Re: [libreoffice-marketing] The Edition Matter

> So, for me, "Community Edition" is fine. We would also need to decide on
> the commercial label at the same time, of which, I prefer "Powered by ...".
Related to the 'Community Edition' I point to page 54 of
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/qPMWRFsxwQ6QFpK#pdfviewer
Which is summery of the discussion at BoD mailing list . Which gives a 
taste what can go wrong :-)
Prefer the avoid the confusion in advance. So I tend to opt for 
something else.
However if the majority -or should we opt for qualitative majority 
instead of simple majority,
recalling narrow majority on the Brexit vote - wants this, fine. I will 
back down

I'm also having some issues to get to the a clear picture a (single) 
"Community".
I see it more as decentralized community's, compared to a single 
'coherent' TDF LibreOffice community/family.
You can divide it linguistically There is the France community, German 
community, Spanish community.
Or maybe task based: developers community. A QA community :-). 
Translation community.
Or maybe you can draw a line between company community and unassociated 
people.
It are more or less in depend groups working together, under umbrella of 
a community.

And at a centralized TDF community there is a vision. Maybe even a 
independent group for coordination stuff like Quality Assurance.
Not the 'current' actual QA work, but actually Assurance. So trying to 
bring LibreOffice to a higher level.
However this centralized coordination isn't present. And not really 
wanted either. TDF code repro is more a container.
Where (privately written created code) is dropped and pulled by others. 
And visa versa. There is no coordination at TDF.
TDF is in some sense more or less a conduit where code passes through, 
without any influence.
The Quality Control is done at eco-system partner company level. And 
flows into TDF. However it's uncoordinated process.
Everybody is only rudimentally awareness of what people are doing of 
preparing to do. There is no plan, no roadmaps, vision,
of what LibreOffice should be in 1, 2 or 5 years. No quality improvement 
initiatives strategy or something similar coming from TDF.

So pretty lose bunch of people.

Eco-systems partners (and their employees, mostly developers), are big 
(and essential) part of the community.
Professionally as personally. So it's not a community of equals.

There is also a topic how much the 'Community Edition' diverges from 
'Enterprise' Edition.
As Community Edition suggests a 'material' product difference between 
Enterprise Edition (or this the common expectation).
And Community Supported edition would make clear it's only related to 
support, not software as such.
However they eco-system partners playing a big part in they community. 
However they don't deliver actual community support.
They bug fixing they are doing is primarily done in their own interest 
from my perspective

So LibreOffice Libre Edition. And Edition free of connotations. And 
being free. You can spin write whatever story you want around it :-).
I'm fan of story telling :-).

You could even say: LibreOffice powered by the (LibreOffice) 
community/volunteers/TDF without the  'Edition label'
Or LibreOffice powered by volunteers.

Next topic. I would suggest to also include some additional line in the 
about box below the edition
Largely made possible by contributions of CIB; Collabora; RedHat and 
others (with reference the LibreOffice site).
This edition isn't professionally supported. Learn more about 
professional support, click here"

This of course they gray area of blending advertising/'branding' with 
free product.
However it's they truth those are large contributors and the should have 
some credits all the work they are doing.
Except of the hairy area of phrasing a proper sentence, without 
disrespecting they contribution of others.
It should be possible to get some objective criteria (rules) about who 
are shown in the about box.
I see it as a thank you for the all the code sharing they are doing 
:-).  They deserve credit for the work (and investments).

However someone will likely object :-). Because doesn't match the core 
values ideals of FLOSS or open source etc etc.
Or LibreOffice being 'free' project/product without company involvement. 
Or the contributions of everybody being equal to their power.
The reality is however that LibreOffice at TDF is made possible/ backed 
by the contributions of major (commercial) partners.
You can argue this should be the case, or simply a incident. However, 
where in they history of LibreOffice/OpenOffice/StarOffice did it go 
without
a commercial company backing the development? [Hope I remember enough; 
didn't verify my statement]
They desire that LibreOffice being developed by independent people 
without financial interest sounds like an utopia to me.

I would like a more pragmatic approach. Which is more in line with 
reality/ factual setting.
Instead of pretending as the community is based work only done by 
volunteers. A huge part is simply done my professionals with commercial 
interest.
Those professionals are part of community (all the time), but not always 
in the role of volunteer.
They professionals are wearing the volunteer head once in a while, doing 
extra's in their free time. Or for non-market standard fee etc. (or in 
any other way)
But surely don't have the role of volunteer all the when working on 
LibreOffice (or should I say ecosystem partners products, which code 
merged into TDF branch).
Same setting is present at BoD TDF. Few of those members doing the work 
'as volunteer' for TDF, but also keeping tabs for their business so a 
commercial interest.
Visa versa bring in the commercial perspective into TDF; which of course 
reasonable. Except this sometimes ends in a kind of COI matter where TDF 
and business vision not totally align.

My 'plea' create a little more awareness of the company's backing 
LibreOffice powered by TDF. Making it more clear how 'LibreOffice' is 
created.
Note: No affiliation with eco-partners.  I'm simply finding it 
reasonable and respectful to give the credit (and helping them to build 
a business).
But I'm aware this hairy topic with strings attached (complications). 
Say: what happens if large contributors stops contributing.
What if a new group of people start contributing. Why only business and 
not individuals? So putting this forward as suggestion to think about.

Cheers,

Telesto

FWIW no objection again re-evaluating as such. I'm favoring this. 
However, be warned: a new change isn't that easy.
Related to my own experience at QA. The progressives and the conservatives.
I'm still trying to get certain feature, currently enabled by default, 
disabled (by default). As I asses this to be a mistake; different 
weighting of priority's
I also have some 'axioms'/ theory backing it. However to group who likes 
those enabled - are now used to it. So the are a potentially angry mob.
The unknown about presence, size and scale angry mob, combined with they 
argument that we don't want to experiment (risk a flipflop back and 
forward),
nothing will happen. Gridlock. We know what we have now, we don't know 
what we will get. Proof your proposal will work better. Which I 
obviously can't.
And I don't expect this topic to be really different. So this decision 
can be changed theoretically be might be 'final' in practice.
And might take years of lobbying to be changed again. Only in a certain 
(star) constellation this might happen.



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