Re: [board-discuss] Initiative to improve communication channels
Hi Daniel, [sry for the repetition, missed this public mail initially] Daniel Armando Rodriguez wrote: > In my opinion, and based on recent experience, I consider it necessary for > TDF to be open to community participation in a more modern and accessible > way to everyone. > I agree. The recent discussions where spread across a lot of places. > In this sense, it is clear that the use of mailing lists, IRC/Telegram > channels does not allow to reach the majority of LibreOffice users, free > software advocates and community members and that is why I would like to > propose the adoption of a platform that favours participation, debate, > interaction and collaborative elaboration of lines of action between TDF and > the community. > 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? Cheers, -- Thorsten signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[board-discuss] "Personal Edition" opinion
Dear board, I am not against the discussion about "editions", however I find the current implementation to be very unhelpful and misleading. "Intended for individual use" part will be misunderstood as "forbidden for not individual use", discouraging the users. I understand the motivation to promote the enterprise version to bring more money/contributors, but please consider also my point of view: when volunteering, part of my motivation is that everyone (including biggest companies) can use the product with no legal or even moral duty to contribute whatever back. This is the beauty of free software and I can't agree if the opposite approach is emphasized so much as in this case. Best regards, Stanislav -- 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] Feedback "Personal Edition"
Thank you Bjoern, very appreciated and retweeted ;-) Paolo On 08/07/2020 20:44, Bjoern Michaelsen wrote: > Hello TDF board, all, > > since the board asked for feedback on the "Personal Edition" tagline and it > was > already amply provided by others, allow me to add my old contributor voice to > this choir of opinions: > > https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1280753358605881352.html > > Its short and fits in four tweets, so it wont steal much of your time. > > Thanks for your consideration. > > Best, > > Bjoern > -- 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 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
[board-discuss] Feedback "Personal Edition"
Hello TDF board, all, since the board asked for feedback on the "Personal Edition" tagline and it was already amply provided by others, allow me to add my old contributor voice to this choir of opinions: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1280753358605881352.html Its short and fits in four tweets, so it wont steal much of your time. Thanks for your consideration. Best, Bjoern -- 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] Regarding the label "Personal Edition"
Hi, Paolo Vecchi wrote on 08/07/2020 19:31: > LibreOffice is, unfortunately, taken for granted by many which use it > also in large organisations, which may have the resources for > contributing to it, as they see it simply as a great office suite they > can get for free. > > Nothing wrong with having LibreOffice for free but if a large > organisation or government, with appropriate means, uses it without > keeping it up to date and with proper support is not only bad practice > but also disrespectful towards all the people that invest time and money > in it. And it further breaks down resources, that are badly needed for many areas in where the product needs improvements. > Maybe calling it LibreOffice Community Edition could help in getting the > message through and those organisations will start contributing or > getting proper support from the members of the Enterprise ecosystem. I have no idea how that will have that effect. > In terms of text for the about window, what do you think about "You are > using the Community version of LibreOffice, for supported business use > consider LibreOffice Enterprise products and services."? " For larger scale professional use, we advise LibreOffice Enterprise products and support, which also helps vital funding of LibreOffice development. " More explicit what we want and why we need it. Greetings, Cor -- Cor Nouws GPD key ID: 0xB13480A6 - 591A 30A7 36A0 CE3C 3D28 A038 E49D 7365 B134 80A6 - vrijwilliger https://nl.libreoffice.org - volunteer https://www.libreoffice.org - Member Board The Document Foundation - marketing @CollaboraOffice - ceo www.nouenoff.nl - initiator www.mijncloudoffice.nl -- 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] Regarding the label "Personal Edition"
Thanks for your suggestions Aravind. Adding a tag to LibreOffice is not unavoidable, that's why we are looking for feedback from the Community. However, we feel that there is a need to clearly state that LibreOffice is a Community effort and that those that can should participate to this effort. LibreOffice is, unfortunately, taken for granted by many which use it also in large organisations, which may have the resources for contributing to it, as they see it simply as a great office suite they can get for free. Nothing wrong with having LibreOffice for free but if a large organisation or government, with appropriate means, uses it without keeping it up to date and with proper support is not only bad practice but also disrespectful towards all the people that invest time and money in it. Maybe calling it LibreOffice Community Edition could help in getting the message through and those organisations will start contributing or getting proper support from the members of the Enterprise ecosystem. In terms of text for the about window, what do you think about "You are using the Community version of LibreOffice, for supported business use consider LibreOffice Enterprise products and services."? Does it convey the message properly? Ciao Paolo On 08/07/2020 11:31, Aravind Palla wrote: > The label "Personal Edition" mentioned in the LibreOffice Development > branch stating that it is intended for individual use, I feel is a > wrong direction in which the office suite is heading. > > The term "Personal Edition" and the terminology "intended for > individual use" strongly demotivates the office suite to be used by > even small offices apart from big enterprises. > > I request the board to consider the following: > > * Kindly do not add the tag "Personal Edition" and do not add any > labels and only name the commercial suite as "LibreOffice - > Enterprise Edition". > * If at all naming the free suite is unavoidable, I request to name > the free suite as "LibreOffice - Community Edition" and not as > personal edition. > * Further, I request to not use terminology like "intended for > individual use". Instead, the Community Edition (if named) can be > described as developed by volunteers and comes with no enterprise > support (something similar to this), so that the Enterprise > Edition (if named) can be described like comes with support, etc. > > Thanks & regards, > Aravind Palla -- 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 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [board-discuss] There is no such thing as "enterprise" // Suggestion for change of marketing plan
Hi Gerry, as you very well stated LibreOffice is being used by all sorts of individuals and organisation of all types and sizes which is fantastic but it makes it also difficult to get the right message to the right people. That's why we are working with the various teams and consulting the Community to create an effective marketing plan which would allow us to reach more potential users while keeping in mind that we are a non-for-profit organisation. LibreOffice Enterprise is not a product but an umbrella for the ecosystem partners, which we need to support, which in turn offer their own services supporting all the diverse type of organisations. If they want to offer $TheirBrand Premium as they have the skills and contribute back to the LibreOffice project then they are welcome to the ecosystem. LibreOffice $Flavour may be useful to start creating a demarcation between the best Free and Open Source Office suite that we all love to use from the LibreOffice based offerings that should be used in an enterprise environment where support, patching, integration, etc... are very important. Some may see LibreOffice Personal as too restrictive, I'm honestly one of them, but it would be nice to get to the point where organisations, government departments, schools and SMEs that can afford it contributes back to the project through development, donations and/or by getting their Enterprise version of LibreOffice from the ecosystem. I'm personally keen on starting with LibreOffice Community Edition to see if there are organisations that embrace the Community spirit and start contributing back how they can and others that prefer to use a product with Enterprise support which hopefully will look for the skills and services present in our ecosystem. Does it make sense to you? Ciao Paolo On 08/07/2020 13:08, ge...@public-files.de wrote: > Hi all, > > since the new marketing plan is heavily under discussion, I would like > to point to one term where the marketing plan is very imprecise: > > There is no such thing as a homogenous "enterprise" that leads to a > certain level of software support services needs or that is per se > 'suitable' for purchased licenses. If the marketing plan is based on > wrong assumptions, then it might be counterproductive. > > * You have not-for-profit/social enterprises and for-profit enterprises > * You have smallest (1 person), small, medium and large enterprises as > well as corporations > * You have start-ups and well established companies > * You have enterprises in low-, middle- and high-income countries > * You have dedicated open source enterprises and 'dedicated' closed > source enterprises > * You also have 'innovative" sub-units in medium/large enterprises > that push open source software in their enterprise > * You have other large entities that cannot simply be categorized > either, like cooperatives, parties, unions, associations, NGOs, > governmental/parastatal institutions, educational institutions. > > Concluding: An "enterprise edition" would be as misleading as a > "personal edition". Thus, my suggestion is to not differentiate by the > user profile, but rather by the user needs and service requirements. > > Suggestion: > We could leave the brand "LibreOffice" as it is (no "personal" and no > "community" tag; nothing that makes LO smaller as it is), but > establish a brand that really implies services, availability, > long-term support, security and extended software integrations. > Thus, why not establishing a LibreOffice brand for ecosystems > partners like: > * "LibreOffice 365" (the top brand as it includes hosted online, > mobile and supported desktop office; bluring the line between cloud > and desktop like MS does it) > * "LibreOffice Premium" (with premium support and (maybe extended) > desktop office suite), could also be "LibreOffice TS" (total support) > or "LibreOffice XP" > > Best, > Gerry > -- 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 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
[board-discuss] Initiative to improve communication channels
In my opinion, and based on recent experience, I consider it necessary for TDF to be open to community participation in a more modern and accessible way to everyone. In this sense, it is clear that the use of mailing lists, IRC/Telegram channels does not allow to reach the majority of LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members and that is why I would like to propose the adoption of a platform that favours participation, debate, interaction and collaborative elaboration of lines of action between TDF and the community. In this sense, the ticket https://redmine.documentfoundation.org/issues/3251 has been created in the interest to present alternatives to reach the proposed goal and get feedback from the community about the topic. Everyone is invited to participate. -- Daniel Armando Rodriguez, 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 -- 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
[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.)
[board-discuss] Regarding the label "Personal Edition"
The label "Personal Edition" mentioned in the LibreOffice Development branch stating that it is intended for individual use, I feel is a wrong direction in which the office suite is heading. The term "Personal Edition" and the terminology "intended for individual use" strongly demotivates the office suite to be used by even small offices apart from big enterprises. I request the board to consider the following: - Kindly do not add the tag "Personal Edition" and do not add any labels and only name the commercial suite as "LibreOffice - Enterprise Edition". - If at all naming the free suite is unavoidable, I request to name the free suite as "LibreOffice - Community Edition" and not as personal edition. - Further, I request to not use terminology like "intended for individual use". Instead, the Community Edition (if named) can be described as developed by volunteers and comes with no enterprise support (something similar to this), so that the Enterprise Edition (if named) can be described like comes with support, etc. Thanks & regards, Aravind Palla
[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] There is no such thing as "enterprise" // Suggestion for change of marketing plan
Hi all, since the new marketing plan is heavily under discussion, I would like to point to one term where the marketing plan is very imprecise: There is no such thing as a homogenous "enterprise" that leads to a certain level of software support services needs or that is per se 'suitable' for purchased licenses. If the marketing plan is based on wrong assumptions, then it might be counterproductive. * You have not-for-profit/social enterprises and for-profit enterprises * You have smallest (1 person), small, medium and large enterprises as well as corporations * You have start-ups and well established companies * You have enterprises in low-, middle- and high-income countries * You have dedicated open source enterprises and 'dedicated' closed source enterprises * You also have 'innovative" sub-units in medium/large enterprises that push open source software in their enterprise * You have other large entities that cannot simply be categorized either, like cooperatives, parties, unions, associations, NGOs, governmental/parastatal institutions, educational institutions. Concluding: An "enterprise edition" would be as misleading as a "personal edition". Thus, my suggestion is to not differentiate by the user profile, but rather by the user needs and service requirements. Suggestion: We could leave the brand "LibreOffice" as it is (no "personal" and no "community" tag; nothing that makes LO smaller as it is), but establish a brand that really implies services, availability, long-term support, security and extended software integrations. Thus, why not establishing a LibreOffice brand for ecosystems partners like: * "LibreOffice 365" (the top brand as it includes hosted online, mobile and supported desktop office; bluring the line between cloud and desktop like MS does it) * "LibreOffice Premium" (with premium support and (maybe extended) desktop office suite), could also be "LibreOffice TS" (total support) or "LibreOffice XP" Best, Gerry -- 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] Some problems.
On 07.07.20 22:13, Michael Meeks wrote: > ... > => 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. I highly value expertise and would never object marketing. But this differentiation between Personal and Enterprise seems barely to be a solution. So just to put this option on the table: Remove Online from the LibreOffice zoo and make it a commercial product. Good thing on this Personal Edition kerfuffle is that people discuss the marketing strategy. I suggest to keep listening and postpone any modification for 7.1. We run out of time to revert the PE patch. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
