Hi Thorsten! Thanks for your positive contribution which I agree with completely (although I do have a comment, see below).
On Thu, Feb 10, 2022 at 5:09 PM Thorsten Behrens <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi *, > > with the lively discussion ensuing here, it is perhaps worth sharing > my position ahead of the board call tomorrow: > > Paolo Vecchi wrote: > > Enable TDF to contribute more code to LibreOffice with in-house > developers > > to address our donors specific needs > > > I think it is worth considering, whether TDF should employ dedicated > developers. I'm not in general against it. > > It is putting the cart in front of the horse though, to start with: > > * we want TDF to contribute more code to LibreOffice > > and then follow with > > * therefore we must employ two developers > > I believe it is more productive to start thinking about what we want > to achieve, in order to fulfill our mission. It is therefore > encouraging to read some good thoughts about that (RTL/CTL, a11y, and > other under-developed areas with little ecosystem contributions). > > The board can then ponder what is the best way to achieve those goals, > relative to other demands. It is possible, but by no means certain, > that actually hiring specialised staff is indeed the most economic way > forward (e.g. for an area like a11y). > For Accessibility, my preference would be to tender for a specialist organisation to either triage accessibility bugs or implement capabilities for a fixed period followed by a performance review and re-tendering (possibly for a longer period). By doing that we would avoid having to also develop in-house engineering management and product accessibility expertise. This is beyond the current tendering practice in that we would ask the successful applicant to also direct and design their work. > > It should be noted though, also to manage expectations, that mastering > even a small area in LibreOffice takes many years to learn. So hiring > for a role has long-term implications then on which kind of tasks, > features or bugfixes can be done in-house. > > Cheers, > > -- Thorsten > -- *Simon Phipps* *TDF Trustee*
