Re: [libreoffice-marketing] PR translations

2011/5/9 Charles-H. Schulz <charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org>

> Hello Paulo,

Hello Charles.


> Le Sun, 8 May 2011 18:58:45 -0300,
> Paulo de Souza Lima <paulo.s.lima@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> > 2011/5/8 Charles-H. Schulz <charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org>
> >
> > > Hello,
> > Hi
> >
> > This is gonna be loooooong...
> >
> >
> > > I'd like to add a little bit about that too, see below.
> > >
> > > 2011/5/8 webmaster for Kracked Press Productions <
> > > webmaster@krackedpress.com
> > > >
> > >
> > > > On 05/07/2011 04:18 PM, Paulo de Souza Lima wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > So, can anybody tell me why NA community can have
> > > libreoffice-na.orgdomain
> > > > > *separated* from TDF hosts and brazilian community can't have
> > > > > libreoffice.org.br domain?
> > > > >
> > > > >  LibreOffice-NA.US -- not .ORG
> > > >
> > > > the .org.br domain is the exact same as the main one but with the
> > > country
> > > > code - am I correct?
> > > > They might feel that your are trying to take their domain over in
> > > > your country, or something like that.
> > > > I did not see the beginnings of this thread, but by your text,
> > > > that is
> > > what
> > > > your are implying.
> >
> > No. I just can't see any difference in libreoffice.org,
> > libreoffice,net, libreoffice.any. They are all libreoffice, whatever
> > the extension or country code. The issue Charles has pointed out is
> > the "libreoffice", not those things after the ".", I guess.

> In fact it's both, and it's also the use of documentfoundation.org.br.
> I'm sure you're familiar with our trademark policy:
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TradeMark_Policy


Yes, I am, but you didn't answer the question. Why can North America
Community use libreoffice in their domain name, and Brazilian Community
can't? It has nothing to do with domain extensions. It has to do with the
brand "libreoffice" in the domain name.


> > > > We are LibreOffice - North America - in the USA
> > > > so our domain is that the same as but with the added country code.
> > > >
> > > > We started our project to be dedicated to our region and create a
> > > > distribution DVD for that region.
> > > > I do not think our domain is close enough for TDF to upset by us,
> > > > I hope.
> > > >
> > > > I know one thing.  When I "bought" a domain that was a .org and
> > > > there was
> > > a
> > > > .com with the same name, I added a link to the .com group stating
> > > > who
> > > they
> > > > were and that I was not them.  My domain was for a non-profit
> > > > listing
> > > while
> > > > they were a "for profit", sort of, group.
> >
> > All right. But, this works in USA. In Brazil, if you want to own a
> > .org.brdomain, you MUST have a legalized ORGanization.
> > Libreoffice.org.br is registered to BrOffice.org NGO, which is
> > closing its activities. In Brazil, .org.br domais, doesn't imply in
> > a .com.br domain to the same organization. At least, for this moment,
> > Brazilian Community, has no legalized organization (a NGO, or
> > whatever). So, when BrOffice.org cease its activities,
> > libreoffice.org.br domain MUST go to another NGO, or end up. That's
> > the brazilian law, not because of the domain itself, but because it
> > owns to a NGO which is ending its activities. The domain is part of
> > the NGO properties.
>
> So that's still odd, because you / Claudio should have come to us and
> explained everything. He never did such a thing. Why not choosing
> Colibri.org instead?

Can you imagine how many times we've tried to do that? Every single mention
of what was going on to us was replied with silence or "that's not of our
business, solve it youself and tell us". For you guys, it was all about tree
guys fighting. For us, it was all about the Community's survival.

We did not choose Colibre.org instead because the name Colibre was chosen a
week or two ago, and we are using libreoffice.org a long time, since the NGO
had registered the domain name, and redirected it to broffice.org website.
Who did this was those people who were "in charge" of NGO operations. Maybe
you should ask Olivier why he decided to do that at that time. I can't even
imagine it. But now, you are asking for us to solve a problem we didn't
create.


> > > > There are a lot of groups out there that have other groups that
> > > > make
> > > their
> > > > domain as close as possible to the original group's domain so
> > > > they could "steal" viewers away for whatever reason.  All of us
> > > > are here to promote
> > > the
> > > > same software for our different communities.  We are not trying to
> > > "steal"
> > > > people away from the other groups.
> > > >
> > > > To be honest, if your domain was LibreOffice-Brazil.org, then it
> > > > would
> > > not
> > > > be looking like it was the Brazilian language version of the
> > > > TDF/LO site, which your domain looks like it could be.
> >
> > Yes. That's easy saying this right now. But when everybody out there
> > was turning their backs on us and Brazilian Community were desperatly
> > asking for help from someone in TDF, decisions should be taken, and
> > they were. Despite of the opinions that the issue is resumed to
> > "personal" desagreements among few people, it has a great *political*
> > component, because it was all about on what some people were trying
> > to do with the results of the contribution made by dozens of good
> > contributors to BrOffce AND OpenOffice/LibreOffice. We were seeing
> > our contributions been appropriated and nothing was said to us.
>
> I am not sure what you're talking about, but you do realize of course
> that if you do something on a completely different website we will
> never hear about it?

Yes, I am sure you do not know. You told us, you do not want to know in
another reply.

No, I don't. The website was being built for the last 10 years. People in
Brazil access that website, not the international one, not because we did
this yesterday, but because its being this way for a long time. That's
because the old website is the reference in people's mind. Are you
suggesting we just switch the directions to the new website and without
giving Brazilian users an explanation?


> > Well and this is the real point: do we "own" that domain? No we
> > don't. We just use it because we have almost ten years of data stored
> > in a website, well known and widely accessed by Brazilian users and
> > we couldn't symply redirect all domains to TDF, from one second to
> > another. We decided not to use the brand BrOffice anymore, for two
> > reasons: 1 - For the Brazilian Community, BrOffice was dead with the
> > end of NGO. TDF was arrising and we decided to take part on it. 2 -
> > Some bad guys were arrising issues about the domain broffice.org was
> > owned by an individual (in this case, Claudio). From one moment to
> > another, after 10 years that brand were being used by the Community,
> > Claudio seemed not to be reliable anymore by some people outside
> > Brazilian Community.
> >
> > LibreOffice.org.br domain were registered by those people who were "in
> > charge" of NGO BrOffice.org when Brazillian Community deauthorize
> > them to represent it. Our Community had decided (and it is well
> > documented in our open mailing lists) not to be guided by a
> > Organization which were acting as a "filter" between it and
> > international LibreOffice Community.
>
> Right there, two completely wrong elements (not your fault, I guess).:
> 1) to decide something on your mailing lists... you mean Brazilian
> mailing lists here? Or somewhere else? because if it's somewhere else
> there's not way for TDF to know about it, and I'm not even mentioning
> the language barrier.

I'm not sure what you mean with "wrong" elements...

I am still talking about Brazilian community and our intentions and
difficulties in moving to TDF structure. Where did you missed the point?

We have many mailing lists for local groups. Some are stucked and some are
very popular. Moving those people to a new structure, a new mailing list is
a kind  difficult. But we are trying to change their minds. Can we have our
local mailing lists in TDF structure beside the standard mailing lists?


> 2) "Our community has decided not to be guided by an organization...
> acting as a filter between it and the international LibreOffice
> Community": you're right, no organization should act as a proxy between
> you and TDF. But the international LibreOffice Community is here. Right
> here, on this site. If you have questions, problems, you go and talk to
> the SC directly or discuss this on mailing lists here.  We're not gods,
> we're a not a corporation, we're volunteers just like you. So there's
> no TDF and elsewhere some people who decide to set up something right
> next to it for Brazil. There's supposed to be one Brazilian community,
> and it's here, right on this website. Who did tell you to go away? :-)
Once more: we have tried a lot without success. We didn't even know the
paths to do that because those guys used to put in our minds that reaching
SC and great names of the international community was kind a difficult and
it could only be done through them (that was part of the "filter" I told you
before). When leadership became missing because Claudio was disabled to take
his place, because of his personal problems, and the others had lost the
Community's trust, some of us started to join TDF mailing lists in order to
learn how things work. But simply the fact of trying to talk about our
problems caused silence or avasive replies. For us, people out there weren't
giving a damn to us (it is not necessarily the truth, but it's how the
message was reaching us). And you guys were *apparently* talking only to the
Brazilian TDF members, without notice they were losing their leadership in
the Brazilian Community. Today, there are three Brazilian TDF founder
members (as long as I know it) and only one has the Community's trust.

That doesn't mean the Community doesn't recognize the contributions of those
we don't trust anymore (as true representatives, I want to make it cristal
clear). Yes, we do! And they remain contributing in our mailing lists and
projects. But the Community simply don't agree when they introduce
themselves as its representatives. The simple fact of Olivier is refered as
the only Brazilian TDF representative on official notes and announcements
causes us a lot of concerns.

Now, this discussion seems to be a change. We are really talking about it,
finally. I think it could be moved to another mailing list, because it's
nothing to do with marketing mailing list, if you wish.


> > Some guys began to act as
> > "managers", like in a corporation. Orders were given, whole
> > contributions were dismissed without notice to the Community. A lot
> > of wrong things were taking place and that's why all came to that.
> > That's not simply "personal" issues among two or three guys. There's
> > a lot of thing behind this that people, who could help us, had
> > refused to know and help.
>
> Again, I'm not going to dwell into this, that's not my role nor my
> wish, but if there's garbage, someone needs to take the garbage out
> eventually, therefore, problems should have been addressed here and not
> lead to the departure of an entire community almost as soon we get a
> website set up. That's crazy.

Neither me. I agree the garbage must be put out, and it was. But when our
leadership was missing, we've tried to ask for some orientation outside and
found none. As you must know, when leadership faults, new leaders arrise
naturally. And they are there, but they aren't TDF members nor TDF founders.
They are a new generation of Brazilian leaders who are taking to themselves
the task to maintain our community alive and strong.


> > > > Could you use Colibri.org and also add .org.br?  Then, for now,
> > > > you
> > > could
> > > > redirect your current .org.br domain to the new Colibri site.
> > > > Later, after people get use to the new site's domain, you could
> > > > phase it out.
> > >  Also
> > > > you could just ask a question on where the viewer wants to go,
> > > > your site
> > > of
> > > > the TDF/LO site.
> >
> > Yes, we can! And I suppose it's the best thing to do.
>
> +1 . Then let's do it, and I'm sure you can request help here.

All right. But be aware that we cannot do that in two or three days. We're
gonna put this issue to discussion in our mailing lists (gubro-br) and we
will give you a feedback asap.

My personal opinion is:

1 - Yes, we can use another domain name to the old content and try something
like an anoucement in pt-br.libreoffice.org website with a link to it.
2 - Yes, we can redirect libreoffice.org.br to pt-br.libreoffice.org.
3 - I cannot give my opinion concerning the ownership of
libreoffice.org.brdomain. And I really don't care.

But I repeat: that's my opinion. Many people don't think so. So we have to
put it into discussion in the Community.


> > But I have a
> > feeling in this discussion, that you guys think we are trying to
> > possess something that don't belong to us. We really had spectations
> > to be supported by TDF. First because, as Luiz said in other post,
> > there are a lot of people out there, you don't know, and they are not
> > thieves, they are real contributors to LibreOffice and TDF. There's a
> > whole Community beyond Cláudio, Olivier and Gustavo you really don't
> > know. And that Community wants to be part of international
> > LibreOffice Community.
>
> By separating yourself, there's certainly never going to be a chance
> for "us" to know "you" :) nor to ackowledge your contributions
> properly. Also, I do indeed imagine there are more people than Claudio,
> Olivier and Gustavo. And you're all welcome here, because that's our
> common home and it's not owned by anyone in particular.

That's what I loved to read. And that's what we are trying to make people in
Brazil to understand. What I am about to say is, again, my personal opinion
and not Brazilian Community's general opinion: For ten years, a huge
structure was created to support Brazilian Community. In the mean time,
issues like "Brazil has its own particularities" were used to justify this
*separated* community. Today, Me and some other guys are trying to make
people understand that we must give up of all that and join the main
international community. I am sure that's the best path, but I am also sure
that there is a lot of resistance on this issue in Brazilian Community.

<slip>

> > > Indeed, you make several good points above, and I'd like to add
> > > some more. If one goes to the LibreOffice North America DVD
> > > project, one sees a website
> > > dedicated to just that; and it does not attempt to replicate
> > > libreoffice.org.
> > > On the contrary, they point to relevant links inside
> > > LibreOffice.org, uses mailing lists here, explains what they do,
> > > have explained why they were doing this website here, on this list
> > > and on others, what TDF is, etc.
> >
> >
> > Ok, So I must ask you: where do you see any "replication"? There are
> > none! At libreoffice.org.br all history and projects developed for
> > the last 10 years is stored. Nothing there is "replicated" from TDF.
> > If you take a closer look, you could see that the it is being
> > changed, day by day.
>
> See my comments above: why doing that elsewhere? We all have content
> that have been developed over 10 years and we all migrated or are
> migrating over to here. To continue being separated is making us lose
> volunteers and cutting you from the flow and our resources. Also, the
> use of domains is, again, extremely confusing.
We're not doing that "elsewhere", please understand that! That was already
done a long time ago! And we have too few people to migrate all that content
to TDF structure. That's simple to understand, I think! But it's not simple
to do at once. I there is an alternative path above.

We have a lot of projects that are not present in any other community, and
also a history we want to preserve. I could say: CoGroo, Escritório Aberto
(Open Office), Gubros, and many more. And we just don't have enough people
and time to dedicate to this task. Some have no skills, some have no
interest, or both. We are in a campaing to call for more contributors. Many
has joined us, but in this case, we don't have interested people yet.



> > Many of the links are pointed to TDF servers.
> > But we are too few volunteers to make a huge job, which is to
> > catalog, classify and *move* contents to a proper location in TDF
> > servers. We simply cannot do that in a couple of days! It's gonna
> > take months, maybe years!
>
> I'm sure it will take weeks, months and eventually we will be happy to
> have you here. But please, we'd love to have you here and we would also
> like to stop this confusion with domain names.

I don't see any confusion with domain names. What I see is you asking for us
to give up of libreoffice.org.br, because of the brand "libreoffice". I am
not questioning the ownership of this domain. I really don't care who own it
(BrOffice, Claudio or TDF). What I am questioning is the switching of the
route to TDF website will be an abrupt break out to Brazilian users. Again,
there is an alternative path.


> > > So I
> > > think it's pretty clean and clear in that case.  Luiz, Paulo, TDF
> > > has been created by volunteers 7 months ago. The notion that
> > > somehow you guys have to
> > > do something separate does not make any sense to me. It's not like
> > > if we were a large corporation and that you would have suspicions
> > > about our intention. If you had specific requirements I would have
> > > loved to hear about
> > > them. I'm afraid I/we never heard about any of that.
> >
> > I know TDF were created by volunteers. I could also be one of them,
> > but I was behind the "filter" I told you above. Unfortunately,
> > BrOffice.org was a blessing and a doom for Brazillian Community. But
> > I will say again:
> >
> > We are not trying to do anything "separated". We are trying to *move*
> > to TDF, but we are few the the task is huge. We are facing some
> > resistance from people who are "affraid of the dark", and preffer
> > remain "independent", i.e., *separated*. And we are doing our best to
> > be an active part of LibreOffice Community. But we cannot simply put
> > those things to people's minds. Our job is slow in order not to
> > disrrupt our Community. The proof is the three main projects we are
> > performing right now (magazine, official documentation translation
> > and install DVD) have their processes entirely made in the wiki
> > dvd.libreofficebox.org, brasil.libreofficebox.org and
> > pt-br.libreofice.org websites. We also use ODFAuthors and we are
> > about to try Alfresco.
> >
> > Look: we are not trying to separate anything. We (the Brazillian
> > Community, not me or Luiz) are trying to be recognized by TDF as real
> > and valuable contributors. We are performing a hard job in BrOffice
> > Magazine, translating official documentation to pt-br (what has never
> > been done before) and we are making it fast. We have a lot of work at
> > users mailing list and other list. Luiz, me, and a lot of people,
> > like Helmar, Hélio, Clóvis, Rui, Renata, Fátima, Albino, Fábio and
> > many more (I apologize for not remember al the names) are making the
> > "hard job" to organize pt-br section in TDF wiki, manage pt-br
> > LibreOffice portal, DVD portal for Brazilian users, developing some
> > installation DVDs to users, writing documentation (like two books
> > about LibreOfice we are about to include in the wiki), and many more
> > projects. Some of us remain on line and replying e-mail from users,
> > rookie contributors and other, almost 24 hours a day. We make the
> > magazine and we expect we could use the brand LibreOffice on it,
> > because it really contributes to LibreOffice, and that magazine has a
> > great public. Users in Brazil read it almost every month, and also
> > participate sending e-mails, asking for help or supporting us, tips
> > and tricks, articles about how to do things in LibreOffice. It would
> > be a shame TDF prohibit us to use the LibreOffice brand.
> >
> > We have a lot of content in the old BrOffice website we need to move
> > to TDF structure. Some of them maybe cannot simply to be moved. A
> > good example is the Gubros (BrOffice users groups). They have their
> > own dynamics locally in Brazilian states. This doesn't mean they are
> > doing something *separated*. They are doing things *locally*, in
> > small regions and cities. We just can't simply say to them "hey, from
> > now on, you're by yourself and you cannot use our servers, mailing
> > lists and domains anymore".
> >
> > As you can see, things are not so "clear" as you think they are.
>
> I look forward seeing a smooth transition. :-)

Certainly!


> Best,
> Charles.

Best Regards.

-- 
<http://pt-br.libreoffice.org>
Paulo de Souza Lima
Técnico em Eletrônica e Administrador
http://www.pasl.net.br
http://almalivre.wordpress.com
Curitiba - PR
Linux User #432358
Ubuntu User #28729

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