Replying from the smartphone. The LibreOffice Technology umbrella brand has been developed to group all products based on the LibreOffice transactional engine, independently from their origin and from details which are irrelevant for the end user such as file's headers.
Prohibiting its use would be against the spirit and the objectives of the marketing plan, and would kill it forever (the label Community has already killed half of it, by providing a wrong message to the project stakeholders). Best regards, Italo 25 Jun 2022 15:41:03 Paolo Vecchi <[email protected]>: > Hi Laszlo, > > thanks for your engagement. Just a few notes as I've been directly involved > in proposing to get the community to be more involved with LOOL and to enjoy > it's use while trying to agree with the major code contributor a mutually > beneficial way to do it. > > On 24/06/2022 17:27, [email protected] wrote: >> >> We need not only a security warning, but clear information that the >> recommended versions of LOOL are still CODE and Collabora Online >> (LibreOffice Technology (TM)). > > I respectfully disagree. > > We can surely promote the fact that there are members of the ecosystem that > provide support and other services that TDF does not provide for LibreOffice > Community on the desktop but then that's it. > > As we are not, yet, delivering to our community LOOL Community we don't have > a supported edition to recommend. CODE and Collabora Online are just other > products from a member of the ecosystem that at present have no TDF's hosted > community version to refer to. > > So at the end we cannot recommend an enterprise version of something we do > not publish. > >> >> A few months ago my corporate client wasted time and money because they >> didn't notice on the >> TDF site that LOOL is not actively developed. > > It was a very unfortunate outcome and but it's a long time that we promote > the fact that corporate clients should seek adequate support services. > > LOOL has been frozen, by a split board vote, due to the unilateral decision > of the major code contributor to fork and not contribute back. > > You will find in the board-discuss archives several threads that try to > explain how hard the board worked to provide more support to members of the > ecosystem and to find a mutually beneficial agreement but once we made good > our side the agreement the other side just walked out. > >> Thanks to the helpfulness of employees of >> Collabora Productivity, now they can test its fork with an up-to-date >> LibreOffice in their intranet, and >> started to contribute back to CODE (they have already been one of the >> biggest contributors >> of LibreOffice Desktop). > > It is good that your corporate client can enjoy the benefits of the combined > efforts in terms of code and lots of contributions from TDF and the wider > community. > > Your corporate client made anyway the right choice as, unless they have a > very capable team able to fix bugs and contribute back to a community project > as LOOL was, then they should get support from other parties. > >> >> Why do we need to emphasize that CODE/Collabora Online are the recommended >> versions (by TDF, too: >> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/LibreOffice_Online#Current_Status)? > > Thank you for pointing to that page that has been heavily edited since last > time I looked at it. > > It now seems to be an advertising page for products for which TDF doesn't > have a community counterpart so I wonder if those changes shouldn't be > reverted. > > >> Not only because LOOL was the idea and for the most part, product of >> Collabora Productivity, >> but because the original core LOOL developers still work for Collabora in >> the spirit of the >> free software: CODE is the only actively developed version of LOOL, and this >> is the only maintained >> version which contributes back to LibreOffice actively. > > LOOL has been "temporarily" frozen for a long time so or we take a decision > to bring it back to life, following suggestions that arrived in the past few > days, or there is no LOOL and as a consequence no alternatives to point to. > > OSSII seems to show that it is possible to have both a commercial and a > community version, a bit of a shame that we couldn't find an agreement with a > major contributor of LOOL. If it will be possible to create clear rules for > cooperation, which might also include synergies to improve CJK handling, then > that could be a commercial offering available for enterprise users. Needs > more investigation. > > Andreas options also requires investigation as it seems to involve > backporting of an Open Source project managed by a commercial provider. It > would be great to see if that commercial provider is also willing to > cooperate under clear rules so that we can refer back to their products for > enterprise users. > >> >>> >>> If after 12 months we don't see much activity then we could be certain >>> that the community is not really interested in working on LOOL. >>> >>> It would be great to know if others have other >>> takes/options/alternatives on this subject. >> >> I'm sure, the potential corporate contributors will prefer CODE/Collabora >> Online, so it's really important to inform them (and every LibreOffice >> users) correctly, like in https://collaboraonline.github.io/post/faq/. > > Corporate contributors surely prefer to have their projects/products/services > promoted, which TDF does for version that it hosts, but CODE/COOL do not > relate to LOOL any more so it should be up to them to market their own > products and services. > > Until we revive LOOL and we (re)create a community around it we should not > point to commercial versions of it. > >> >> As CODE/Collabora Online are LibreOffice Technology (TM), and for the >> healthy long-term LibreOffice development, I would like to see more >> contribution with Collabora Productivity. > > We should actually evaluate if those product should use the "LibreOffice > Technology" branding. > > When Collabora Productivity moved LOOL's code from TDF's repositories to > GitHub the first thing that it has done was to remove the header "This file > is part of the LibreOffice project" from all the files. > > Subsequently even the variables names have been renamed from LOOL to COOL. > > This, and other changes, show the intention of removing any indication that > the product COOL actually originated from LOOL and every indication that the > project was a result of a common effort which included TDF and the wider > community. > > >> In my opinion, as LOOL was, CODE is still the key for the survival of >> LibreOffice. > > CODE is now a product fully managed by a commercial contributor that decided > to sever all links from TDF in regards to that product so unless they finally > agree to join forces again and backport the code to LOOL there is nothing > much we can do about their product. > > On-line drafting tools are surely useful for many uses and users but there > are still billions of people that cannot/do not want to rely on Cloud > services to edit their documents so LibreOffice desktop with lots more > features and better usability will still be very much relevant for many years > to come. > > LOOL, and products based on it, is just one of the ways to offer on-line > collaborative editing so we may also want to investigate other ways to make > LibreOffice available on-line. > >> In the spirit of a successful free software contribution, respecting the >> decision of Collabora Productivity, TDF must help CODE development, as much >> as possible, for the sake of LibreOffice! > > Respect is a two way street, TDF kept its promises but the other party > decided to fork regardless. > > TDF invests in other Open Source software as it's the right thing to do and > we could evaluate joint investments if we had a LOOL to give to our community > but this time the rules of engagement should be very clear so that the third > party does not walk away after having benefited from TDF's and our > community's investments. > > >> As a first step, we shouldn't hijack future CODE users and as described >> above, future (and recent) LibreOffice users and contributors with false >> hopes and misleading information. > > When I accused people of creating false hopes and providing misleading > information in regards to LOOL, that pushed me to propose to have a properly > structured offering in collaboration with the major code contributor, I have > done it with lots of supporting evidence. > > You will find all the evidence in the board-discuss archives, in public board > meeting minutes and, as now you are a board member and you should take > decisions based on objective data, in board email exchanges that I'm very > happy to share with you. > > I do understand that you are a new member of the board and if you check your > emails you will notice that one of my first recommendations was not to limit > your choices on what you have been told but to verify things by looking for > the relevant objective data or you risk being mislead by narratives that > could be slightly biased. > >> >> Best regards, >> László > > Ciao > > Paolo > >> >>> >>> Ciao >>> >>> Paolo >>> >>> On 21/06/2022 21:14, Andreas Mantke wrote: >>>> Hi all, >>>> >>>> only a short info that I'm currently working on an update of the LOOL >>>> source code with the latest patches. Because I have an issue with my >>>> newly bought hardware I had to migrate my environment (etc.) to another >>>> hardware (will need some hours of spare time). Thus I was not able to >>>> finish my work during this week. >>>> >>>> If someone wants to join me, feel free to send me an email. >>>> Once the necessary bits are done, I'll come back and try to make a >>>> proposal for the further process to get LOOL back under the TDF umbrella. >>>> >>>> Regards, >>>> Andreas >>>> >>>> >>>> Am 21.06.22 um 14:15 schrieb Paolo Vecchi: >>>>> Hi all, >>>>> >>>>> just a heads up in case the community would like to come up with >>>>> proposals in regards to LibreOffice On-Line. >>>>> >>>>> As you might be aware LOOL's repository has been frozen since the >>>>> major code contributor decided to move it to GitHub and not contribute >>>>> back to TDF's repository. >>>>> >>>>> At the time there has been a debate about it but then nothing >>>>> actionable seems to have been proposed by the community since then. >>>>> >>>>> Recently an ex-member of the ESC proposed to the ESC to archive LOOL >>>>> [0] and during the following ESC meeting no concerns were expressed >>>>> for doing so [1]. >>>>> >>>>> The "Attic Policy" [2], that has been written to archive obsolete >>>>> projects, states that the Board will need to vote on the archival >>>>> process to confirm ESC's choice. >>>>> >>>>> It is likely that the board will need to vote on it soon so if the >>>>> community would like to do something with LOOL there might be a small >>>>> window of opportunity to have your preferences on what to do with it >>>>> heard. >>>>> >>>>> If nobody comes along proposing to look after it and update if so that >>>>> it could be brought back into an usable form for the community then >>>>> the board might have to vote for having LOOL archived. >>>>> >>>>> Ciao >>>>> >>>>> Paolo >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> [0] >>>>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2022-June/088982.html >>>>> [1] >>>>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2022-June/089018.html >>>>> [2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Policies/Attic >>>>> >>>> >>>> -- ## Free Software Advocate >>>> ## Plone add-on developer >>>> ## My blog: http://www.amantke.de/blog >>>> >>>> >> > -- > Paolo Vecchi - 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: [email protected] > 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 -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] 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
