Re: [board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
Hi there, I thought I'd pull together a thread that runs through a subset of the comments here: Here is Mark S writing in bugzilla: > Let LibreOffice stay LibreOffice, and let any commercial derivatives > deal with naming issues of their products on their own time. Several other comments are more of the form: "your problem, not mine", or "TDF doesn't need to nurture an ecosystem - why complain to TDF" ? So - of course, that is on one hand fine. Hypothetically TDF could sit at the center of a pure volunteer project, perhaps with enough mentors and enough donations that might work out (though on current trends this might also result in a project a tenth of the size). On the other hand getting there from here, while not loosing all momentum would be wrenchingly problematic. I guess there are some elaboraions of this: On 15/07/2020 14:11, Telesto wrote: > The 'free beer' argument starting to become annoying;-). I'm hearing > lots of self-pitty. > Nobody asks a company to contribute to the LibreOffice code (for free). > Yes, it belongs to a model where you believe in. > If you believe code be open source, while making profit, it's also your > task to come up with a business model generating revenue. Sure, so - it's a harsh market. TDF can choose to make it harsher by competing with the ecosystem that creates much of the LibreOffice code, and mentors much of the developer community. Or it can be passive and do nothing to nurture investment. Or it can create space for those that contribute to its mission and help out. Having a clear approach is helpful though. One of the problems is ambiguity: bait & switch: encourage the investment, but squash the returns by changing the rules =) That is why having a long-term settled consensus is really helpful. > The world is hard and pretty unfair. Indeed, on the other hand - my hope is that we shouldn't use that as an argument to structure things to be deliberately unfair. To a large degree TDF helps to seed the environment for the ecosystem to flourish around the codebase and fulfill its mission with it. Arguably (and I would say this) TDF cannot fill every niche, and serve every market itself - for a host of reasons. On 14/07/2020 16:07, toki wrote: > On 2020/07/14 10:41, Michael Meeks wrote: >> On 12/07/2020 20:32, toki wrote: >>> I'd blame the lack of sales on Collabora having a really bad website >> >> So, if getting sales is only a function of a really good website > > I think it was Brian Tracy who wrote if your website can't sell the > qualified prospect, it needs to be redesigned. I think we're all hopeful that we can create an advert or webpage that makes it impossible not to buy your product ;-) Brian's quote mentions qualified prospects - that's much easier with a sensible lead flow of people who are aware that you exist. >> Beyond that - creating, maintaining and translating a website into >> a handful of languages is an expensive hobby. > > Budget US$100,000 per language per year, for a multilingual website. > This is addition to the cost of designing and maintaining the website. > Before adding languages, look at both the financial ROI, and PR value. > Will the language generate at least US$1,000,000 in additional business > each year ? Well, for our existing ~five languages - if we did that we'd have to transition half of our development staff to marketing at some significant loss to Free software; I assume you'll want a big budget for paid multi-language advertising to bring people to that website, and for sales people too to qualify the leads ? That would consume our entire budget without any contribution back. Either way - given that the same website sells Online but not Desktop, despite advertising both, my suggestion would be that making people aware that they shouldn't be running large un-supported deployments - is a leading factor here. > The last thing any business owner wants to hear from a current > customer is "I went with company x, because I didn't know you > provided that service." I think that's the fundamental problem here; getting the word out effectively that the services around LibreOffice exist, and that buying them is good for the customer, good for the codebase, so good for all our users, and good for the community. ATB, Michael. -- michael.me...@collabora.com <><, GM Collabora Productivity Hangout: mejme...@gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks (M) +44 7795 666 147 - timezone usually UK / Europe -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
On 2020/07/14 10:41, Michael Meeks wrote: > On 12/07/2020 20:32, toki wrote: >> On 2020/07/08 12:40, Michael Meeks wrote: >>> I think Thorsten stated more cleanly as: >>> >>> "The market for desktop libreoffice is tough; >>> sales cycles frequently count in multiple years" >> >> I'd blame the lack of sales on Collabora having a really >> bad website > > So, if getting sales is only a function of a really good website I think it was Brian Tracy who wrote if your website can't sell the qualified prospect, it needs to be redesigned. For a previous generation, Joe Girard wrote that the presentation you create, should have the suspect reaching for the pen to sign off on the deal, before they had finished looking at it. Websites provide a first impression, and if that impression is negative, that is the end of the story. You never hear from those suspects. Learning that the website automatically disqualified the firm, is something that an organisation rarely directly hears from the former suspect, and is even more rarely believed by the board. Third party surveys consistently indicate that a bad website loses business. It literally doesn't matter if the firm is B2B or B2C orientated. >Beyond that - creating, maintaining and translating a website into a handful >of languages is an expensive hobby. When you don't know if the pricing is US dollars or Canadian dollars, you've got an issue. (Years ago, Howard Stern paid one of the bubble-headed bleach blondes he specialises in interviewing, a billion Zimbabwean dollars, for her appearance. She was so excited about receiving so much money, she never stopped to convert it to US$. It was just under US$100, which was well below the usual appearance fee.) Budget US$100,000 per language per year, for a multilingual website. This is addition to the cost of designing and maintaining the website. Before adding languages, look at both the financial ROI, and PR value. Will the language generate at least US$1,000,000 in additional business each year? IOW, will adding a page in say, Flemish, generate US$10,000,000 in additional revenue, over the next decade. Revenue that the organisation would not have had, had the Flemish pages not existed? >> Is that the online edition, or the desktop >> edition? Is that Tier 1 or Tier 2 support? > >Worth digging out my mail on the counter-intuitive negatives of answering all >questions on your web-page That gets into the "how much information is too much information" debate. Enough information to qualify the suspect as a prospect, discourage the tire-kicker, and not get struck off, because it appears that the organisation can't solve the suspect's problem. The last thing any business owner wants to hear from a current customer is "I went with company x, because I didn't know you provided that service." jonathon -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
Hi Jonathon, On 12/07/2020 20:32, toki wrote: > On 2020/07/08 12:40, Michael Meeks wrote: >> I think Thorsten stated more cleanly as: >> >> "The market for desktop libreoffice is tough; >> sales cycles frequently count in multiple years" > > I'd blame the lack of sales on Collabora having a really > bad website So, if getting sales is only a function of a really good website - I would really suggest that you enter the market, make a fortune -and- contribute that back to LibreOffice =) all are welcome in the ecosystem. Beyond that - creating, maintaining and translating a website into a handful of languages is an expensive hobby. Another (fading) problem is that what most of us love to do is to write FLOSS code that improves our customers' lives and to contribute it to LibreOffice =) You're right - we probably should spend less on that, and more on finding FLOSS-friendly people that like to produce polished marketing copy (CV's to my inbox) - but perhaps you can forgive the imbalance. > Is that the online edition, or the desktop > edition? Is that Tier 1 or Tier 2 support? Worth digging out my mail on the counter-intuitive negatives of answering all questions on your web-page =) ATB, Michael. -- michael.me...@collabora.com <><, GM Collabora Productivity Hangout: mejme...@gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks (M) +44 7795 666 147 - timezone usually UK / Europe -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
On 2020/07/08 12:40, Michael Meeks wrote: > One clarification since it caused some private questions: > > On 07/07/2020 21:13, Michael Meeks wrote: >> Collabora - despite C'bra still putting a lot of work into >> LibreOffice Desktop, having an outstanding support capability, doing >> lots of marketing, being the largest code contributor to LibreOffice, >> and having lots of existing happy customers / references for desktop >> LibreOffice, ... etc. etc. >> >> We have not had -one- -single- -new- Collabora *Office* >> customer since 2018 - zero. > > I think Thorsten stated more cleanly as: > > "The market for desktop libreoffice is tough; >sales cycles frequently count in multiple years" I'd blame the lack of sales on Collabora having a really bad website (https://www.collaboraoffice.com), in respect to LibreOffice, Collabora Office, and CODE. Start with the (United States? Canadian? Caribbean?) $18/month/seat for an SMB. Is that the online edition, or the desktop edition? Is that Tier 1 or Tier 2 support? The Tier 3 support page is understandable, until you discover that despite asterisks, there is no definition of either "high" or "medium". It doesn't help that there are two grammatical errors on that page. (Since I'm being picky, there also is a spelling error on one of the other pages.) No pricing in British Pounds, despite being an English company?!?!?! >And of course for us Collabora Online is the tip of the spear for > investment & expected returns, with education being a key sector > currently. We have a growing set of customers there. Wandering through https://www.colaboraoffice.com, I would never have guessed that education was considered to be a key sector. Nor would I know that Collabora GovOffice is claimed to be a key component of their offerings. As far as education goes, Collabora looks like they have created plug-ins that easily enable IT to incorporate Collabora Online into various commonly used environments in the academic and corporate world. Not a mention of those plug-ins, or how they enhance each other, in either their testimonials or white paper. Is TDF/LibreOffice supposed to be doing marketing for and on behalf of Collabora, Multiracio, etc? jonathon -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
Am 08.07.20 um 16:44 schrieb Kev M: > I also think someone earlier referenced that this could be > interpreted as being against the TDF bylaws, so those might need to > be changed anyway. This is a big part of the problem because this is exactly an option that cannot be done - at least not in a way that will not end in a situation in which ~all assets of the TDF get lost. -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen Uwe Altmann -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
What I would like to have is something like an >>I love your work button<< when you add somewhere on forum, ask, bz, release notes, (everywhere) a name of a community member you can click on the name come to his webpage where you can click a like button or maybe an donate button. It's not like a community member will think I want to have money, it's more like someone (I didn't know) like my work, so I contribute more to LibO. Am Mi., 8. Juli 2020 um 17:03 Uhr schrieb Kev M : > What if as part of the $5 (or $2, something accessible) annual co-op > membership with Libreoffice you got access to the support forums? Those who > wanted to spend the time to help support the project to provide free tech > support to others would feel good knowing that the people they were helping > were giving back to Libreoffice by being a co-op member, and those who were > receiving one-off technical support would have to pay for the membership to > get access to the support forum. > > Yes there would still be reddit and other channels, but knowing that using > the forum to provide support might push those altruistic people to only use > the forums to give support, and this could snowball into a larger > membership. > > Just a thought I had rereading what I wrote. There's digital real estate > here that can be monetized in a privacy respecting, non-community killing > way that will also benefit eco-system partners IMO. > > On 08/07/2020 10:44 Kev M wrote: > > > Hopes this works as I've never used a mailing list before.. > > 1) I'm making the assumption, not having this information, that Collabora > Office is cheaper than Microsoft Office and other Office Suite software. > How much cheaper is it? If it's just as functional as competitors but it is > less expensive, and has other advantages, there is a profit-making market > for it: > > 1) a) This is that it is open source, and can be reviewed and audited for > security gaps. In Canada, Europe, Russia, and other countries there is a > significant concern that geopolitics in entering into the realm of > technology. Governments are becoming more concerned about the USA and China > installing monitoring software for political and industrial espionage > reasons. > > Why does Collabora not position itself as a secure/open-source/auditable > solution to security issues. Isn't this the reason the German federal > government chose Nextcloud, and the reason the Italian military chose > Libreoffice? > > 1) b) To that point, Michael you raised points about the UK and French > governments not paying for Libreoffice. This is surprising to me and > shameful IMO. These would be large, relatively sustainable contracts to > pursue, and I would suggest that working more with the FSFE's Public Money > Public Code initiative, and presenting it to them from the perspective of; > you're using things, we're having trouble sustaining it, we're hoping you > will purchase, will be a potentially successful strategy. That or do they > get that Collabora is the premiere developer and TDF isn't developing this > for free? If they've already institutionalized the software it might be > worth tugging at the rug under them a bit and telling them the project may > not be able to continue as a going entity because the contractor they used > is not providing any contributions to the development of the software. But > this leads to my later point about trustmarks. > > 1) c) Does Collabora and/or the TDF not have a dedicated government > relations advocacy employee in Europe/North America/Other market countries? > There are many discussions that occur at the government relations level > that lead to contracts and exposure of opportunities to companies. > > 2) That the TDF is not adequately promoting it's enterprise vendors is a > failure of the TDF's marketing committee and the contractors that they > hired. I have followed LO and AOO for years now and I've noticed that the > TDF marketing committee is unwilling to promote LibreOffice in modern ways. > There seems to be a lack of focus on communities outside the FOSS > environment, which doesn't make sense because it's like setting up a booth > to advertise bibles at a religious convention. Why does Libreoffice focus > on attending FOSS conferences instead of International Government > conferences? The NGOs that use LibreOffice for free would be obliged to let > Libreoffice attend the WEF, Davos, and other places. Is there the potential > that the leadership of the Marketing at TDF is not thinking out of the box, > or too small? > > 3) SaaS model - recognizing that all the costs you just listed to set up > small clients is cost prohibitive and that you would need to get 10,000+ > clients for it to be viable -- I would only suggest that because it's hard > and maybe expensive doesn't preclude the idea that this may be one of the > best options to generate sustainable income. > > 3) a) Personally I was excited at the opportunity to pay for LibreOffice > support
Re: [board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
What if as part of the $5 (or $2, something accessible) annual co-op membership with Libreoffice you got access to the support forums? Those who wanted to spend the time to help support the project to provide free tech support to others would feel good knowing that the people they were helping were giving back to Libreoffice by being a co-op member, and those who were receiving one-off technical support would have to pay for the membership to get access to the support forum. Yes there would still be reddit and other channels, but knowing that using the forum to provide support might push those altruistic people to only use the forums to give support, and this could snowball into a larger membership. Just a thought I had rereading what I wrote. There's digital real estate here that can be monetized in a privacy respecting, non-community killing way that will also benefit eco-system partners IMO. > On 08/07/2020 10:44 Kev M wrote: > > > Hopes this works as I've never used a mailing list before.. > > 1) I'm making the assumption, not having this information, that Collabora > Office is cheaper than Microsoft Office and other Office Suite software. How > much cheaper is it? If it's just as functional as competitors but it is less > expensive, and has other advantages, there is a profit-making market for it: > > 1) a) This is that it is open source, and can be reviewed and audited for > security gaps. In Canada, Europe, Russia, and other countries there is a > significant concern that geopolitics in entering into the realm of > technology. Governments are becoming more concerned about the USA and China > installing monitoring software for political and industrial espionage reasons. > > Why does Collabora not position itself as a secure/open-source/auditable > solution to security issues. Isn't this the reason the German federal > government chose Nextcloud, and the reason the Italian military chose > Libreoffice? > > 1) b) To that point, Michael you raised points about the UK and French > governments not paying for Libreoffice. This is surprising to me and shameful > IMO. These would be large, relatively sustainable contracts to pursue, and I > would suggest that working more with the FSFE's Public Money Public Code > initiative, and presenting it to them from the perspective of; you're using > things, we're having trouble sustaining it, we're hoping you will purchase, > will be a potentially successful strategy. That or do they get that Collabora > is the premiere developer and TDF isn't developing this for free? If they've > already institutionalized the software it might be worth tugging at the rug > under them a bit and telling them the project may not be able to continue as > a going entity because the contractor they used is not providing any > contributions to the development of the software. But this leads to my later > point about trustmarks. > > 1) c) Does Collabora and/or the TDF not have a dedicated government > relations advocacy employee in Europe/North America/Other market countries? > There are many discussions that occur at the government relations level that > lead to contracts and exposure of opportunities to companies. > > 2) That the TDF is not adequately promoting it's enterprise vendors is a > failure of the TDF's marketing committee and the contractors that they hired. > I have followed LO and AOO for years now and I've noticed that the TDF > marketing committee is unwilling to promote LibreOffice in modern ways. There > seems to be a lack of focus on communities outside the FOSS environment, > which doesn't make sense because it's like setting up a booth to advertise > bibles at a religious convention. Why does Libreoffice focus on attending > FOSS conferences instead of International Government conferences? The NGOs > that use LibreOffice for free would be obliged to let Libreoffice attend the > WEF, Davos, and other places. Is there the potential that the leadership of > the Marketing at TDF is not thinking out of the box, or too small? > > 3) SaaS model - recognizing that all the costs you just listed to set up > small clients is cost prohibitive and that you would need to get 10,000+ > clients for it to be viable -- I would only suggest that because it's hard > and maybe expensive doesn't preclude the idea that this may be one of the > best options to generate sustainable income. > > 3) a) Personally I was excited at the opportunity to pay for LibreOffice > support via Collabora as an individual. I couldn't, because I needed to have > several employees first to justify it. Instead I donate to TDF, but > apparently this money is holed up in a bureaucratic bunker because of issues > of distribution. There's a couple problems here: 1) It suggests the TDF needs > a regulatory review to streamline it's operations. 2) again, the TDF isn't > being proactive enough - are the people wo
[board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
Hopes this works as I've never used a mailing list before.. 1) I'm making the assumption, not having this information, that Collabora Office is cheaper than Microsoft Office and other Office Suite software. How much cheaper is it? If it's just as functional as competitors but it is less expensive, and has other advantages, there is a profit-making market for it: 1) a) This is that it is open source, and can be reviewed and audited for security gaps. In Canada, Europe, Russia, and other countries there is a significant concern that geopolitics in entering into the realm of technology. Governments are becoming more concerned about the USA and China installing monitoring software for political and industrial espionage reasons. Why does Collabora not position itself as a secure/open-source/auditable solution to security issues. Isn't this the reason the German federal government chose Nextcloud, and the reason the Italian military chose Libreoffice? 1) b) To that point, Michael you raised points about the UK and French governments not paying for Libreoffice. This is surprising to me and shameful IMO. These would be large, relatively sustainable contracts to pursue, and I would suggest that working more with the FSFE's Public Money Public Code initiative, and presenting it to them from the perspective of; you're using things, we're having trouble sustaining it, we're hoping you will purchase, will be a potentially successful strategy. That or do they get that Collabora is the premiere developer and TDF isn't developing this for free? If they've already institutionalized the software it might be worth tugging at the rug under them a bit and telling them the project may not be able to continue as a going entity because the contractor they used is not providing any contributions to the development of the software. But this leads to my later point about trustmarks. 1) c) Does Collabora and/or the TDF not have a dedicated government relations advocacy employee in Europe/North America/Other market countries? There are many discussions that occur at the government relations level that lead to contracts and exposure of opportunities to companies. 2) That the TDF is not adequately promoting it's enterprise vendors is a failure of the TDF's marketing committee and the contractors that they hired. I have followed LO and AOO for years now and I've noticed that the TDF marketing committee is unwilling to promote LibreOffice in modern ways. There seems to be a lack of focus on communities outside the FOSS environment, which doesn't make sense because it's like setting up a booth to advertise bibles at a religious convention. Why does Libreoffice focus on attending FOSS conferences instead of International Government conferences? The NGOs that use LibreOffice for free would be obliged to let Libreoffice attend the WEF, Davos, and other places. Is there the potential that the leadership of the Marketing at TDF is not thinking out of the box, or too small? 3) SaaS model - recognizing that all the costs you just listed to set up small clients is cost prohibitive and that you would need to get 10,000+ clients for it to be viable -- I would only suggest that because it's hard and maybe expensive doesn't preclude the idea that this may be one of the best options to generate sustainable income. 3) a) Personally I was excited at the opportunity to pay for LibreOffice support via Collabora as an individual. I couldn't, because I needed to have several employees first to justify it. Instead I donate to TDF, but apparently this money is holed up in a bureaucratic bunker because of issues of distribution. There's a couple problems here: 1) It suggests the TDF needs a regulatory review to streamline it's operations. 2) again, the TDF isn't being proactive enough - are the people working there the right people to accomplish the organizations mission, or are we just being polite because they've been loyal for a long time. In that case we might be looking at an old boys club situation. 3) b) In some non-profits, there is no ability to donate directly, the foundation is supported by the enterprise companies based on the profit they make. Could the TDF create a certification body with a Trustmark that says only these companies are able to provide enterprise support for Libreoffice. Meaning the TDF does not sanction other vendors slapping on Libreoffice to their solution and hoping it gets updated to fix bugs by Collabora and CIB, etc. These certified companies would then pay for the certification on an ongoing basis to remain in good standing, as well as donate to the TDF to maintain its operations. This would also have the effect of keeping TDF staff more accountable to metrics set by a small group of knowledgeable individuals. (Something would have to be done for keeping community representation available to unaffiliated citizens such as myself. Haven't thought that far.) 3
[board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
One clarification since it caused some private questions: On 07/07/2020 21:13, Michael Meeks wrote: > Collabora - despite C'bra still putting a lot of work into > LibreOffice Desktop, having an outstanding support capability, doing > lots of marketing, being the largest code contributor to LibreOffice, > and having lots of existing happy customers / references for desktop > LibreOffice, ... etc. etc. > > We have not had -one- -single- -new- Collabora *Office* > customer since 2018 - zero. I think Thorsten stated more cleanly as: "The market for desktop libreoffice is tough; sales cycles frequently count in multiple years" which I agree with. Of course - we have also sold some seats of LibreOffice Vanilla for Mac in the app-store, which is desktop & has let us fix a number of Mac bugs. That's about 5% of C'bras income / expenditure. Some people kindly offered to buy some seats. Sadly the transaction cost (outside an app-store) of selling to an individual, or handful of users is very significant: sales time, invoicing, accounting, account setup, software setup, responding to tickets etc. makes this loss-making for less than several 10's of users or pre-paid multi-year commitments. > => so it makes no economic sense at all to invest in > -Desktop- Libreoffice you will never see a return. > > That is manageable - we are investing heavily in creating > Online and that is going well, and it funds our work on LibreOffice. And of course for us Collabora Online is the tip of the spear for investment & expected returns, with education being a key sector currently. We have a growing set of customers there. That as well as some intermittent consultancy pieces lets us work on improving lots of things in the LibreOffice core for our users. HTH, Michael. -- michael.me...@collabora.com <><, GM Collabora Productivity Hangout: mejme...@gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks (M) +44 7795 666 147 - timezone usually UK / Europe -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
[board-discuss] Re: Some problems..
https://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/vendor-neutral-marketing.html Yes I agree there are some problems. Michael Meeks. But attempting to fix those problems is not a valid reason to make an individual version as this creates more problems. Collabora really is forking the brand making their own brand of Libreoffice. Same with the Linux Distributions and all the different LTS versions. Sorting out the Linux Distribution problem is really a huge problem in itself by the end of this there is a path to profit that does start to fix this.Why the different LTS versions will be why X user of X distribution at times will have problems sharing a document with Y user on Y distribution. . I have no problem with a LibreOffice Enterprise and LibreOffice Community. I have no problem with the about dialog and/or installer heck even space out the toolbar being use to advertise that you are using a non commercial version and where to buy a supported commercial version. But this has not really be doable without a LibreOffice Enterprise product. https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/jzryGw7XDkJadmo#pdfviewer Page 35 >>Ecosystem members providing a LibreOffice Enterprise version should >>coordinate their announcements with the LibreOffice Project This reads like branding where each existing vendor makes their own LibreOffice Enterprise versions with different features and different levels of compatibility. We have distributions all ready undermining the libreoffice experience doing this. We don't need commercial support side doing this as well long term either. Say we look at this position more carefully look at what competitors and FOSS projects in the same boat have done that is successful . Look what Microsoft has done to give us some base. Microsoft turned out they were not making as much money as they expected from MS office installed on personal machines as they expected. How did they fix this. Cloud services. Another one is blender. Application is free but if you want access to training and resources you pay a monthly cloud access fee. Adobe is another with their creative cloud as a marketplace.. Libreoffice online could be used by TDP and partners to provide a software as service competing Microsoft Office online and Google Docs. If this was under the Libreoffice Enterprise branding a percentage of this income can come back to TDP. Libreoffice has a problem getting extensions and templates and documentation and training videos There is no money system here this area has not been monetised. There is nowhere for people to sell their content so there is no major reward to create this content either. There are a lot of places with Libreoffice to make a lot of money that are currently not monetised. The want by the commercials parties like your Collabera who Micheal Meeks works for is going the wrong way. Yes, a lot of this monetise process requires the TDP really to take the lead backed by the commercial parties not the current commercial parties take the lead and expect TDP to follow. This Libreoffice Personal edition is really the wrong way. You want to have as many people install Libreoffice as possible and you want to be offering something where they can pay and get something so profit. If I am paying a professional party like Collabera does that payment give me access to more templates, images, documentation that are integrated so I can be more productive? Lets say I buy my office suite from another libreoffice fork vendor. I get different stuff right and Collabera has no chance to profit from that user unless they change right. See Michael Collabera is not getting access to every customer they could sell what they are making for Libreoffice today because there is no market place that all Libreoffice users can access to buy parts of your product that is integrated into the provided client. So the problem is not just bad for TDP because they cannot get a percentage on the sales in the marketplace/cloud those providing support items are missing out on sales as well. So everyone is short on cash here. Lot of talk of how we can market Libreoffice. This risks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and you get tempted to poison the item on the other side of the fence instead of fixing what you are doing on your side wrong. LibreOffice Personal edition instead of Community is really poison what is on the other side of the fence. Looking at providing something like a blender cloud/adobe cloud that the enterprise version has access to with coded into the enterprise client integration and even in the Community edition. Of course the Community edition could show content for the enterprise version and that if they had the enterprise version this would be buyable . There are ways to split the community and enterprise versions without having to say 1 version is not for enterprise or is for individuals. Reality: this requires focus on making
[board-discuss] Re: Some problems.
Hi This is my feedback from a community member point of view. * LibreOffice is at serious risk If I need help as a community contributor I get a lot of feedback from Heiko which is fine and very welcome. If I need coding support it's not that easy cause there is no person from TDF who will support contributors with coding work. So I can do whatever I want - which is fine - however I can do it myself - which will blog for example design group ideas from < 2015. So we need more developers. Sometimes people from the ecosystem do help (me) for good will. * How to pay for LibreOffice development? On the libreoffice.org download page users can pay for LibreOffice or get it for free. TDF gets the money from the donations (1.5 million), but how do they donate? Enterprises or private/home users? I got the feedback that private users donate to TDF enterprises using LibreOffice for free without donation. Would you donate for LibreOffice if you work for the Cabinet Office in the UK? I would say, the employer thinks that the Cabinet pays for LibreOffice. No employer would donate to the software the enterprise offers. So TDF didn't get money for the future of LibreOffice from enterprises. But the ecosystem partners have developers who add new features to LibreOffice and these features get paid from enterprises. Yes the features get paid otherwise they won't get implemented. Since 2018 Colabora didn't sold the Colabora Office suite on the desktop. How will pay for features when there are no employers? The French government uses LibreOffice and has a support company. That's perfect, but the support company is no ecosystem partner so there is no upstream work. Even worse they write bug reports to BZ and hope that volunteers (or an ecosystem partner) fix them. So for me it looks like private/home users donate to LibreOffice and support the work but enterprises forget to give some revenue back. Is this ok? * Can there be a solution? Sure there is one big solution: LibreOffice the brand name. 10 years after OpenOffice there is the LibreOffice brand and as written it stands for good quality. So let's use it. + Download page Compare the following download pages: LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/ NextCloud: https://nextcloud.com/install/ In LibreOffice you have the download link and when the download starts you go to the donaten page. In NextCloud you have the different platforms AND Providers, Enterprise Solutions and many more. There is a direct link between free download link and company support. Nobody will say NextCloud is open core, but NextCloud promotes the complete ecosystem on the download page. It would be a simple change to have the TDF download AND ecosystem downloads on the LibreOffice.org webpage all together. + LibreOffice Brand LibreOffice brand is very good. But if you look at the windows store for example there are LibreOffice apps you can pay for but they don't give any revenue back to LibreOffice. French government support companies give and revenue back, ... it's hard for ecosystem partners to win government tenders cause they have to fight against companies that use LibreOffice for free and don't support future development. Here my idea is to use the LibreOffice Brand. If you see LibreOffice at enterprises there should be an enterprise edition installed which can have the same features as the TDF LibreOffice edition, but the enterprise means that it will come from an TDF ecosystem partner. Maybe the enterprise edition has LTS or an easier update feature or better integration with the enterprise software landscape, ... whatever the ecosystem partners plan to offer on the libreoffice.org download page. Working together is the way FOSS works best. LibreOffice is a success story but the target is the flagship project from Microsoft, so we need all resources to be competitive. cheers Andreas_K
