LibreOffice community protests at promotion of paid-for editions

https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/07/libreoffice_community_protests_at_introduction/

by pjmlp • 6 years ago

60 12 6 years ago

You can read the discussion on the bug page itself: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486

This is an awful move by TDF. The wording ("The Personal edition is supported by volunteers and intended for individual use") is egregious: People who use LibreOffice on their work laptops because they don't want to use Word may find higher-ups scared by that that wording prohibiting that practice. If the point of contention is that companies that can afford it shouldn't use free community support, there are much better ways to put that. However, TDF says this is a part of their "marketing plan" for the next 5 years[1], so I don't see that changing.

[1] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/07/06/board-st...

squarefoot• 6 years ago

There are numerous examples of community developed software where they simply add something along "Professional support available for corporate use", without the inevitable negative impact of "supported by volunteers and intended for individual use". They could make money without ruining the product's perception, but apparently they don't care.

From their page at https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/

"The Document Foundation does not provide professional support services for LibreOffice. It does, however, develop and maintain a certification system for professionals of various kinds who deliver and sell services around LibreOffice."

There is where the problem lies, and where they should do something. Don't touch the product, just build a business around it.

rapnie• 6 years ago

I would be really disappointed if any of this would stay in the About box. Regarding alternative text I like Comment 25 [0] best, which suggests this text:

This software is developed by a team of volunteers and is supported by the community.
LibreOffice is Free Software and is made available free of charge. Please consider donating: https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/
For professional support services for LibreOffice, see https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/

[0] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486#c...

greatgib• 6 years ago

This move is very sad.

And it is also a very slippery slope. Let's not forget that the split between a free and a "commercial" version of OpenOffice by Oracle was one of the root causes of the uprising leading to the creation of the TDF.

And it is even worse not to communicate publicly but to reply that people should have followed the relevant mailing list.

We can only be grateful to Collabora and it's employees for the work they do/did on libre office. But somehow, I think that it is a betrayal to all the other individual contributors and the community that supported and advertised the project for years.

acqq• 6 years ago

And it is even worse not to communicate publicly but to reply that people should have followed the relevant mailing list.

From the article: "the community spotted changes to the code that broke the embargo". So it's really like:

“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

(from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams)

vms20591• 6 years ago

TDF could've avoided all this by not doing it in the first place. They sure would've known what the community's reaction was going to be.

Anyone contributing "a lot" (financial & technical), either Enterprise or individual, doesn't mean they can pull the project in their direction. If the project is community driven, then it stays that way.

Tired of Enterprises hijacking FLOSS projects, just because they contributed more in terms of development & finance. They still should be considered volunteers & thank them for their support, that's it. If they think that they aren't getting their deserved cut, then they no longer have to volunteer. If the project development wouldn't go at an accelerated pace, because enterprises weren't involved, so be it.

type0• 6 years ago

Vignoli said that "the ecosystem is not growing as much as the community." He also referred to "frictions" in the community, caused by tensions between the commercial and community project members, "which are not beneficial to the health of the project".

It's not beneficial and unfortunately TDF is making it worse. Essentially they are moving to Open Core model, a la Gitlab

Differentiating between free and commercial versions, and delaying release of the free version, could satisfy both sides, the presentation suggests.

That could not satisfy both sides, even suggesting it means that community would be a second class citizen regardless of how they wanna call it. This along with the recent moves from Qt company is attempts to have the cake and eat it too.

davb• 6 years ago

I do wonder just how much TDF benefit from other open source software. If the developers of the software they depend upon for their build toolchain, libraries within their product, text editors, web stack, development machine OS, web browsers (etc, etc) were to start these pressure tactics I'm sure it wouldn't be so well received and they wouldn't be crying that "during the last 10 years there has been a constant increase in the number of businesses using the free version without paying or giving back anything, and this has created issues for the project’s business model."

nix23• 6 years ago

That libreoffice is a big shot in your own knee.

-Why not offer Microsoft -> Libreoffice transfer services?

-A Special LTS version for Goverments/BigBusiness/Healthcare (FIPS Cert etc)

-ODF/libreoffice integration help into Applications

There is so much more you could do, but no going the easiest, boring and most counterproductive way is what you choose.

EDIT:

And maybe have a look at your own license:

2.6. Fair Use

This License is not intended to limit any rights You have under applicable copyright doctrines of fair use, fair dealing, or other equivalents.

kemonocode• 6 years ago

It's like they're begging for a third big fork. LibreOffice was born from OpenOffice back when it was in Oracle's hands to begin with, and I don't doubt that anyone opinionated and motivated enough would have many scruples to do it again.

colejohnson66• 6 years ago

For those unaware of the history:

Star Writer was created by Star Division. Sun bought them and renamed it StarOffice. StarOffice was open sourced as Open Office (later renamed to OpenOffice.org).

Oracle later bought Sun and renamed the merged StarOffice and OpenOffice.org to Oracle OpenOffice. Around that time, a fork of OpenOffice.org happened by many of the developers and LibreOffice was “born.”

Only a few years after the acquisition, in 2011, Oracle abandoned the project and donated the code to the Apache Foundation. Development continued as Apache OpenOffice, but it has never attained the popularity of LibreOffice.

Interestingly, there’s NeoOffice (for macOS only) that’s (currently) based on LibreOffice. It’s a commercial fork, but still GPL licensed.

WikiMedia has a nice “merge chart” of the various forks and mergers of StarOffice: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/StarOffi...

de_watcher• 6 years ago

It's not about "protest against promotion of paid-for editions", it's about an attack on the normal edition. The phrase "intended for individual use" or "intended for personal use" is highly damaging for everyone, it's like just straight up saying that the thing is inferior. Completely outrageous.

LibreOffice community protests at promotion of paid-for editions

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