[marketing-dev] Re: ping

All,

The OpenOffice.org Community is obviously in a state of change.  I think a =
crucial element to us all moving ahead is to establish and then act on, in =
good faith, those areas where we=97OOo and LO communities (aspects of the s=
ame thing) can work together and reconcile differences.

Let me start by stating that we, Stefan Taxhet, Andr=E9 Schnabel, Florian E=
ffenberger, and I, will be holding a teleconference later this week to furt=
her put into place those things that need to be done to move ahead.

The Most Important Thing from my perspective, is that the broader community=
 understand that they are contributing to building this together, and coupl=
ed to that, that our users, public sector as well as individual consumers, =
and private companies big and small, have the confidence to continue using =
ODF implementations based on OpenOffice.org source.

I think that all of us here in OOo-land appreciate the problems OOo was bor=
n with and never really corrected, and that these relate as much to how cod=
e and other contributions are encouraged and also accepted (or not).  And I=
 think that to move forward, especially now in light of Oracle's 15 April a=
nnouncement, means that we can re-evaluate elemental procedures so that the=
 overall community can work together.

But the basic issues I referred to before still apply=97money, in short=97a=
nd on that subject, we need to hold fire and be patient. There are numerous=
 unknowns circulating, still. However, we can, and we shall, in the meanwhi=
le, talk.

To reiterate: My personal goal is to have a community project whose identit=
y is not a proxy for this or that company but the unique ensemble of all it=
s contributors, bound together by a common goal of building the best and mo=
st universally usable set of productivity tools implementing the ODF. And t=
hat we look to the future while tending to the present: satisfy the needs o=
f the desktop users but cock an eye to the sky and imagine ODF implementati=
ons that freely move us into Cloud.

-louis


On 2011-05-20, at 14:03 , Bernhard Dippold wrote:

> Hi Louis, all,
>=20
> it is great, that you still feel responsible for the OOo community -
> even if the way you perform this responsibility causes some thoughts...
>=20
> You have been Sun's OpenOffice.org Community Manager
> and later on Oracle's Community Manager until you left Oracle
> some months ago.
>=20
> As far as I know this post has never been open for election by the
> community, it has been given to you by your former
> employer and I don't know about it's validity after you left Oracle.
>=20
> But I want to address you as OpenOffice org community member - a communit=
y I myself feel affiliated for more than six years.
>=20
> Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
>> Hi,
>>=20
>> On 2011-05-13, at 04:39 , Ian Lynch wrote:
>>=20
>>> I know this might be a bit of an emotive topic for some, but
>>> wouldn't it be an idea to open up dialogue with the LibreOffice
>>> people? A split community was never an ideal situation from a
>>> simple logical point of view.
>=20
> A split had to be accepted when the foundation had been set up, but TDF
> has always been open to any contributor and invited not only Oracle but
> all the people hesitant to join a broader basis with less influence by
> single companies.
>=20
>>> Ok, there are emotional wounds to heal but talking about
>>> possibilities without any commitment on either side can't do any
>>> harm.
>=20
> I fully support any discussion between OOo and TDF community members.
> In my opinion our split community can be reunited quite easily, if
> everybody looks for the goals she/he has with our office suite and how
> we can achieve them.
>=20
>>> Maybe this is already happening?
>=20
> In an open community (or if you prefer: among two open communities) this
> should done on the mailing lists, so thank you for this question.
>=20
> Actually I hope that there will be more friendly discussion among TDF and=
 OOo community members, leading to the perception of positive interaction a=
nd common goals.
>>=20
>> Actually, Florian and I are discussing that exactly. The days of
>> stiff difference are over with; were over with when Oracle renounced
>> OOo as a revenue source. And in their lieu, discussions of
>> reconciliation.
>=20
> Sorry, not being a native speaker, I can't really understand what you're
> talking about - and Google translator doesn't help very much either.
>=20
> So you mean that the time where Florian was "persona non grata" for
> OpenOffice.org is over, because Oracle dropped commercial support for
> the community?
>=20
> And does reconciliation mean that you start to imagine, that the TDF
> founders might have been right in working on the ten year old vision of
> an independent foundation *before* Oracle might drop any support for the
> community?
>=20
> We still don't know if dropping commercial support means to close the
> entire infrastructure and sell the trademark to somebody else (I still
> hope they don't, but it is a monetary issue, and Oracle is said to be
> aware of costs and money).
>=20
> Without the Document Foundation our community's situation would be even
> more problematic.
>=20
> It took several months to create a working infrastructure - of course
> there are tasks not finished by now, but the infrastructure is able to pr=
ovide the product for download and support the community in their work.
>=20
>> To be sure, there are still personal differences. These are, to me,
>> not irrelevant but ought not to stop the development of the code by
>> the larger community.
>=20
> Every now and then during the last 10 years there have been personal diff=
erences, but they have always been considered less relevant than the work w=
e did and still do for our community.
>=20
> Code development is done by the larger community.
>=20
> While the gap created by the uncertainties after the Oracle announcement
> seems to get broader and broader with no visible release activities
> after beta1 for OOo3.4.0 (two days before this announcement), the
> community developers working on LibreOffice removed bugs (even quite
> visible bugs) on their version, so the development is going on.
>=20
>=20
>> What counts, what makes up, what comprises that larger community is
>> of some debate. We need a lot of money to develop the code.
>=20
> Right. We need corporate contributors. Some of the already contribute to
> LibreOffice, overcoming the hindrances of one main contributor with
> nearly unlimited control.
>=20
>> We need, that is, far more than LibreOffice or TDF or any single
>> company can probably provide.
>=20
> LibreOffice and TDF are no company, they just do, what we should have
> done earlier in the past: Provide a basis where contributors can do
> their work, where companies and corporations can share their interest,
> but know that none of them will have the force to define any rules or
> modify the foundations mission.
>=20
> Based on this ideas, TDF raised 50.000 Euro (mainly by small donations -
> probably users and small companies) in only 8 days.
>=20
> Imagine large corporations start to support the community, because they
> don't have to fear the influence of any single main sponsor - provide
> money, code contributors, helping out the community with other issues...
>=20
>> Figure more than 10M USD/annum.  That's to develop the code, test it,
>> distribute it, and move ahead into areas that go beyond the limits of
>> legacy.
>=20
> It's a challenge - but based on the efforts the community already did by
> creating TDF it is much more likely to be achieved than if the few
> people staying here try to raise such an amount on their own.
>>=20
>> Unfortunately, for something like OOo, a "community effort," still
>> needs huge buckets of money. It's not about corporations, per se.
>> It's about needing to get dedicated developers, one way or another,
>> working on the code, so that it can be reliably produced, and
>> satisfy the most demanding expectations.
>=20
> Right - that's what is done with LibreOffice.
>>=20
>> Meanwhile, I continue to drive ODF interest, and continue to
>> represent OOo at ODF events; and continue to represent, as much as I
>> can, as energetically as I can, to the world.
>=20
> You drive what?
>=20
> You still try to make the world believe that LibreOffice is nothing but
> Novell's contribution to Microsoft's universe because there is a very
> small area of code development based on a contract among them.
>=20
> You don't do ODF and the entire FOSS ecosystem a favor if you declare,
> that there would be no reliable alternative to MS Office anymore for
> people fearing that the lack of activity in the OOo project might cause
> their adoption to fail.
>=20
>> I have no animus toward LibreOffice, though I do have my share of
>> doubts;
>=20
> What you tell us here and in your blog, is much more than animus -
> please see below.
>=20
>> but my spirit is stamped with OOo, its community, its goal, of
>> providing reliable and reliably, the best productivity tools there
>> are to the most people.
>=20
> My goals have not changed during the last years, and I'm not alone -
> there is a large number of community members having spent hundreds or
> thousands of hours in their spare time for this community and its goals.
>=20
> But we don't insist on the name - it's the community's spirit that lives =
on.
>=20
> Create and maintain the best open source office productivity suite.
>=20
> Be part of the community that stands behind this suite and have
> influence by real merit: Every community member contributing for more
> than just a short period is able to elect the Board of Directors and be
> elected to it.
>=20
>>=20
>> -louis
>>=20
>>=20
>>>=20
>>> [...]
>>>=20
>>> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 9:21 PM, Louis Suarez-Potts
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>>=20
>>>> It is not even the case that other projects using OOo technology
>>>> have that much greater insight. They do not.
>=20
> This clearly addresses LibreOffice and TDF.
>=20
>>>> They may have more activity, but absent the energy of
>>>> production, there is no production of energy.
>=20
> And you tell the world that there would not be productive work over there?
>=20
> Together with the accusations against the Novell employees, ignorance of
> the large number of other developers, and repeatedly mentioning your
> "doubts" about LibreOffice you create an image that doesn't describes
> you as possible contact for reconciliation and re-unification of our
> large community.
>=20
> If Oracle wants to drop support for the infrastructure and code
> development (and I can't understand the cessation of the release cycle
> and the mailing list migration differently), this will be the only way
> to survive as the open source alternative to MS Office:
>=20
> Coordinate and integrate the community's work in both parts of the
> community back to the open and integrative community I love to work for
> during the last 6 years.
>=20
> But you are not the person I want to be represented by.
> I want to work together with the entire community in order to overcome
> this very dangerous situation not only for OpenOffice.org, but for the
> broader FOSS community and their acceptance in public too.
>=20
> Your comments, blogs and interviews don't show any integrative ideas,
> but try to damage LibreOffice and TDF on different levels instead of
> using the unique chance to re-unite our community leading to the highest
> strength and best position for our office suite in the current tangled
> situation.
>=20
> Best regards
>=20
> Bernhard
>=20
> PS: You probably know that I neither have any formal role in the OOo comm=
unity nor in TDF. This mail is just my personal opinion as community member=
 trying to further our office suite in any way I can.
> --=20
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