Re: [board-discuss] Objective: Postponing Hiring TDF-Developer To 2024 or Later?

Hi Andreas, all,

On 24/05/2022 23.09, Andreas Mantke wrote:
> I follow the thread(s) about hiring two in-ho use developers by TDF for
> some month yet. I got the impression that there are some TDF members
> which might have no real interest in getting this task done. They are
> asking only questions and didn't submit any solutions or proposals for
> solutions. And once all valuable input from TDF members had been
> incorporated in the document the beforehand mentioned members try to
> start the whole process with a new proposal.
>
> It seemed there is a approach behind this behavior: postpone the whole
> topic as far as possible. And try to frustrate the members who try to
> drive this topic forward.

I agree that it is frustrating to see what is going on and to get the 
impression that it seems to be impossible to work together on a common 
proposal.

Obviously, I am not able to judge what each one's motivation is.

However, from following the discussion so far, I don't think it is fair 
to blame only "one side" for the state of affairs.

While I am generally in favor of Paolo's proposal, I share the 
impression that various concerns or suggestions have not been dealt with 
adequately so far.

For example: Michael has asked for an ODF version of the proposal so 
that he could suggest changes and he pointed out some specific issues he 
saw in the proposal e.g. in [1].
Unless I'm missing something, he didn't receive any reply to that (at 
least none on the public mailing list) and at a quick glance, (most of) 
the mentioned passages are still unchanged in the current version of the 
proposal.

Obviously, I can't speak for him, but I could at least understand to 
some extent in case he felt unheard and that doing an own 
counter-proposal would be the only way of his suggestions not just being 
ignored completely...

My impression is that there seems to be no clear process of how to work 
together on a proposal, how to suggest changes,...

Doesn't the BoD have any defined process for doing so?

(If somehow working together on the ODF version or talking to each other 
in person is no option: From a developer's perspective, having the 
proposal as plain text in a git repo and then allowing people to suggest 
changes and the "proposal owner" reviewing those sounds like one way 
that would allow to keep track of suggestions, but that may not be 
easily usable for non-developers. Having a plain text version being 
discussed on the mailing list and the proposal owner answering there and 
integrating changes into the authoritative version sounds like an 
alternative that might work instead, while having some more overhead. 
But there are probably other ways...)

> In my opinion the whole process and the behavior of beforehand mentioned
> members is not in the interest of TDF. If that would be the way how
> members will work together during the current board term the future of
> TDF will not be bright.

Again, I wouldn't limit that to the "beforehand mentioned members", but 
to the (at least perceived) inability to work together constructively 
when there are different opinions.

Quoting from a previous email of mine in one of the threads [2]:

> In my previous email, I wrote: "Assuming members in the involved
> LibreOffice/TDF bodies found a way to work together constructively, my current
> impression is that this approach could be for the benefit of all."
>
> I admit that this will probably be very hard if members of the involved
> LibreOffice/TDF bodies don't find a way to work together constructively, but
> rather "fight against each other". But I think that's a problem on a completely
> different level, and I don't see how TDF can properly serve it's purpose then
> anyway, regardless of the specific question around TDF-internal developers
> being discussed here... 


Best regards,
Michael

[1] 
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00357.html
[2] 
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2022/msg00209.html

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