calls to use modern software
> infrastructure for the project to communicate better with
> stakeholders/donors beyond those who have the privilege to be paid to
> work on the project.
I read The Register (hi guys!) practically every day and I like the fact
that there are a lot of interesting and useful comments to articles.
Some comments with knowledge of what they are talking about some others
may not have yet a c

Re: [board-discuss] Initiative to improve communication channels

2020-07-09 Thread Nicolas Christener

Hi all

On Thu, 2020-07-09 at 01:51 +0200, Thorsten Behrens wrote:
[...]
> One comment:
> 
> - I'd strongly suggest that any new tool we introduce comes with a
>   commitment to shutdown / discourage at least one (but better more!)
>   existing tool. We'll otherwise quickly get to https://xkcd.com/927/ ;)
> 
> So if https://democraciaos.org/ is to solve the
> too-many-communication-channels problem - are we then shutting down
> IRC/Telegram, or even the mailing lists?

IMHO IRC/Telegram and mailing lists have different aims. One is for "instant
communication" the other is for "more complex discussions". 

I love mailing lists and was quite "shocked", when other big F/OSS projects
started to move away (see for example [0]). However at some point I realized,
that the hurdles to participate in discussion on mailing lists are indeed too
high([1]) for many people. I'm not sure if killing all mailing lists is what I
would propose - but why not discussing to move most of the "non developer"
lists to something like discourse (and migrate AskBot as well)?

Some half-baked thoughts:
* Talk to e.g. the Gnome folks about their experience regarding Discourse
* Discuss a migration of AskBot to tool xyz
  -> could be Discourse or whatever people like
* Discuss migrating a set of mailinglists to the same tool

Thoughts?

[0] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2019-February/msg1.html
[1] Younger people don't have an e-mail address anymore, signing up requires
too man steps, spam is an issue, most people don't know how to quote
mails, etc.

All the best,
Nicolas

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Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

2020-07-09 Thread Simon Phipps

On Thu, 9 Jul 2020, 18:47 Kev M,  wrote:

>
> To point to links and mailing lists that anyone under the age of 40
> probably does not use regularly
>

This kind of discriminatory language is not called for, does not help and I
am asking for it not to be repeated please.

Thanks,

Simon

>

Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

2020-07-09 Thread Kev M

It would be better to call it "LibreOffice Unsupported" and "LibreOffice Paid
Support" instead of using the terms "LibreOffice Enterprise" and "LibreOffice
Personal".

You're arguing that using the term "community" creates confusion because of
other open source projects providing the same tagging. But some of those
projects also use "Enterprise" to describe their paid versions, and those
versions have different features than their community editions. So I don't get
the argument that allowing for the "Enterprise" tag is OK, but a "Community"
tag is not.

I've read and understand the context of the marketing plan, as well as
Michael's article on business models. I understand the intent; but there is
uncertainty about LibreOffice as a sustainable project as is being alluded to
by Michael and other ecosystem partners and this is being used as a veiled
threat to introduce changes that haven't received proper community
consultation. A statement by TDF saying there is no plan to do these things,
while continuing to discuss moving to an edition system, is the left hand
washing the car while the right hand throws dirt --- or some better idiom than
this.

To point to links and mailing lists that anyone under the age of 40 probably
does not use regularly is not a good way to engage with your community. Several
suggestions have been made and it seems like certain people are resistant to
them without giving legitimate reasons beyond "this is always how we've done
it, you should have checked instead. It's your fault for not flooding your
email inbox with chatter." (There are 40 upvotes and 0 downvotes on this
comment:
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2020/07/07/libreoffice_community_protests_at_introduction/#c_4067368
) Obviously how it's been done before is not working because people are upset
and concerned about the project. So I'd encourage some self-reflection in
resisting calls to use modern software infrastructure for the project to
communicate better with stakeholders/donors beyond those who have the privilege
to be paid to work on the project.

Cheers,
Kevin

Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

On 09/07/2020 17:00, Paolo Vecchi wrote:
> That was a temporary placeholder used while the developers implemented a
> potential tag line features that may or may not be used depending on the

If nothing else, it served a good purpose to actually get the
discussion started after we'd had several only partially successful
attempts to do that =)

> On 09/07/2020 15:30, Alexander Werner wrote:
>> 1. LibreOffice Online - Unsupported Warning

I don't have much to add to the explanation on the page:

https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/

AFAIK believe TDF is obliged to educate users, telling them
not to do silly things is perhaps wise.

>> 2. LibreOffice Online - Containing Support Keys
>>
>> Looking through the source code of LibreOffice Online, it can be easily
>> found, that there is a build option for support keys, this makes
>> absolutely no sense in our software product.
>> (https://git.libreoffice.org/online/+/refs/heads/master/wsd/LOOLWSD.cpp#1259)
>>
>> **I hereby request the board to take action to remove parts of the
>> software that are of no use for the intended audience.**

Arguably there is quite a lot of useless features in the
software =) if we apply this widely it could take a very long time.

This feature is disabled even in most of our C'bra product
builds but is in some. Why ? We sell support & services based on the
number of users, and by baking a public key into the code we can
then sign a 'key' that tweaks that limit per customer; that shares
the binary across many customers. Mostly though we do trust-based
per-user licensing.

C'bra wrote that code and published and included it - I believe
CIB has used it too, others are welcome to if they find that useful.
I imagine it's no different from innumerable other OSS support activation
keys in software.

Is your concern that TDF hosts the bits? Or is it your concern
that the ecosystem sells support and services on a per-user basis ? or ?

Generally as a development team we've had rather a friendly and
open view to including random features that are only of minority
usefulness - from Haiki OS support, to configure options to bundle
proprietary templates and so on. The more FLOSS the better.

Would be good to have more precision on this concern,

Thanks,

Michael.

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Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

Hi Aravind,

please read the answers you received before firing off new ones:

https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04604.html
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04636.html
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04638.html

Ciao

Paolo



On 09/07/2020 18:49, Aravind Palla wrote:
> There is no need to downplay the LibreOffice (Community Edition) in order to 
> lure the proposed enterprise edition. The sudden and unexpected additions in 
> the development branch to the extent that 'you are using a Personal Edition 
> which is intended for individual use' has, undoubtedly created commotion 
> among the community.
>
> LibreOffice was and is regarded as a Freedom Software and many volunteers and 
> including the eco-system companies (I believe) have contributed the 
> vast-majority of the code without any commercial/enterprise edition. The 
> office suite has achieved great heights all these years.
>
> It is purely a moral obligation on the individuals / non-individuals to give 
> back to the community.
>
> Even if it is only to lure the governments/commercial entities to sell the 
> proposed LibreOffice Enterprise edition, I reiterate that there is no need to 
> downplay the standard edition.
>
> What will be 'special' and what will be the exclusive 'support', etc., in the 
> proposed enterprise edition? Can the board clarify?
>
> - Aravind Palla
>
>
>
>
>
> ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
> On Thursday, July 9, 2020 10:04 PM, Michael Stahl  
> wrote:
>
>> On 09.07.20 18:19, Andreas Mantke wrote:
>>
>>> and there are three reasons, why TDF is "Gemeinnützig":
>>>
>>> -   der Volks- und Berufsbildung,
>>> -   der Wissenschaft und Forschung, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der
>>> Informatik,
>>>
>>> -   des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements zugunsten gemeinnütziger Zwecke.
>>>
>>> (non binding English translation:
>>>
>>> -   Public and professional education
>>> -   Science and research, particularly in the field of computer science
>>> -   Civic engagement for non-profit purposes)
>>>
>>> There is nothing in this lines about the promotion of an ecosystem of
>>> service providers (etc.).
>> i don't believe anybody is claiming that promotion of an ecosystem of
>> service providers should be a goal of TDF - what i understand is being
>> claimed is that it can be a good means, a tool to eventually help
>> reach the actual defined goals of TDF to a fuller extent, and the
>> proposed marketing plan is a way to increase the ... leverage(?) ... of
>> the means/tool.
>>
>> ---
>>
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>

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Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

2020-07-09 Thread Simon Phipps

On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 5:47 PM Andreas Mantke  wrote:

>
> please read through the whole discussion and you may get an impression
> that there are some intent to use TDF for such a promotion.
>

However, those with that impression are entirely mistaken and it is wrong
to imply anyone is attempting the subversion you imply -- no-one has
proposed it. Those expressing the impression you describe have either
misunderstood or decided to misunderstand.

For what it's worth I'm unhappy with many elements of the proposal too, but
because it is a mistake to imply that TDF offers support, or that
LibreOffice as distributed by TDF is only for "Personal" or "Community" use
as these leave corporate community members with more work to do explaining
their value, not less. TDF needs to leave room for the companies who invest
in the code to sustain themselves, as TDF itself cannot replace their work
and its community are unlikely to be able to replace their work as
volunteers. It can best do that by avoiding any mention of the field of use
of LibreOffice.

S.

Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

2020-07-09 Thread Italo Vignoli

On 7/9/20 6:35 PM, Aravind Palla wrote:

> - that there will be no change of license;

Based on what you assume there can be a change of license, the marketing
plan says exactly the opposite, i.e. we do stay loyal to the copyleft
license, which is one of the pillars of the project.

> - that there will be no 'exclusive' features for the proposed enterprise 
> edition other than dedicated support like priority bug-fixing, help, etc.;

Same as above.

> - that the LibreOffice Community Edition will function as effectively as the 
> proposed LibreOffice Enterprise Edition without any restrictions;

Same as above.

> - that the intention of the board is not to commercialize the office suite 
> which creates commotion among the great community that has been supporting 
> LibreOffice since years;

Same as above.

> - that the board respects the principles of freedom (libre) software.

Same as above.

Sorry, but speculating on topics which are not even mentioned by the
marketing plan does not help at all. Using the word personal, as in
personal computer, does not imply anything of the above.

Yes, the word "personal" can be misunderstood by community members, as
only one person - a Fedora contributor - got it right, but it was chosen
also to avoid the potential issues of the word "community", which is
used by many open core projects for the free and feature limited version
(a quick search provides the following: Alfresco, Bacula, Bonita Studio,
FengOffice, GitLab, Knowage, Liferay, MySQL, NXLog, Odoo, OnlyOffice,
OpenClinica, OpenKM, OpenProject, OpenVPN, Shopware, SonarQube, SugarCRM
and Visual Paradigm).

Best regards.

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Re: [board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

Thanks Aravind for summarising all we have been saying in the past few
days :-)

All you stated was written or implicit in our communication:

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/07/06/board-statement-on-the-libreoffice-7-0rc-personal-edition-label/

Linking here some of my answers which should further clarify things:
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04632.html
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04623.html
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04604.html

Ciao

Paolo

On 09/07/2020 18:35, Aravind Palla wrote:
> I think a clear-cut statement from the Board can answer a lot of questions 
> and reduce a lot of negativity.
>
> The Board should clarify:
> - that there will be no change of license;
> - that there will be no 'exclusive' features for the proposed enterprise 
> edition other than dedicated support like priority bug-fixing, help, etc.;
> - that there will be no terminology/tags that might demotivate the 
> non-individuals (be it small communities/NGOs/governments/ big enterprises) 
> to use the LibreOffice Community Edition (I believe that the board will not 
> chose the Personal Edition name). The recent inclusions in the development 
> branch like 'Personal Edition' and the tag 'intended for individual use' 
> surely demotivates the non-individuals to use the software;
> - that the LibreOffice Community Edition will function as effectively as the 
> proposed LibreOffice Enterprise Edition without any restrictions;
> - that the intention of the board is not to commercialize the office suite 
> which creates commotion among the great community that has been supporting 
> LibreOffice since years;
> - that the board respects the principles of freedom (libre) software.
>
> A statement clarifying the above may help answering a lot of community 
> members.
>
>
> ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
> On Thursday, July 9, 2020 9:18 PM, Michael Meeks 
>  wrote:
>
>> Hi Alex,
>>
>> On 06/07/2020 10:27, Alexander Werner wrote in bugzilla at
>>
>>> https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c23
>>> Cleary, The Document Foundation must release a version that is open
>>> to all intended audiences. As clearly stated in the statues, the
>>> intended audience is: everyone, explicitly including COMPANIES and
>>> PUBLIC AUTHORITIES.
>> Some comments on that; the statutes are public here:
>> https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/
>>
>>> I quote from the preamble:
>>> "The objective of the foundation is the promotion and
>>> development of office software available for use by anyone
>>> free of charge."
>> A tag and about box text doesn't modify any of this. The
>> fundamental license and availability for use by anyone free of charge
>> stays.
>>
>> Clearly that is so. Beyond tweaking the brand with a tag - no
>> change is suggested to the software or its distribution at all.
>>
>> Moving on let me include the omitted second paragraph:
>>
>> "The foundation promotes a sustainable, independent and
>> meritocratic community for the international development of
>> free and open source software based on open standards."
>>
>> These mission goals are not optional. We need to be
>> sustainable - How large a community do you think it is necessary to
>> have to sustain the software ? how do we promote that ?
>>
>>> The issue gets even clearer:
>>> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for
>>> their own files, including companies and public authorities,
>>> ensuring full participation in a digital society and without
>>> detriment to intellectual property."
>> So - LibreOffice Personal -as-now- will be openly available
>> for free use by anyone; so that is also clearly met.
>>
>> -   Some background on the history & philosophical context here:
>>
>> -   Free Software has for decades been fighting against the
>> idea that it is free-as-in-beer, and talking of
>> free-as-in-freedom.
>>
>> -   RMS regularly distinguishes Libre from Gratis, and talks
>> about the vital freedoms. Arguably the Open Source movement
>> itself is a reaction against this "free of price" frame.
>>
>> -   if we take an extreme view of this paragraph in our statutes
>> that would lead me to the conclusion that we are mis-named:
>> we should be called "GratisOffice" - if freedom from price
>> is the core purpose of the project. Perhaps we're overdue
>> for a re-brand:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre
>>
>> if our core purpose is Gratis; it's just horribly
>> confusing to call ourselves Libre.
>>
>> -   Many commnity members I've spoken to have little sympathy
>> for enterprises that just take, and contribute nothing
>> back except bug reports & associated aggravation.
>>
>> -   They have even less sympathy for those who charge for using
>> our brand and s

Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

2020-07-09 Thread Andreas Mantke

Hi Michael,

Am 09.07.20 um 18:34 schrieb Michael Stahl:
> On 09.07.20 18:19, Andreas Mantke wrote:
>> and there are three reasons, why TDF is "Gemeinnützig":
>>
>>    * der Volks- und Berufsbildung,
>>    * der Wissenschaft und Forschung, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der
>>  Informatik,
>>    * des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements zugunsten gemeinnütziger Zwecke.
>>
>> (non binding English translation:
>>
>>    * Public and professional education
>>    * Science and research, particularly in the field of computer science
>>    * Civic engagement for non-profit purposes)
>>
>> There is nothing in this lines about the promotion of an ecosystem of
>> service providers (etc.).
>
> i don't believe anybody is claiming that promotion of an ecosystem of
> service providers should be a *goal* of TDF - what i understand is
> being claimed is that it can be a good *means*, a tool to eventually
> help reach the actual defined goals of TDF to a fuller extent,

please read through the whole discussion and you may get an impression
that there are some intent to use TDF for such a promotion.

Regards,
Andreas




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Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

Hi Aravind,

I've answered Alex's email.

Se if you are satisfied with my comments.

I've also answered the questions related to the slides in a reply sent
to Uwe today.

Executive summary:

There will be no restrictions to anybody, no change of licensing, no new
LibreOffice flavours and the only change we are proposing is to add a
tag line like "Community Edition".

There will be no LibreOffice Enterprise Edition, LibreOffice Enterprise
is just a collective name that regroups the members of the ecosystem.

I hope the answers provided clarify even the questions you haven't asked
yet ;-)

Ciao

Paolo

On 09/07/2020 17:17, Aravind Palla wrote:
> I second the opinion of Alex (a...@documentfoundation.org).
>
> The moment any kind of restriction is imposed or proposed to be imposed on 
> the user (be it individual, be it an NGO, be it a community, be it an 
> enterprise) is no more a Freedom Software. As such the proposed LibreOffice 
> Community Edition / Personal Edition cannot be a free software and it cannot 
> be called "libre".
>
> LibreOffice has reached this stage following the free software principles. 
> There is no reason to commercialize the project for want of more 
> contributions by 'demand'.
>
> I also noticed (from Slide 16) that 68% of the contributions are from 
> eco-system companies. They contributed their code without any enterprise 
> edition. LibreOffice had evolved to this stage and can continue to evolve 
> without any need of enterprise edition.
>
> If at all TDF wants to focus on an enterprise edition, it is appropriate if 
> they do it on a separate brand name, but not on LibreOffice. The draft 
> marketing plan makes it clear that the eco-system companies' focus in future 
> might be on the enterprise edition, leaving the 'actual' LibreOffice behind.
>
> LibreOffice has been an outstanding freedom software suite till date. The 
> proposed marketing plan may kill the positive direction in which the office 
> suite had been heading. I feel that the board has already decided the matter 
> since the Development Branch already has the personal edition tag without any 
> sound discussion before the community.
>
> - Aravind Palla
>
>
> ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐
> On Thursday, July 9, 2020 8:00 PM, Alexander Werner 
>  wrote:
>
>> Dear board, dear community,
>>
>> Abstract:
>> I request the board to:
>>
>> -   provide software in accordance with the statues.
>> -   remove parts of the software that are of no use for the intended
>> audience, hereby meaning the support key "feature" of LOOL.
>>
>> -   undo the "Personal" edition branding.
>>
>> I am very concerned about the recent developments regarding the
>> strategic future of LibreOffice and The Document Foundation. As this
>> concern is shared by many no quick decision should be taken.
>>
>> I want to remind all of you what The Document Foundation is all about,
>> as stated in the unalterable statutes
>> (https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/):
>>
>> "The objective of  the foundation is the promotion and development of
>> office software available for use by anyone free of charge." - this does
>> not restrict the target audience.
>>
>> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for their
>> own files, including companies and public authorities, ensuring full
>> participation in a digital society and without detriment to intellectual
>> property."
>>
>> I would like to remind all members of the board of directors that first
>> and foremost you are obliged to pursue these statutes. As a consequence
>> you must not restrict the target audience of LibreOffice to a specific
>> user group in any way.
>>
>> But this already happens for quite some time and is now getting worse:
>>
>>
>> 1.  LibreOffice Online - Unsupported Warning
>>
>> The website for LibreOffice Online states: "The Document Foundation will
>> not be maintaining binaries for enterprise use". This is clearly in
>> violation of the statutes.
>> (https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/)
>>
>> The website also includes a picture of a warning message that often
>> appears
>> 
>> (https://www.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/LibreOffice-Online-limit.png),
>> and it is also stated: "... is designed for personal and/or development
>> use ..." This is not only in violation of the statues, but also very
>> questionable behaviour for Free/Libre and Open Source Software.
>>
>> I hereby request the board to take action to provide the software in
>> accordance with the statutes.
>>
>> 2.  LibreOffice Online - Containing Support Keys
>>
>> Looking through the source code of LibreOffice Online, it can be easily
>> found, that there is a build option for support keys, this makes
>> absolutely no sense in our software product.
>> 
>> (https://git.libreoffice.org/online/+/refs/heads/master/wsd/LOOL

Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

2020-07-09 Thread Michael Stahl


On 09.07.20 18:19, Andreas Mantke wrote:

and there are three reasons, why TDF is "Gemeinnützig":

   * der Volks- und Berufsbildung,
   * der Wissenschaft und Forschung, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der
 Informatik,
   * des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements zugunsten gemeinnütziger Zwecke.

(non binding English translation:

   * Public and professional education
   * Science and research, particularly in the field of computer science
   * Civic engagement for non-profit purposes)

There is nothing in this lines about the promotion of an ecosystem of
service providers (etc.).


i don't believe anybody is claiming that promotion of an ecosystem of 
service providers should be a *goal* of TDF - what i understand is being 
claimed is that it can be a good *means*, a tool to eventually help 
reach the actual defined goals of TDF to a fuller extent, and the 
proposed marketing plan is a way to increase the ... leverage(?) ... of 
the means/tool.


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Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

2020-07-09 Thread Andreas Mantke

Hi,

Am 09.07.20 um 17:55 schrieb Bjoern Michaelsen:
> Hi Alex,
>
> I wanted to limit myself to those four tweets on this discussion, but this
> one really rattles my bones, so here we go:
>
> On Thu, Jul 09, 2020 at 04:30:51PM +0200, Alexander Werner wrote:
>> I want to remind all of you what The Document Foundation is all about,
>> as stated in the *unalterable* statutes
>> (https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/):
>>
>> "The objective of  the foundation is the promotion and development of
>> office software available for use by anyone free of charge." - this does
>> not restrict the target audience.
>>
>> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for their
>> own files, including companies and public authorities, ensuring full
>> participation in a digital society and without detriment to intellectual
>> property."
>>
>> I would like to remind all members of the board of directors that first
>> and foremost you are obliged to pursue these statutes. As a consequence
>> you must not restrict the target audience of LibreOffice to a specific
>> user group in any way.
> While we go into full language lawyering here, The Document Foundation is a
> gemeinnuetzige Stiftung first and foremost. The "Gemeinnuetzig" in results in
> certain limits on what the goals of the Stiftung are and nothing in the 
> statues
> can overrule that.
>
and there are three reasons, why TDF is "Gemeinnützig":

  * der Volks- und Berufsbildung,
  * der Wissenschaft und Forschung, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der
Informatik,
  * des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements zugunsten gemeinnütziger Zwecke.

(non binding English translation:

  * Public and professional education
  * Science and research, particularly in the field of computer science
  * Civic engagement for non-profit purposes)

There is nothing in this lines about the promotion of an ecosystem of
service providers (etc.).

Please be careful with the direction you are driving the foundation.

Regards,
Andreas




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Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

Hi Alex,

thanks for your contribution and see inline my comments.

On 09/07/2020 16:30, Alexander Werner wrote:
> Dear board, dear community,
>
> Abstract:
> I request the board to:
> - provide software in accordance with the statues.
Absolutely, there is no intention of changing that.
> - remove parts of the software that are of no use for the intended
> audience, hereby meaning the support key "feature" of LOOL.
Thanks for notifying us of that. I personally wasn't aware of it.
> - undo the "Personal" edition branding.
That was a temporary placeholder used while the developers implemented a
potential tag line features that may or may not be used depending on the
outcome of this consultation. "Personal" was one of the many options
that came out while we were preparing this consultation.
Nothing has been yet decided about it.
>
> I am very concerned about the recent developments regarding the
> strategic future of LibreOffice and The Document Foundation. As this
> concern is shared by many no quick decision should be taken.
>
> I want to remind all of you what The Document Foundation is all about,
> as stated in the *unalterable* statutes
> (https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/):
>
> "The objective of  the foundation is the promotion and development of
> office software available for use by anyone free of charge." - this does
> not restrict the target audience.
>
> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for their
> own files, including companies and public authorities, ensuring full
> participation in a digital society and without detriment to intellectual
> property."
>
> I would like to remind all members of the board of directors that first
> and foremost you are obliged to pursue these statutes. As a consequence
> you must not restrict the target audience of LibreOffice to a specific
> user group in any way.
The statutes and their principles are the reason why a vibrant Community
has been able to form around TDF and nobody in the Board has any
intention of doing anything that goes against them.

There has never been any idea of limiting access or the features of
LibreOffice.
>
> But this already happens for quite some time and is now getting worse:
>
>
> 1. LibreOffice Online - Unsupported Warning
>
> The website for LibreOffice Online states: "The Document Foundation will
> not be maintaining binaries for enterprise use". This is clearly in
> violation of the statutes.
> (https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/)
>
> The website also includes a picture of a warning message that often
> appears
> (https://www.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/LibreOffice-Online-limit.png),
> and it is also stated: "... is designed for personal and/or development
> use ..." This is not only in violation of the statues, but also very
> questionable behaviour for Free/Libre and Open Source Software.
>
> **I hereby request the board to take action to provide the software in
> accordance with the statutes.**
>
>
> 2. LibreOffice Online - Containing Support Keys
>
> Looking through the source code of LibreOffice Online, it can be easily
> found, that there is a build option for support keys, this makes
> absolutely no sense in our software product.
> (https://git.libreoffice.org/online/+/refs/heads/master/wsd/LOOLWSD.cpp#1259)
>
> **I hereby request the board to take action to remove parts of the
> software that are of no use for the intended audience.**
Thanks for notifying us of your concerns.
I'm not up to speed with those bits of code so I'll check with my fellow
members of the Board.

Keep in mind that LibreOffice On-Line derives mostly from development
carried out by Collabora for their On-Line product so there may be parts
in the code that are left from their own development.

I'm sure Michael Meeks will answer back ASAP to correct me if I said
something wrong.
>
> 3. LibreOffice "Personal Edition"
>
> As I have already mentionend in my comment to the Bug Report
> (https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c23), I see
> any restriction or even suggested restriction of the intended audience
> in violation of the statutes.
>
> I would also like to remind, that there are still and fresh versions
> existing right now (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan),
> and that the still versions are intended for "conservative, corporate
> deployments". Will the "still" "Personal Edition" then be recommended
> for "corporate deployments"? I don't believe that this is understood by
> our audience in any way.
>
> Also: I don't see the reason for the "Personal Edition" tag, as this
> means that TDF must also provide another edition that is then targeted
> for all other use cases.
There is no intention of providing another edition at all.
LibreOffice is and will remain LibreOffice. The proposal, as described
in the evolving marketing plan, is to potentially add a tag line which
would help in clarifying to corporate users that TDF does not provide
the ent

Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

2020-07-09 Thread Bjoern Michaelsen

Hi Alex,

I wanted to limit myself to those four tweets on this discussion, but this
one really rattles my bones, so here we go:

On Thu, Jul 09, 2020 at 04:30:51PM +0200, Alexander Werner wrote:
> I want to remind all of you what The Document Foundation is all about,
> as stated in the *unalterable* statutes
> (https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/):
> 
> "The objective of  the foundation is the promotion and development of
> office software available for use by anyone free of charge." - this does
> not restrict the target audience.
> 
> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for their
> own files, including companies and public authorities, ensuring full
> participation in a digital society and without detriment to intellectual
> property."
> 
> I would like to remind all members of the board of directors that first
> and foremost you are obliged to pursue these statutes. As a consequence
> you must not restrict the target audience of LibreOffice to a specific
> user group in any way.

While we go into full language lawyering here, The Document Foundation is a
gemeinnuetzige Stiftung first and foremost. The "Gemeinnuetzig" in results in
certain limits on what the goals of the Stiftung are and nothing in the statues
can overrule that.

Being a commercial grade service or support provider to random companies or
public entities using productivity software is clearly NOT within these limits,
and no motte and bailey sophistication about the implied interpretation of the
foundations statues will change that or can make it the Document Foundations
mission.

There is quite a bit of excusable naivete going round in this discussion,
which is understandable given that TDF needs to finally adapt to the changes
that happened in the last decade, so there are a lot of fundamentals
reevaluated here. Its not even wrong, as we need to find new ways, because the
ones that worked a decade ago dont work anymore or will be failing soon.

The above on the other hand overconfidently states implications that dont even
stand basic scrutiny and deliver them as an argumentum ab auctoritate. As such,
it should be ignored at best -- however, given the international community, not
everyone might be comfortable in judging the core of that German legalese
argument on their own. Worse than that, it doesnt even provide a constructive
proposal on which way to develop the foundation and the community -- away from
a status quo that is clearly less and less working.

I am very happy that the new board attacks these hard challenges and am open
and eager to hear each and every constuctive proposal on how to bring the
projects and the community forward. I am also happy if fellow members of the
community reread the statues to find guidance and ideas to find ways to make
them work in the now.

So in order for this project and this community to not die it first needs
constructive proposals. Those can then be refined, improved and adjusted using
institutional learnings we made over the last two decades. But it needs a
constuctive proposal FIRST, because without it, there is nothing to refine or
improve by our learnings.

/end rant

Best,

Bjoern

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[board-discuss] LibreOffice Personal & TDF's statutes & purpose

Hi Alex,

On 06/07/2020 10:27, Alexander Werner wrote in bugzilla at
> https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c23
> Cleary, The Document Foundation must release a version that is open
> to all intended audiences. As clearly stated in the statues, the
> intended audience is: everyone, explicitly including COMPANIES and
> PUBLIC AUTHORITIES.

Some comments on that; the statutes are public here:
https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/

> I quote from the preamble:
>
>   "The objective of the foundation is the promotion and
>development of office software available for use by anyone
>free of charge."

A tag and about box text doesn't modify any of this. The
fundamental license and availability for use by anyone free of charge
stays.

Clearly that is so. Beyond tweaking the brand with a tag - no
change is suggested to the software or its distribution at all.

Moving on let me include the omitted second paragraph:

"The foundation promotes a sustainable, independent and
 meritocratic community for the international development of
 free and open source software based on open standards."

These mission goals are not optional. We need to be
sustainable - How large a community do you think it is necessary to
have to sustain the software ? how do we promote that ?

> The issue gets even clearer:
>
> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for
> their own files, including companies and public authorities,
> ensuring full participation in a digital society and without
> detriment to intellectual property."

So - LibreOffice Personal -as-now- will be openly available
for free use by anyone; so that is also clearly met.

* Some background on the history & philosophical context here:

+ Free Software has for decades been fighting against the
  idea that it is free-as-in-beer, and talking of
  free-as-in-freedom.

+ RMS regularly distinguishes Libre from Gratis, and talks
  about the vital freedoms. Arguably the Open Source movement
  itself is a reaction against this "free of price" frame.

+ if we take an extreme view of this paragraph in our statutes
  that would lead me to the conclusion that we are mis-named:
  we should be called "GratisOffice" - if freedom from price
  is the core purpose of the project. Perhaps we're overdue
  for a re-brand:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre

  if our core purpose is Gratis; it's just horribly
  confusing to call ourselves Libre.

+ Many commnity members I've spoken to have little sympathy
  for enterprises that just take, and contribute nothing
  back except bug reports & associated aggravation.

+ They have even less sympathy for those who charge for using
  our brand and software in the enterprise, and then
  contribute nothing back.

+ By focusing here, it -can- sound as if you arguing that
  our core purpose is to give free stuff to large, rich
  enterprises ? that we should sweat and toil for free,
  for the good of IBM, or Oracle, or ... =) surely not.

+ for me that's not a motivating factor whatsoever, I want
  to collaborate with other contributors to promote and
  develop an office suite available for use by anyone
  free of charge; in a sustainable way.

LibreOffice Personal/Community could be how we promote that.

But really, how it is marketed, what tags go on the splash
screen - how we try to -effectively- (we're good at doing this
ineffectively ;-) steer people towards even starting to understand
that they need to contribute, whether directly themselves or via the
ecosystem - these all seem to be tactical issues.

We know that existing attempts to do that are an utter
failure, with zero up-take. We know that enterprises (charitably)
don't even know that they should do the right thing here.

We know that changing here might be disruptive, but having
some suggestions of what changes might be acceptable and some idea of
what success might look like would be really helpful. What do you
think TDF should concretely do to solve the problems I outline:

https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg04591.html

We know that enterprises don't donate and that the vast
majority don't contribute, so it is individual persons via donations,
or via awesome contributions =) alongside the ecosystem who end up
funding what work goes on the project.

I think Bjoern states that rather well here[1]:

"IMHO, the same applies even stronger to @tdforg as an NGO: I
dont think other institutions -- especially commercial ones
that are not contributing to its projects -- have any moral
rights to it

Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

2020-07-09 Thread Cor Nouws

Hi Alex,

Alexander Werner wrote on 09/07/2020 16:30:

> I want to remind all of you what The Document Foundation is all about,
> as stated in the *unalterable* statutes
> (https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/):
> 
> "The objective of  the foundation is the promotion and development of
> office software available for use by anyone free of charge." - this does
> not restrict the target audience.
> 
> "This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for their
> own files, including companies and public authorities, ensuring full
> participation in a digital society and without detriment to intellectual
> property."

I do not read that the statues say that this apply to all software
developed 'under TDF'.
Also, there seems to be room for debate - partly at least - about
whether software is code or binaries.
So providing a basic "Office-Paket, also Software für gebräuchliche
Arbeiten zur Erstellung z.B. von Texten, Tabellendokumenten,
Präsentationen, Zeichnungen, Bildern und Diagrammen" may be just enough?
Since the statues also say something about a sustainable community, I
think it is wise to try to find a good mixture.

> ...
> The primary goal of The Document Foundation is to fulfill its statutes,
> and the secondary goal is to cater for ecosystem vendors needs.

The statues say nothing explicit about "ecosystem vendors needs". As
already stated: the statues mention to take care for a sustainable
community (etc) too. So strongly dividing between TDF and ecosystem
vendors feels unnatural to me.
I know, agree, that it is not easy. But the draft marketing plan tries
to explain why doing the one (giving away free to use) without doing the
other (taking care for the ecosystem) will not last.
I believe that some details in the marketing plan, may even be less
positive, then you read them there.

Please understand that this all is not to say that I do not take the
statues seriously - I'm active long enough in the community to know the
importance, history etc.
But - as business man and board member - I like to make use of the
freedom, room, that is there, if it serves our goals :)

Greetings,
Cor

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Re: [board-discuss] UPDATED Draft Marketing Plan 2020-2025



On 09/07/2020 16:23, Italo Vignoli wrote:
> All community members should look regularly at the dashboard, is a very
> useful tool which provides a good overview of activities.

Indeed; you can see it here:

https://dashboard.documentfoundation.org/

Though I believe it is being extended to be even richer and capture
more types of community activity.

ATB,

Michael.

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Re: [board-discuss] UPDATED Draft Marketing Plan 2020-2025

Thanks Italo.

I still need to learn a lot of stuff ;-)

Paolo

On 09/07/2020 17:18, Italo Vignoli wrote:
> Just a quick note.
>
> On 7/9/20 5:11 PM, Paolo Vecchi wrote:
>
>>> Slide 15 and 16
>>> These two are a slap into the face of many of the community members. It is 
>>> made clear that only contributions to the source code are counted - but 
>>> outlined as "Community the last two years - community by numbers". Perhaps 
>>> the authors should rehearse the regulations of membership of the TDF and 
>>> what is considered as contribution there - and correct their metrics then 
>>> accordingly in a hurry. For instance, I never contributed one line of code 
>>> into the repository - so I'm not contributing? In that metrics surely not. 
>>> With Italo or Mike S., I'm not that sure  .
>> The title of the slides should probably state that they talk about code
>> contributions.
> The two slides are extracted from the dashboard, and they are about all
> contributions to the project which are parsed by the different tools, so
> they are rather inclusive although they do not include all localizations
> and all email threads. If you look at the dashboard, the page is called
> "community". Code contributions are a subset.
>

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Re: [board-discuss] UPDATED Draft Marketing Plan 2020-2025

2020-07-09 Thread Italo Vignoli

All community members should look regularly at the dashboard, is a very
useful tool which provides a good overview of activities.

On 7/9/20 5:21 PM, Paolo Vecchi wrote:
> Thanks Italo.
> 
> I still need to learn a lot of stuff ;-)
> 
> Paolo
> 
> On 09/07/2020 17:18, Italo Vignoli wrote:
>> Just a quick note.
>>
>> On 7/9/20 5:11 PM, Paolo Vecchi wrote:
>>
 Slide 15 and 16
 These two are a slap into the face of many of the community members. It is 
 made clear that only contributions to the source code are counted - but 
 outlined as "Community the last two years - community by numbers". Perhaps 
 the authors should rehearse the regulations of membership of the TDF and 
 what is considered as contribution there - and correct their metrics then 
 accordingly in a hurry. For instance, I never contributed one line of code 
 into the repository - so I'm not contributing? In that metrics surely not. 
 With Italo or Mike S., I'm not that sure  .
>>> The title of the slides should probably state that they talk about code
>>> contributions.
>> The two slides are extracted from the dashboard, and they are about all
>> contributions to the project which are parsed by the different tools, so
>> they are rather inclusive although they do not include all localizations
>> and all email threads. If you look at the dashboard, the page is called
>> "community". Code contributions are a subset.
>>
> 

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Re: [board-discuss] UPDATED Draft Marketing Plan 2020-2025

2020-07-09 Thread Italo Vignoli

Just a quick note.

On 7/9/20 5:11 PM, Paolo Vecchi wrote:

>> Slide 15 and 16
>> These two are a slap into the face of many of the community members. It is 
>> made clear that only contributions to the source code are counted - but 
>> outlined as "Community the last two years - community by numbers". Perhaps 
>> the authors should rehearse the regulations of membership of the TDF and 
>> what is considered as contribution there - and correct their metrics then 
>> accordingly in a hurry. For instance, I never contributed one line of code 
>> into the repository - so I'm not contributing? In that metrics surely not. 
>> With Italo or Mike S., I'm not that sure  .
> The title of the slides should probably state that they talk about code
> contributions.

The two slides are extracted from the dashboard, and they are about all
contributions to the project which are parsed by the different tools, so
they are rather inclusive although they do not include all localizations
and all email threads. If you look at the dashboard, the page is called
"community". Code contributions are a subset.

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Re: [board-discuss] UPDATED Draft Marketing Plan 2020-2025

Hi Uwe,

I'm not a marketing strategist and the plan is a draft of an idea that
you and many others are shaping to get the best results for all.

Having said that I'll try to engage and see if we can get some clearer
ideas about it.

On 09/07/2020 14:31, Uwe Altmann wrote:
> Hi all
>
> Am 18.06.20 um 11:25 schrieb Italo Vignoli:
>> The draft presentation is available online on TDF Nextcloud:
>> https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/jzryGw7XDkJadmo
>>
>> Please focus on the overall strategy and not on specific details, as
>> details can be tweaked to reach a wider consensus.
> Slide 12
> "• Thanks to the combined efforts of the entire project, with contributions 
> from community and ecosystem, we have released LibreOffice for desktop, 
> online and mobile
> • We are proud of being recognized by the LibreOffice brand name, which 
> represents the common asset for community and ecosystem members (with a large 
> number of people being active in both areas)"
>
> So it is understood that "community" and "ecosystem" are basically two 
> different things.
> (c.f. also slide 22: "Relationships between ecosystem and community are not 
> ideal...")
They are 2 complementary and often overlapping groups of people and
entities.

We are all part of the same community but while the Community is mostly
referring to the people that are part of it the ecosystem refers to the
entities/companies that are actively contributing to the Project,
mostly, in terms of code and skills.
>
> Slide 13:
> And there is also a "LibreOffice Project" - a third different thing (an 
> "umbrella brand name")? An this "umbrella brand name" "...will communicate 
> with one voice,to make it easier for users ..." - also a communicating brand 
> name? Like a bigmouth brass  ? Honestly: Who will be the entity behind the 
> brand name which is the sender of the message?
As it's sometimes difficult to explain the overlap between the Community
and the ecosystem it may be easier to call it LibreOffice Project of
which the Community and the ecosystem are a subset. So we are all
contributing to the LibreOffice Project as individuals, as employees in
the ecosystem and often both.
>
> Slide 14
> This shall be explained by a graphic. This graphic tells us that the entity 
> called "LibreOffice Community" consists of the intersecting set of 
> "LibreOffice volunteers" at the one hand and "LibreOffice Ecosystem" at the 
> other hand;. All three together combine to the "LibreOffice Project".
> Some remarks on this:
> 1.  So a volunteer not engaged in the ecosystem cannot be a part of the 
> community, but of the project. On the other hand are some parts of the 
> ecosystem are not part of the community, but of the Project. (...and then 
> talking there with one voice?)
> 2. Was looking for TDF - didn't find.
>
> (Personal remark: IMHO this graphic representation should be deleted 
> immediately and thoroughly been rethought of - and surely not at all solely 
> by marketing people, because this is far beyond their scope.)
It's probably not the clearest graphic representation but thanks to your
remarks it will be deleted/improved.
There are many ways people can and do contribute to the LibreOffice
project, should a "Volunteers" subset be created or just be part of the
Community? That's a good question.

You invested a lot in LibreOffice and you feel part of the Community, do
you think that others that maybe are less engaged should be called
Volunteers, members of the Community, something else?
>
>
> Slide 15 and 16
> These two are a slap into the face of many of the community members. It is 
> made clear that only contributions to the source code are counted - but 
> outlined as "Community the last two years - community by numbers". Perhaps 
> the authors should rehearse the regulations of membership of the TDF and what 
> is considered as contribution there - and correct their metrics then 
> accordingly in a hurry. For instance, I never contributed one line of code 
> into the repository - so I'm not contributing? In that metrics surely not. 
> With Italo or Mike S., I'm not that sure  .
The title of the slides should probably state that they talk about code
contributions.
>
>
> Slide 19 and 20
> Sense, use and message seems hidden into a deep dark hole for me - especially 
> for a communications concept of LibreOffice (I got my problems with the label 
> "marketing Plan", because marketing in a nutshell cares of customer 
> requirements [1]- what this concept does not at all so far)
True, maybe we should call it Manifesto? Something else?
>
>
> And then, coming to the core:
> Slide 25
>
> "Finding the right balance between the free product and the enterprise 
> supported product"
>
> This seems to be the utmost concern of the paper. But:
> It can not be neither the task of the community nor the TDF to do so. Why? At 
> first hand just because they are not able to because they don't have any 
> influence on the enterprise supported product. So every  attem

Re: [board-discuss] Discussion about options available with marketing plan draft and timetable

2020-07-09 Thread Alexander Werner

Dear board, dear community,

Abstract:
I request the board to:
- provide software in accordance with the statues.
- remove parts of the software that are of no use for the intended
audience, hereby meaning the support key "feature" of LOOL.
- undo the "Personal" edition branding.

I am very concerned about the recent developments regarding the
strategic future of LibreOffice and The Document Foundation. As this
concern is shared by many no quick decision should be taken.

I want to remind all of you what The Document Foundation is all about,
as stated in the *unalterable* statutes
(https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/statutes/):

"The objective of  the foundation is the promotion and development of
office software available for use by anyone free of charge." - this does
not restrict the target audience.

"This software will be openly available for free use by anyone for their
own files, including companies and public authorities, ensuring full
participation in a digital society and without detriment to intellectual
property."

I would like to remind all members of the board of directors that first
and foremost you are obliged to pursue these statutes. As a consequence
you must not restrict the target audience of LibreOffice to a specific
user group in any way.

But this already happens for quite some time and is now getting worse:


1. LibreOffice Online - Unsupported Warning

The website for LibreOffice Online states: "The Document Foundation will
not be maintaining binaries for enterprise use". This is clearly in
violation of the statutes.
(https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/)

The website also includes a picture of a warning message that often
appears
(https://www.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/LibreOffice-Online-limit.png),
and it is also stated: "... is designed for personal and/or development
use ..." This is not only in violation of the statues, but also very
questionable behaviour for Free/Libre and Open Source Software.

**I hereby request the board to take action to provide the software in
accordance with the statutes.**


2. LibreOffice Online - Containing Support Keys

Looking through the source code of LibreOffice Online, it can be easily
found, that there is a build option for support keys, this makes
absolutely no sense in our software product.
(https://git.libreoffice.org/online/+/refs/heads/master/wsd/LOOLWSD.cpp#1259)

**I hereby request the board to take action to remove parts of the
software that are of no use for the intended audience.**


3. LibreOffice "Personal Edition"

As I have already mentionend in my comment to the Bug Report
(https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c23), I see
any restriction or even suggested restriction of the intended audience
in violation of the statutes.

I would also like to remind, that there are still and fresh versions
existing right now (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan),
and that the still versions are intended for "conservative, corporate
deployments". Will the "still" "Personal Edition" then be recommended
for "corporate deployments"? I don't believe that this is understood by
our audience in any way.

Also: I don't see the reason for the "Personal Edition" tag, as this
means that TDF must also provide another edition that is then targeted
for all other use cases.

**I hereby request the board to take action that this change be undone
to gain time for the community to find a consensus.**

My personal opinion is to keep the Brand LibreOffice as a name, and
certified vendors are able to provide support and services as
"LibreOffice Enterprise" partners. If you change the product, the name
is to be changed.


As this topic already gained significant public interest, it is now the
time for the board to re-evaluate the Marketing Plan and its hopefully
unintended side-effects.

The primary goal of The Document Foundation is to fulfill its statutes,
and the secondary goal is to cater for ecosystem vendors needs.

Alex

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[board-discuss] LibreOffice Fun Project, Fantastic People

2020-07-09 Thread kainz.a

Hi,

I'm fine with LibreOffice community edition but if someone want an
additional string

LibreOffice
Fun Project, Fantastic People
https://bug-attachments.documentfoundation.org/attachment.cgi?id=162848

It's from our libreoffice.org webpage. It doesn't mean Community or Private
use or anything like that, but it would be enough to separate the download
from enterprise products.

LibreOffice powered by CIB
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/attachment.cgi?id=162851

As I wrote, community edition is fine for me. Fun Project, Fantastic People
will be something like a backup which describes the LibreOffice community
and can be from my point of view a bit more motivated to donate or use an
enterprise release (for companies).

Cheers
Andreas_k

Re: [libreoffice-website] Re: [board-discuss] Initiative to improve communication channels

2020-07-09 Thread Daniel Armando Rodriguez


El 2020-07-09 06:05, Ilmari Lauhakangas escribió:

Thorsten Behrens kirjoitti 9.7.2020 klo 11.44:

Ilmari Lauhakangas wrote:

DemocracyOS vs. anything we currently have is an apples to oranges
comparison meaning we *can't* shut anything down.

But how would DemocracyOS then help to solve the too-many-channels 
problem?


In my view it would not help solve that specific problem. I guess the
idea was instead to have a channel geared towards a very specific
purpose (feedback to TDF governance) with an interface that would be
pleasant for the majority.


Ilmari did the reading I was aiming at.

One example, spanish ML has 329 subscribers so far. Takign just the 1% 
of the spanish speaking people worldwide, which is about 500 millions, 
that number is not even insignificant.


That's the main reason that motivates me, to bring new users closer 
through a channel more in tune with the current times and, therefore, 
something that most computer users are used to.





--
DAR

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Re: [board-discuss] Personal Edition label and define is wrong.

Hi Peter,

On 07/07/2020 00:46, Peter Dolding wrote:
> Well will  all new enterprise need features now appear in the
> "LibreOffice Enterprise" first and then "LibreOffice Enterprise" users
> have to beta test them before they come to Personal Edition?

I think there were some slides which were brainstorming in Italo's deck
around having the enterprise version first, and then some delay etc.
Probably that's still confusing - and you point out some of the problems
with that.

The ask for that didn't come from me / the ecosystem - and I think
there is consensus that this is not a great idea =)

We already have a sensible release-train process with freezes that
everybody understands and works around, and I've not seen concerns
around sticking with that.

That process means that features appear in master, some are back-ported
to product builds and shipped earlier, but the TDF version ends
including shipping them within six months. That gives an incentive to
invest in creating features to differentiate and a lead-time to enjoy
that before the next step on the tread-mill of trying to explain why
people should buy something when there is (apparently) a free enterprise
product --> over there that appears more genuine.

> I have had a lot of cases where I have been able to get Libreoffice in
> next to Microsoft Office at first by it being free and licensed for
> anyone to use.

I'm curious - what happens after that at-first ? do you have a business
that provides support or services ? do they ever pay for anything that
ends up supporting LibreOffice ?

>>> LibreOffice Enterprise: only from ecosystem members
>
> Only from ecosystem members this means if this equals must pay someone
> to get this version lot of my deployments in different businesses of
> Libreoffice would never have happened.Yes I can see those wanting
> to make the "LibreOffice Enterprise" wanting as many paying customers
> as possible.

It seem you deploy LibreOffice in lots of businesses; I'm interested in
your experience of the economics of that.

> There are a lot of projects that do Community and Enterprise editions
> using those names make sense.   Personal editions with open source
> software almost never make any sense and normally end up writing
> something in conflict with license or their community.

I'm not sure that 'Community Edition' has a clear meaning to most
people; personally I liked the "LibreOffice Home and Student" as a first
cut ;-) but I can see how that would annoy people. But anyhow -
interesting feedback.

Thanks,

Michael.

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Hangout: mejme...@gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks
(M) +44 7795 666 147 - timezone usually UK / Europe

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[board-discuss] Personal: and software freedom.