Hi Paolo, dear BoD,
thank you for your email. I think your reply shows that the discussion on the marketing plan is very important, but that the current solution is premature, debatable and likely counter-productive. Given the need for this substantial discussion (see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]) on the topic, I strongly encourage the BoD to postpone this after version 7.0 in order to give time for a good and productive discussion. I am sure that there are much better ways to differentiate the vanilla version and the ecosystem/certified developers’ version, taking into account the needs of ecosystem partners. Otherwise a discussion under time pressure (before 7.0 beginning of August) may cause harm to the community that really no one wants.
[1] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486
[2] https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ (of course, this mailing list)
[3] https://libreoffice-dev.blogspot.com/2020/07/will-libreoffice-70-be-only-personal.html
[4] https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1191779-the-document-foundation-clarifies-libreoffice-7-0-s-personal-edition-branding
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/07/libreoffice_community_protests_at_introduction/
[6] https://linuxnews.de/2020/07/libreoffice-personal-edition/#comments
[7] https://www.golem.de/news/document-foundation-libreoffice-soll-private-und-kommerzielle-nutzung-trennen-2007-149520.html#comments
Best,
Gerry
Am 08.07.20 um 19:09 schrieb Paolo Vecchi:
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, gerry wrote:-- 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/privacyHi 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-- Paolo Vecchi - Deputy Member of the Board of DirectorsThe Document Foundation, Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, DEGemeinnützige rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen RechtsLegal details: https://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint
