Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: Brazilian domains

Hi Charles, Paulo, all,

I don't know you, Paulo, very well, but reading your postings shows me 
that you care for both, the Brazilian and the international LibreOffice 
community.

I know Charles much better - he works hard to support the LibreOffice 
community, he has experienced quite negative effects of words and 
actions in the past, first for OpenOffice.org, now for LibreOffice, and 
he wants to avoid such effects wherever he finds signs that might lead 
in this direction.

And - he tries to be quite clear in his wording, leading to the 
impression that he doesn't care about the perception and feelings of the 
people he talks to.

But what I wanted to add here in the thread is something different:

Charles-H. Schulz schrieb:
> Paulo,
>
> Le Wed, 11 May 2011 11:42:02 -0300,
> Paulo de Souza Lima<paulo.s.lima@gmail.com>  a écrit :
>
> > 2011/5/11 Charles-H. Schulz<charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org>
> >
> > > Hello Paulo,
> > Hello.
> >
> > > TDF will be satisfied when the whole community will be healthy and
> > > able to contribute to LibreOffice.
> > I'm not sure what you mean with "healthy and able to contribute to
> > LibreOffice". I am telling you, since the begining of this mess, we
> > ARE healthy, contributing and doing our job. I really still don't
> > understand why you refuse to agree with that. The proof is in TDF
> > wiki and websites, but I won't insist in this matter anymore, also.
> > If you have a web browser and Google Translate, you can easily see it
> > by yourself. Do it!
>
> Paulo: calm down. :-) don't take each of my sentences as an attack.
> What I mean by a healthy community is a community that does not have
> open quarrels and arguments such as... the brazilian community. You
> tell me the community is healthy, but it's not so clear to me. (and
> there again I have to stop commenting because it quickly stops
> being TDF's business).

That's not true in my eyes.

TDF as the international LibreOffice community *is* interested in every 
regional team working to further LibreOffice as product and as community.

If there are issues, where the international community can help, we want 
to be involved. We've been telling this several times privately and on 
the mailing lists (e.g. after the announcement of dropping the 
BrOffice.org name and switching to LibreOffice).

But our help is limited.

Interpersonal issues should be able to be solved among the people involved.

Decisions inside a local team or community about the tools they use and 
the way they work together should not involve the international 
community, unless they lead to problems in the relationship to the 
international community or restrictions to work with the international 
tools.

This has been my concern with the "wrong" mailing list (Gubros) and the 
"wrong" domain (.org.br).

It was not clear to me (and others looking from the outside) that both 
are interim solutions on your way from an mostly independent BrOffice 
community to the Brazilian part of the international LibreOffice community.

Reading that there are people in Brazil trying to keep up their 
independent community without seeing the positive aspects of being part 
of the international community leads to sad feelings:

LibreOffice *is* international, and even if everybody is free to decide 
how to work and discuss, we experienced something similar in the past:

Single persons or groups tried to draw interested newcomers or community 
members away from this international team, towards a working area with 
different focus. They used our infrastructure, pointed to their mailing 
lists instead of the official ones and so on.

Everybody should have the chance to contribute to LibreOffice directly - 
neither filtered by an NGO (as BrOffice times are over, I don't need any 
prove or denial in this area), nor redirected to different websites or 
mailing lists.

That's the reason why I want to see a clear statement on the website and 
in the wiki describing the .org.br website as interim solution until the 
content has been moved to the pt-br website.

If the website would contain a heading like "we're moving the content of 
this site to our new home http://pt-br.libreoffice.org"; and the 
broffice.org site would lead to this page too, I'm sure the Steering 
Committee would allow to use the external page for the time needed.

Of course you can link to resources on the interim site from each pt-br 
webpage (like "For more content ....., please have a look at our old 
website, until the migration has been finished"). I think a prominent 
link from the main page to libreoffice.org.br might help your users not 
to feel lost in the transition, and this should not be a problem if the 
goal would be mentioned here too.

For the mailing list (Luiz told us, that you are already moving) I hope 
transistion is easier. I don't mind at all, if the well known list is 
still active.

But everybody should know that the people interested in LibreOffice and 
being part of the international community use the other list - like you 
already did for any other list, if I read the wiki right.

I want to thank you for this move showing your good will - I hope you 
can understand, why it is important to us, that the community resources 
don't point to external areas at the first place.

One word about "Colibre" as name for your local LibreOffice community:
I might be wrong, but in my impression Charles sees this as a group 
inside the Brazilian LibreOffice community (or even external) - with the 
people behind ALTA as another group, fighting each other.

If there is such a fight, we can't help much (except in supporting 
integrative activities). But if you want to use a different name from 
"Brazilian LibreOffice Community" (I can understand this as member of 
the even longer "Germanophone Project of OpenOffice.org"), it should be 
clear to you that you
1) must avoid different goals from TDF (bylaws, mission statement).
2) must stay as open and inclusive as the international community
in order to avoid the impression of being an external entity.
3) reduce LibreOffice's visibility and brand recognition by introducing 
a different label.

Perhaps you could avoid to promote this name until the brand LibreOffice 
has been established to a certain degree?

(By the way: I like the name, but this is not the topic here)

> > If some people who have "titles" in TDF like Olivier, Eliane e David,
> > don't agree with that, that's their problem, not ours. Sadly, they
> > think if they have those "titles", that makes them a kind of
> > "special" community members. They aren't, in our point of view, and
> > never will be.

As in one of your previous postings you refer to the TDF team page, 
where David is called "... the LibreOffice community representative in 
Brazil."

Neither Oliver nor Claudio mention such a position.

Did someone from the Brazilian community ask David to explain this 
sentence or to have it removed?
> Well, there is no title (yet) inside TDF. There are roles and
> functions. With respect to our Brazilian friends, Olivier is a member
> of the SC and Claudio is his deputy.
>
>
> > And this recalls another concern of ours: there are 4 brazilians as
> > TDF members/founders.
>
> I count 3: Claudio, David and Olivier.
>
> >   Some of them can have a whole history of
> > contributions to TDF, but also did a lot of disgusting things agaist
> > the Brazilian Community. When you consider your meritocracy, you
> > don't take this into consideration.
>
> I think we do, look at our bylaws.

Perhaps a bit too short in this case:

The founders stated to work to establish the foundation several months 
before going public. In late 2009 nobody here knew about the problems in 
Brazil (if they have been already there). But it was important to 
include the Brazilian community in this step - as you are a large 
community nearly totally neglected in OpenOffice.org times.

So having three Brazilian members among the founders is not really 
surprising. By the way: Did you count the Germans? ;-)

Unfortunately the problems in the Brazilian community led to the current 
situation, where some of the SC members are not trusted any more.

But even if you think this is not fair, please take into account:
- It's just one vote among 9
- Neither Olivier nor Claudio hide their opinion if the other wants to 
get any decision that influences the Brazilian community.
- Every community member can discuss topics he/she feels important or 
wrong with the entire SC on the dedicated mailing list and in the SC calls.
- The SC has been established to be replaced by a Board of Directors 
elected by all TDF members latest one year after the launch of 
LibreOffice/TDF (End of September).

This is meritocracy in my eyes.

You state that they still contribute and that they are (at least 
partially) respected inside the Brazilian Community.

For me this sounds that they are community members - and even if they 
might not be trusted fully, this would only mean that the people not 
trusting them would have an eye on their contributions, actions and 
words - and pointing out, if there were something wrong.

What I can say is: None of all the SC decisions I know of have been 
influenced by any of the Brazilian members in a way that might affect 
the Brazilian community in a negative way.
> > [...] We have a perception that you hear too
> > many people who are not alingned to the community's desires, and too
> > less people who can give you a clearer vision of us.

I didn't notice that the SC didn't hear to any voice describing the 
needs of parts of our community.

Your perception is biased - understandable looking at the problems in 
Brazil. But the SC and the international community consist of people who 
are open to real and serious descriptions of situations where something 
went wrong and should be done better.

But the people who think that such a situation hurts LibreOffice should 
tell this - it is not the task of the SC or any other international 
community member to find such problems in the different teams and try to 
solve them: fortunately most of them can be solved directly inside the 
respective team.
> > [...] I suggest you consider to accept more
> > brazilian members, from the *real* community.
I hope you don't think, that membership applications have been rejected 
because they have been from people of the "wrong" part of the community!

> We accept members based on their contributions only.

And as Sophie already told: most of the rejections have been done only 
because the applicants didn't name a community member (best: already TDF 
member) who could give more insight about their contributions.
> > We can vote and
> > indicate some names, if you wish, in order to make things balanced
> > and fairer.

No - these and all the other people should apply for membership, show 
their contributions and be involved in creating the new Board of 
Directors. They can apply for a seat too.
> [...]
>
> > This should be taken in consideration when you decide to
> > "talk to brazilian community as a whole" as you're saying.
>
> What I/we honestly try is to get feedback from everyone inside your
> community.

And here your mails are very important.

Thank you!
> > I will not be a candidate. I have submited my request a few weeks
> > ago. It was deferred. Something about "we couldn't confirm your
> > informations" or so. Maybe the person who decided it doesn't have a
> > web browser neither knows how to use Google translate. It doesn't
> > matter, I wish to give up.

Sorry, if the Membership Committee has not been clear enough how the 
application works.

They can't search and grab for the contribution of every applicant.

They had to deal with more than 50 requests in about two weeks - and 
they are volunteers like you and me, still working in other areas of 
LibreOffice.

They need to be pointed to the contributions - and to someone being able 
to support the request.

Of course it is easier, if they know the supporter, therefore someone 
already known as TDF member would be best.

For the last week I would be glad to be your supporter - your postings 
here have been non-trivial and important for the integration of the 
Brazilian community.

Unfortunately I can't tell about your contributions during the last 
three months as requested for the application (except the video in February)

But perhaps the SC member you trust is able to tell the MC about your 
contributions...

Best regards

Bernhard

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