Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: I'm back in the game.

On 29 December 2010 15:38, Charles-H. Schulz <
charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org> wrote:

> Hello James,
>
> It's good and useful to play the devil's advocate. Let me give you some
> arguments that you can use in your conversations.
>
> The LibO project is a meritocracy; it is not a democracy - in fact I
> don't think there's even one FOSS project that is democratic in its
> processes.


I think that is an over-simplification. The fact that members of the OOo
community "voted with their feet" to set up TDF and LibO shows that there
are democratic pressures on any open source community with the ultimate
sanction of a fork. Even parliamentary democracies are representative ie the
representatives of the people don't give them exactly what they want on
every issue. At election time that representation can change but as we have
seen an "election" can effectively take place and generate a fork in a FOSS
project at any time.


> It is not chaos either.  Meritocracy means that the people
> who get to contribute in a seizable way - call the shots.


Again I'd say that is an over-simplification. Sun called the shots then
Oracle because they put in the most resource. The community didn't like the
way that resource was being used so the project forks. Meritocracy and
Democracy are not that easy to separate. In general parties get voted in on
perceived merit at the time of an election. I think there are many
similarities with FOSS projects.


> Basically
> it's about people who do -not anything in any random way- but it's
> about people bringing things to the common pot. The best example is the
> developers. Developers code, submit patches, etc.

But that is only one part of the whole picture. If they don't produce what
end users want, end users will again vote with their feet.

We have, just like any other FOSS project out there, set up some basic
> governance and rules to be respected; and just like any FOSS project,
> we have also defined what are the criteria to become a member of our
> community and a contributor. I hope you read the bylaws? They're in
> some respect explanatory and clarify many things in such a way that
> it's obvious that this isn't about a small group of people controlling
> everything.
>
> Now, regarding the differences with
> OpenOffice.org, you could contribute all you wanted; most of the
> processes weren't there or were documented, and besides, you had to
> face one entity controlling everything.


The one that contributed the most resources :-) Meritocracy?


> So no matter what you did, the
> ultimate criterion to know whether one patch or one decision was being
> accepted was the steward of the code and main sponsor's own will. It's
> hardly governance.

Well it is not a democracy is it? Well it isn't if there is no other choice
but of course there is, you can fork the project or go and work with KOffice
for example.

So really there are aspects of meritocracy and democracy in all political
systems. None is purely one thing or the other.

The situation TDF is currently in calls for a specific clarification.
> We are right now in a transitory period. A lot of things are either not
> being defined or are in the process of being set up. Among them, our
> foundation is being set up but as long as it will not be fully
> incorporated (and it will take several months) the Steering Committee
> will function in a way which does not fully comply with our bylaws. It
> is transitory and we're trying our best to document our actions and our
> decisions, while taking the input of our contributors in consideration.
>
> I hope it has answered some of your questions.
>
> best,
> Charles.
>
> Le Wed, 29 Dec 2010 08:50:27 -0500,
> James Walker <centralus@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> > Today I am going to play devil's advocate, a few people have asked me
> > what is different about TDF then OpenOffice.org.  When I try to
> > explain to them that TDF is trying to make sure that the software is
> > not controlled by one entity and that the community will have input
> > into the direction that it takes I get a puzzled look and am asked
> > how comes then does it seem like it is controlled by a select few.
> >
> > I asked them what they meant, so they pointed out that right now we
> > have a steering committee and as of today there is no way anyone but
> > the founding members can be on that committee, so I explained that it
> > is a new project and these things take time.  Now the more I think
> > about it I see their point, right now I see maybe 4-5 or five active
> > members of that committee talking to us on the various mailing lists,
> > and as of late it seems very clear that they do want to control what
> > ever one else is doing.  As of today, I see this project moving in
> > the same direction that OpenOffice.org has moved where there is a few
> > people that have all the control.
> >
> > This thread and a few others related to it have really made me start
> > to question whether or not the feedback and wishes of some of the
> > community is going to be considered in the decissions that are made.
> > I do remeber talking about Dave's idea, And most of the members (or
> > should I say people that want to be members of the marketing team)
> > came to the conclusion that it was a good idea and he should proceed,
> > but now he has been told he does not have permission to use a
> > trademark, that is supposed to be for the community that he a part of.
> >
> > I for one, stand behind Dave and offer my support to him in his
> > efforts, Dave if you need any help let me know, I will do all that I
> > can to assist you.
> >
> > James Walker
>
>
>
> --
> Charles-H. Schulz
> Membre du Comité exécutif
> The Document Foundation.
>
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