Re: [tdf-discuss] using information from OOo lists for LibO marketing? (was: Fwd: [users] Licensing Details)

Hi James, all,

I'm not part of the SC, but like Drew and Andy a longtime OOo community
member - perhaps I can shed a bit of light on the issue...

James Wilde schrieb:
> On Apr 21, 2011, at 23:09 , drew wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 2011-04-21 at 22:40 +0200, M Henri Day wrote:
> > > 2011/4/21 drew<drew@baseanswers.com>
> > >
> > > > On Thu, 2011-04-21 at 19:05 +0200, M Henri Day wrote:
> > > > > 2011/4/21 James Wilde<james.wilde@sunde-wilde.com>
> > > > >
> > > > > > Just got this message in my inbox.  I wonder if sending him
> > > > > > a note about LibO would be considered to be in breach of
> > > > > > the comprehensive warning at the bottom.

About this main question:

I don't know the sender, but in most cases of such mails people are not
aware of sending their full address and contact details to an public
mailing list when they write a mail from their office.

If you cite such people you probably do them a favor if you cut this
information in your reply.

In this case I feel a bit different, as the sender is senior manager of
an IT company.

So my take is: Yes - the footer doesn't hinder you to reply to his request.

But...
> > > > > > //James
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Begin forwarded message:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > From: SAEED AHMED<SAEED.AHMED@3i-infotech.xxx> Date:
> > > > > > > April 20, 2011 15:34:31 GMT+02:00 To:
> > > > > > > "users@openoffice.org"<users@openoffice.org> Subject:
> > > > > > > [users] Licensing Details [...]
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > That's all well and good - but - contacting him is simply
> > > > _wrong_ IMO.

In my eyes it depends on the content of this reply.
> > > > He asked a question on the OpenOffice.org users list, not
> > > > LibreOffice.

Right. So if James replies, he should answer his question on the license
of OpenOffice.org.

What Drew and Andy don't want to support, is subversive LibreOffice
marketing against OpenOffice.org.

Even if the rest of the community didn't follow us by now, we don't
think that OpenOffice.org is a competitor we have to fight against by
all possible means.

In my eyes it is allowed to inform about LibreOffice while replying to
the question on OOo license, perhaps linking to the Oracle announcement
from last Friday: As there might be major modification in OpenOffice.org
community and product structure, he should keep an eye on what's going
on in the near future. If this announcement would cause him uncertainty
about OOo's future, it might be reasonable to have a look at LibreOffice.

We should not compete against each other - especially in a situation
where none of us know, what will happen to the OOo community. Perhaps we
get a chance to re-unite: Then competitive marketing might be an issue
that adds negative feelings we should avoid.

Competitive marketing is not the way to go for LibreOffice: Italo
Vignoli, our marketing spokesperson, mentioned this point in several
mails on various lists: We stand *for* our community and our product and
not *against* others.

> > > > To forward such a message here was wrong

I agree, but this doesn't mean that this topic is wrong on our discuss list.

You might have asked your question without copying the OP mail - and
have chosen a more descriptive subject ;-)

> > > > and such actions should NOT be tolerated.

As non-native speaker, this part sounds too hard to me. It's a valid
question how we interact with the OOo community we left behind us.

And if people want to use information from over there to do marketing
against them, nobody will be able to hinder them.

But this is not the way I think is the official position of the
LibreOffice community.

Even if they decided not to follow our way by one or another reason,
these are the people we worked with for several years - and we liked
working together.

Florian was very sad that he had to resign from his OOo Marketing Lead
post - and so did the former OOo Community Council members here in the
SC as well as many others.

Tolerance is important - for different opinions as well as for working
in two communities.

But that's just my personal opinion...
> > > > [...]
> >
> > If James truly believes it is appropriate to respond to a query of
> > this nature, made on the OpenOffice.org mailing list, with a
> > recommendation to use a different application then he should (must)
> > be willing to do so in the open, on that mailing list.

It's just a gut feeling, but this seems to be more honest than a private
mail.

A mail to the users list will have to be phrased in a way telling just
the facts about LibreOffice without doing any harm to OOo. A private
mail could be considered as bad marketing for us, because LibreOffice
stands for openness and transparency.
> > [...]
>
> Recently there was some discussion about the decision of the European
> Union to renegotiate with Microsoft about new licenses for Office,
> [...]  I don't know whether TDF actually did anything about it, but
> there was a lot of agreement that they should do.

I think a SC member did blog about this topic, but I'm not sure.
> Now someone has made information available on a public list which
> could be beneficial to TDF in a similar though smaller way, and I
> have decided that I see no problem with making use of that public
> information.

In my eyes this is totally different: While Microsoft tried to turn the 
EU position back to proprietary licensed software lock-in, you got 
notice of someone willing to switch from Microsoft to OSS software.

And as OpenOffice.org is not (or not only) our competitor, their mailing 
lists are not just an arbitrary public list.

It's good for us, if companies help others to switch from MS to OOo, because

- there is too less infrastructure (with professional support) and 
documentation on migrating to LibreOffice.

- as we will prove to be better than OOo with our releases to come, 
people will think about switching from OOo to LibreOffice sooner or later.

- such a change will be much easier than the previous one (and might 
already come true when they try to import some VBA macros during the 
first process).


>  I will wait (nearly) 24 hours for someone from the top
>  of TDF to tell me no, and if that doesn't come, I will contact the
> poster offline.  The time now is 00:09, so TDF has until midnight
> today.

If you want a reaction by the SC, you should send a request to the 
SC-discuss list. Then they will have a look at it and probably discuss 
it during their next call.

But at the moment all the volunteer(!) SC members have much more and 
much more important tasks to solve than you mailing someone you got 
notice via a OOo mailing list.

Sorry, but this ultimatum looks quite arrogant to me.

I feel at the center of TDF, and I spent quite a lot of time to reply to 
your mail - mainly to help the SC members to concentrate on their work.

If I was able to tell you a bit more about the special relationship 
between the LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org community, the time has not 
been spent in vain.

Best regards

Bernhard

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