Re: [libreoffice-marketing] plea to remove in-app advertising from LibreOffice

Increasing involvement and donations is instrumental for the success of
the project. We have an estimated user base of over 100 million unique
users, and probably a similar amount of non unique users, but we have
less donations than Thunderbird - who shows the donation message at
every launch of the program, so even multiple times per day - but I have
not seen any similar complaints on Thunderbird support mailing lists. I
think that the right approach to this issue - which, by the way, does
not seem to be an issue for many users, as I had to show a screenshot to
several LibreOffice users to explain what I was referring to (including
my wife), as they did not even notice the banner - is to improve the way
we are showing it (including, of course, the form and the place) and not
asking to get rid of it based on a number of opinions which is not
representative of our user base.

Thanks to the involvement of volunteers and to donations money we are
able to organize events around FOSDEM, the LibreOffice Conference, pay
for volunteer travels to events either internationally or locally, have
a team who manages the day to day activities of the foundation, and so
on. Missing the involvement of volunteers and the donation money, we
should probably reduce over time and then stop all activities.

I am happy to discuss a contructive way to improve the situation, with
the objective of increasing the number of involved volunteers and the
amount of donations, but I strongly oppose a simple removal of the banner.

On 30/01/2019 06:21, Justin Luth wrote:
> Someone on ask.libreoffice.org wrote:
>
> “Lately, in LibreOffice 6.1.2.1 I get a nag window on top asking me to
> get involved. Are you trying to become obnoxious windows-like software?
> How do I get rid of that thing?” This succinct post is very revealing,
> and perfectly mirrors my own initial and ongoing impressions.
>
> First, note the user perception of this new “feature”. It is classified
> as naggy. It is not seen as a legitimate request for help, but as an
> untargeted and intrusive irritant.
>
> Secondly, it is totally unwanted. This user terms it as obnoxious, and
> references the disrespectful and heavy-handed Windows attitude that has
> driven so many of us to FOSS in the first place.
>
> And that all leads to the obvious reaction of “how can I never see this
> again.” Seeing it once is already too much, and every 90 days is not an
> improvement.
>
> Do we really want to market LibreOffice as yet another piece of
> unprofessional[1] beggarware? Everyone already acknowledges that
> “GetInvolved” irritates us, but now imagine the scenario where someone
> has donated to LibreOffice and a week later the donate message pops up!
> That will feel extremely offensive!
>
> Having places (like help - get involved/donate/about) where the user can
> discover and actively seek out ways to support LibreOffice is fine, but
> intentionally irritating the user base is sure to back-fire. Please, let
> us remove the infobar advertisements before they cause too much damage.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Justin - volunteer developer, promoter, user-support  (who is damaged in
> each of these capacities by this adware), and self-appointed end-user
> advocate.
>
> [1] It is completely unprofessional. Speaking about the “get involved”
> pop-up, Michael Meeks writes that “No vendor (or in-house team)
> providing an actually supported version would show this to their users”.


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