Setting clear rules for TDF hosted projects and setting LibreOffice's community expectations

Hi all,

just in case you missed it the proposal to put LOOL in a kind of "attic" as it seems very few people are interested in it since it has been forked, has sparked a wider debate.

Please do take a bit of time to read the threads below so that you can make you minds up in what went wrong with LOOL and why we have to set clear rules for the projects we host and support.

For specific propositions related to what to do with LibreOffice Online and if is the case to continue to develop it as a TDF hosted project for the benefit of the LibreOffice community following our Statutes see also the new thread created by Marco Marinello:

https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00043.html

For the background information related to the issue at hand I've started adding my comments in the original thread here:

https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00029.html

The points I raised are related especially to the relationship between TDF and commercial organisations that are/have been benefiting from TDF infrastructure, support and brands to develop a project so that the investments from both parties creates not only a viable commercial product for the organisation but also delivers to the LibreOffice community a project published by TDF that is not only "available for use by anyone free of charge" but it's in a state where TDF can decide to support it and further invest in it in the long term.

The LOOL situation shows that it's important to become more self-reliant in terms of complex development and that if a commercial organisation is in control of a project hosted at TDF, using the LibreOffice brand and the efforts put in place by many individual contributors we need to know what happens to the project once it's market ready.

The major contributor to the LOOL project often stated that long terms stability is necessary to make investments in LibreOffice related projects and I've always fully agreed but that works both ways, TDF and all the contributors must know if the investments we put in will result also in a project that is "available for use by anyone free of charge", under which terms and with which eventual limitations.

Please do read the threads above where you may find many of the answers you may be thinking of and provide feedback so that together we can see which rules and clarifications we need to put in place to make sure that the investments we put in (in code, bug submission, translations, promotion, etc.) deliver value to all of us.

Ciao

Paolo