Hi *, Paolo Vecchi wrote:
On 09/02/2022 15:57, Jan Holesovsky wrote:It is important to understand that "community" means "contributors"; as opposed to "users". "Users" are not part of the "community", until they start contributing; via code, QA, translations, marketing under the TDF umbrella, etc.I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree with your statement.
In fact Paolo wasn't disagreeing so much, just stressed that users should be encouraged to become contributors. That's indeed a very important, and perhaps an under-used approach to increase overall contributions in the project! On the statement per se, that we (as in, TDF, and its board in particular) predominantly need to care and listen to our contributors, I would believe there's hardly any disagreement in the community.
I think that, as part of the on-boarding process, we should include a session hosted by Florian and Mike Schinagl that clarifies to all why TDF has been created, what its role is and what we should all keep in mind while performing our duties as members of the board.
While it is important for the new board to know what TDF can, and cannot do (and in fact Paolo will find an email in his inbox, where Florian is announcing exactly such an onboarding), the role of the board is the opposite - to lead, within the limits of the charitable laws, where the community needs us to go. Looking at the reasons why TDF was started almost 12 years ago shouldn't be the sole guiding principle. Living in the past is not a good board strategy. I'll not comment on the quotes out of a press article, shown without much context and lacking a link to the original source (which would be good practice). The article (https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/16/libreoffice_ecosystem_beyond_utterly_broken/) was written in the context of the LOOL and MarComm plan discussions, and the fallout around the LibreOffice Personal / LibreOffice Community arguments. I recommend reading it in full. Finally, on the apparent contradiction between what Andreas (lawyer, TDF founder, long-term board member) and Paolo state on what TDF is permitted to do: this is part of an ongoing discussion with various experts. I would much prefer not discussing difficult legal matters on a public list. Cheers, -- Thorsten
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