[board-discuss] Commercial entity vs community development and distribution

Hi *,

Sophie suggested that I might want to raise what I perceive as an issue 
here on this list, that is connected, but not identical, to the issue 
relating to the Attic question, and the questions around the sidelining 
of features/functionality in commercially developed and distributed 
versions of LibreOffice / X entity branded products (X being the 
commercial entity).

As it is not directly related to the Attic question, I have started a 
new topic.

I am a business user of the LibreOffice software product, and for those 
who know me, or of me, I have been a long time community volunteer 
active in QA, and previously to that in the documentation projects. My 
focus within these projects has pretty much always been related to Base, 
and in line with my business activity, pretty much related to using 
LibreOffice on macOS.

My business is a small one, 4 to 5 machines, and is based essentially on 
various macOS machines (a combination of Mac minis and Macbook Pro 
devices).

I try, to the extent possible, to use LibreOffice versions made 
available through the AppStore.

On the one hand, it is suggested, on the LibreOffice download web page, 
to support the business solution providers if we use LibreOffice in a 
professional or commercial capacity. I believe that my business does 
this by using the versions provided via the AppStore.

Nonetheless, as a paying business of these versions, I am left in a 
quandary.

My business relies on daily use of database interactions, including the 
use of queries, forms, and to a lesser extent, reports. The business 
implements a number of different database solutions, ranging from 
mysql/mariadb/postgres server backends and/or embedded hsqldb (and 
hopefully when the functionality is finally of an equivalent scope, 
embedded Firebird).

It seems increasingly obvious that the provider of these commercial 
versions is not interested in maintaining database functionality and the 
supporting Java functionality that accompanies the Base module. The 
reasons for this may be perfectly valid commercially-focussed decisions, 
and not just linked to the specifics of the AppStore rules.

Be that as it may, the only way for my business activity to access the 
full range of database options is to use the TDF LibreOffice version, 
and even that is beginning to fail in a number of areas.

My take from all of this is that I foresee the macOS LibreOffice product 
becoming solely distributed by one entity in the long term, due to 
inaction, or passiveness from the Board to allow things to continue as 
they are. The current commercial entity, due to the business decisions 
it makes with regard to its own internal code development/maintenance 
strategy, then gets to choose which functions are maintained and which 
are deprecated.

I have been told variously and rather glibly in the past that an SLA 
would solve the problem - the fact is that the costs and provision of 
such a SLA from a vendor are neither transparent upfront, nor realistic 
for a small business with 5 seats. I also rather doubt that it would be 
satisfactory for the commercial entity as well.

From a business perspective, I may as well just switch to using 
Office365 or GoogleWorkplace at ca. 50EUR/month for the same 5 seats, 
and accept the limitations, and/or paying optional extra features that 
might be necessary to have an equivalent setup.

The question I have then for the Board is this :

- what is the Board going to do to address the issue of abandonment of 
features in commercially provided/branded versions of LibreOffice ?

If the attic solution is adopted for such abandoned features, does this 
mean that the TDF LO version for macOS would one day be put into that 
attic ? My current concern is that it might, or, as appears to be the 
case, it will be built off the commercial entity's build environment 
(this ties back to the questions around the LOOL project) and released 
with that reduced feature set.

Clearly, one can't force any commercial entity to do anything with 
regard to source code that is initially under an open source licence 
That is, after all, the whole point of open source code. However, the 
future of the project will be put in jeopardy if the commercial 
developments take over as the main release channel for any given arch/OS.

That is the concern I would like to see addressed.

Thank you for listening to me, and apologies in advance if I may have 
ruffled a few feathers.


Alex Thurgood








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