Hello,
I'd like to add a few thoughts of mine to this thread.
I am very sorry to hear what happened and still is happening in
Brazil. To me, as for the whole Steering Committee, it has always been
very important to be not on one side. It is sad for me to see that
there seem to be two groups and lots of changes, and I have worked
with trust, respect and joy with members of both groups, and I would
like to do so in the future as well. As Brazil is far away, and I
don't know the situation very well, I always tried to stay out of the
line of fire, which I hope is understandable.
Sorry if this now sounds rather harsh, but my take is:
Domain names with LibreOffice or The Document Foundation should be
under control of The Document Foundation, and the official mailing
lists for each project have to be the ones we offer.
Let me explain why: It is not about controlling things or not allowing
others to be active. In contrast, we would like to have people active
on their own, without asking us for permission. Our approach is open,
meritocratic and transparent. However, we all have learned from the
past that it can happen too quick that projects and groups go their
own way, and confusion is created on who is talking on behalf of whom.
Diversity can be a gift, but it can also be a high risk if we are too
diverse.
Hosting a website under the LibreOffice or TDF domain name with own
content soon will create the idea that this content is official. Even
more, it will spread knowledge and tools, which in the end can have
bad consequences for us.
Don't get the impression that we do want to dictate what you have to
use. I know that the situation and requirements are different from
country to country, and that some users are more comfortable with this
tool, others with other tools. We try hard to provide something
everyone can benefit from, and I invite you to raise concerns,
questions and wishes to our public mailing lists.
We are all TDF, so there is no one dictating things. Sure, sometimes
there's one in charge who has to "wear a hat" and have the final say,
and there is also the Steering Committee if in doubt, but that's no
different to any well-developed open source community.
For the current situation, to me it is rather clear:
Please connect the TDF and LibO domain names in Brazil to our
nameservers, so we can point them to our infrastructure. If there are
legal concerns of being the domain holder, but having services
connected to our servers, please let me know -- there is a legally
working way to transfer the domain names to the German association and
later on to the Foundation when it exists. I've already discussed that
with our provider, who provides a trustee service in Brazil if needed.
What I neither can understand nor accept is that a website is built in
parallel, e-mail addresses are being handed out, and separate mailing
lists are created. I guess I repeat myself by saying that I want all
of us to work on one thing, united, speaking with one voice. Too much
diversity and "parallel universes" do not help, they do harm. They
harm a lot.
Of course I respect the work that the Brazilian community has done the
past years, but it can be no argument that you now need the
LibreOffice domain name for connecting your servers, otherwise data
from five years would be lost. How long has the LibreOffice name been
existing? Roughly seven months, so this is no argument. I am happy to
provide you a DNS alias so you have a domain name to connect your
machine to, in case you don't have any other domain name available --
but the main website really needs to point to the TDF infrastructure.
pt-br.libreoffice.org is our Brazilian website, and contributors are
welcome. I am also more than happy to provide a link to previous
content from there if this is suitable. But, please, do not build up
your parallel universe with own sites, tools, addresses and mailing
lists.
Especially in these times, working united, collaborating as a team,
exchanging thoughts as friends, is more important than ever.
I beg your trust, and ask you to cooperate with us in this matter. We
are flexible in tools and sites, and we can improve things when
improvements are needed, but TDF has been created to have all assets
in one hand, independent, safe, stable and secure.
Joining us in this mission is, I hope, also to upmost interest for you.
Florian
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