Update to today's call agenda

Hi Daniel,

It would be good to hear what you think of today's board meeting, and
what has been presented there about community health and ecosystem.
(Well, we tried to chat later, but kitchen duties were calling me :wink: )

What I think is no one can get such answer from TDF channel, period.

I understand what you mean, sure. I have no idea about that conversation
in a whole, so can't judge. But at least it's a fair representation of
the status quo at that moment, from that point of view.

That is a reasonable possible way of looking at it, for sure.
TDF's mission speaks about "software made available for everyone ..
freely and without restrictions". So indeed you can read that as
'binaries for business use without payment', but just as reasonable as
'code for all individuals without restrictions'. Or maybe even
interpretations in between :slight_smile:

No one is talking of the first, and I'm reading it over and over again
with different wording.

That is what happens: depending on ... whatever, you get a different
reading.
Maybe I got your words wrong. Then sorry for that. But the ideas about
free binaries for all use are there. So it's something we cannot ignore.

So that's the good thing for primary the board, but if needed the whole
community: our freedom to look at what is really wise to do for TDF's
mission.
Maybe the Ecosystem & Sustainability presentation gives some good input
to further talk about that aspect of how our world looks. So lets do
that :slight_smile:

If TDF offer a product for free, and states the commercial suport is up
the ecosystem companies what's the problem?
Whoever is looking for such support will knock their doors.

No one else then we bear responsibility to respect the statues.
"... The foundation furthers a sustainable, independent and
meritocratic community which develops Free / Libre and Open Source
Software based on open standards through international collaboration."

So please let's investigate how it works out in practice :wink:

Cheers,
Cor

Ah well, sure, but maybe it's better to wait for the information, write
up, that has been promised by Paolo, Michael, Franklin and Thorsten in
today's meeting.
So let me shut up for now :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Cor

Thanks for your feedback and your support Marco.

Thanks also for your support and the edits on the wiki page which is
making it a lot easier for other people to start working on their own
builds:

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/BuildingOnline

I see that it is getting constantly improved and if it can be automated
with Ansible then anyone with basic skills can build his/her own LOOL.

I read that unfortunately you received an answer that is surely
unacceptable. Collabora has been one of the major contributors to the
project and they employ quite a few of the developers, it seems like one
of them forgot that he is contributing to an Open Source project on
which the company has/is investing but from which is also benefiting to
pay his wage. I'm sure the answer has been due to a moment of
distraction and that the person in question realised his mistake.

I believe Friday's discussion has been a very important milestone for LOOL.
It has brought together several contributors which are working hard to
complete the documentation needed to make LOOL available also to the
less experienced part of the community and I'm sure that many other will
join in now that several complex items have been clarified and simplified.

As from my summarised proposal lots more needs to be done and thanks to
the feedback coming from you and the rest of the community we are
working now to refine the details of the project.

Let's keep the conversation going as I'd like to see LibreOffice On-Line
becoming the obvious choice for on-line collaboration for both the
community and the enterprise market.

Ciao

Paolo

My initial take,

* Shall enterprises (and even individuals) can deploy their own LOOL to have a cloud based collaborative office suite?
+ Yes
+ No
+ Other (explain)

* Deployment on cloud servers under your control or on-prem should require high-level technical expertise?
+ Yes
+ No
+ Other (explain)

The platform should allow the possibility of adding integrations with other software platform?
+ Yes
+ No
+ Other (explain)

Rather than asking what people think /should/ happen, it's better to ask them about their past behaviour, because that is a more reliable indicator of their needs.

For example (based on questions proposed so far):

- Have you edited documents in a web browser within the last month?
- Which of the following software deployment systems have you used to succesfully install software?
- When was the last time you hired professional help to setup self-hosted software?

This approach is common in US product development research.

Sam.

Thanks for the hints Sam, very good point.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for the input. The draft for a survey is on Nextcloud https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/ZCX4wrx3wipr5mQ

Framing the questionnaire as input for future development we might get a feeling what percentage of users is interested in LOOL. And hopefully some have experienced success or failed and can reply what's needed for a one-click installation.

Cheers,
Heiko

Hi Heiko,

Thanks for the input. The draft for a survey is on Nextcloud
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/ZCX4wrx3wipr5mQ

Thanks. Good start!

One thing we need to consider: as agreed last Friday in the board
meeting, there will be a public discussion on LOOL and ecosystem first,
before we start implementing solutions. And for that discussion, Paolo,
Franklin, Thorsten and Michael are preparing the start document, as
agreed in that meeting too.

Now there is (on a quick look) at least one question in the survey, of
which the answer clearly depends on the information that the submitter
has. "Shall enterprises (and even individuals) can deploy their own
LibreOffice Online to have a cloud based collaborative office suite?"

Framing the questionnaire as input for future development we might
get a feeling what percentage of users is interested in LOOL. And
hopefully some have experienced success or failed and can reply
what's needed for a one-click installation.

So IMO we should wait to make sure the survey is clarified, improved,
extended with the outcome of the discussion.
(I know running surveys is fun and hip, but starting a second one later
is dump and confusing, So let's not do that.

Greetings,
Cor

That's a very good proposal Heiko.

Just some amendments:

1.1
(I guess only a few will answer LibreOffice Online as AFAIK isn't that
easy to build)
Maybe we should also add Collabora Code and Collabora Online?
I have several instances with Collabora Code as at present it's the only
available on platforms like Univention.

Maybe the following sounds better?
2 2 Should enterprises (and even individuals) be able to deploy their
own LibreOffice Online to have a self-hosted/cloud based collaborative
office suite?

4 I think lately Richard Stallman has been involved in controversial
stuff. Maybe it's safer to use Linus Torvalds to avoid comments?

We could also add the following questions to see if individuals would
sponsor the project and business users want/need paid for support services?

6 As individual users would you like to make a donation to TDF
specifically to support the development of LibreOffice Online?

7 As a business user would you prefer to use the paid for versions of
LibreOffice Online delivered and supported by partner organisations?

Ciao

Paolo

Hi all,

One thing we need to consider: as agreed last Friday in the board
meeting, there will be a public discussion on LOOL and ecosystem first,
before we start implementing solutions. And for that discussion, Paolo,
Franklin, Thorsten and Michael are preparing the start document, as
agreed in that meeting too.
...
Greetings,
Cor

Things are changing fast and while we talked about an option of having 4
non marketing experts writing, pretty much, a marketing document a new
option has been proposed to speed up the process and improve the quality
of result.

We are now looking at the option to start presenting the draft of the
plan at next Board meeting, if we can make it on time, so that everybody
can join in to improve it but I'll leave this types of official
announcements to our chairman.

In the meantime I personally welcome all initiatives, like yours Heiko,
that will help in getting more feedback from the community as they will
help us in improving the project.

Ciao

Paolo

Hi Heiko,

Heiko Tietze wrote:

Thanks for the input. The draft for a survey is on Nextcloud
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/ZCX4wrx3wipr5mQ

How would you like to get feedback for that document - direct edits or
comments, or discuss here?

I personally liked Sam's suggestion, perhaps we can tweak more of the
existing questions that way (e.g. on question 2, prefix that with a
question on whether/where the participant got his last VPS / nextcloud
/ wordpress / bare-metal server setup)?

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Paolo Vecchi wrote:

6 As individual users would you like to make a donation to TDF
specifically to support the development of LibreOffice Online?

We can't do that.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Paolo Vecchi wrote:

6 As individual users would you like to make a donation to TDF
specifically to support the development of LibreOffice Online?

We can't do that.

Is that a technical issue?
Not even as a selection box in the donation page specifying if they have
a preference to support LibreOffice desktop or Online?

Question 7 doesn't present the same issue?

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Paolo

I agree with Thorsten.

Not many build their own LibreOffice Online so knowing which platform
they use it would be interesting.

eg.

Are you self hosting your "Cloud" collaborative office suite yourself?
Yes/No

Are you using a local server or remote hosting/VPS/Cloud services?
...

Which platform are you using to access your "Cloud" collaborative office
suite yourself?
- ownCloud
- NextCloud
- ... etc...

Paolo

Further, Stallman is actually not very technically proficient these days and makes for a poor example of a 'God-tier' hacker.

:smiley: True.

So shall we settle for Linus Torvalds or there are other suggestions?

Paolo

That's a very good proposal Heiko.

Just some amendments:

1.1
(I guess only a few will answer LibreOffice Online as AFAIK isn't that
easy to build)
Maybe we should also add Collabora Code and Collabora Online?
I have several instances with Collabora Code as at present it's the only
available on platforms like Univention.

Maybe the following sounds better?
2 2 Should enterprises (and even individuals) be able to deploy their
own LibreOffice Online to have a self-hosted/cloud based collaborative
office suite?

Indeed

4 I think lately Richard Stallman has been involved in controversial
stuff. Maybe it's safer to use Linus Torvalds to avoid comments?

Why not just saying a 'tech guru'.

That's a very good proposal Heiko.

Just some amendments:

1.1
(I guess only a few will answer LibreOffice Online as AFAIK isn't that
easy to build)
Maybe we should also add Collabora Code and Collabora Online?
I have several instances with Collabora Code as at present it's the only
available on platforms like Univention.

Maybe the following sounds better?
2 2 Should enterprises (and even individuals) be able to deploy their
own LibreOffice Online to have a self-hosted/cloud based collaborative
office suite?

Indeed

4 I think lately Richard Stallman has been involved in controversial
stuff. Maybe it's safer to use Linus Torvalds to avoid comments?

Why not just saying a 'tech guru'.

Also that could be a good option but it would be cool if Linus actually
comes along to give his feedback ticking that box :slight_smile:

Always good to have bike-shedding questions in such a list ;-). First, we have to agree on such a survey including what exactly we want to learn and which questions we have to ask. The proficiency self-estimation is just a way to split answers into more or less experienced people. So back to Stallman/Thorvalds/Musk/Trump, the better option is maybe "I'm a professional system administrator" (whatever we put there, it's clear that this is the maximum option).

Both are fine for me. And the questions are mostly what Sam suggested with open responses.