Re: [libreoffice-marketing] My new slogan.

Your losing me already ;-).

I'm already struggling what 'open source' entails. It's a fuzzy concept 
to me. It's even a term hijacked by marketing. There are currently 
multiple variants and concepts around 'open source'. There as many 
interpretations as we have religions (probably even more). Say reading 
open source literally en figuratively. Is OnlyOffice true open source? 
And we have 'open core'. Or closed core open the rest (SpringMail in the 
past). And surely not seeing that Open Source being the utopia/ 
Walhalla. Every approach having it's pro's and cons . This kind of topic 
is say non-topic for closed source: 
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-nfs/YH/fM/TsbmcZzwnX@kroah.com/ So open 
source isn't without flaws either.

I personally do like "open source' in literally way. So components can 
be re-used and you can can learn how problems are tackled (for you're 
own implementation). Have seen enough projects - sorry also closed 
source - existing because of open source components. Without those 
components those projects where not feasible in economic sense. 
Technically it could be home build but would cost to much effort; large 
prior investment. Making product price far to high. Same holds true for 
buying pre-build closed source components.

Being 'open source' - in sense of public source code isn't everything. 
Big part is code reading skills. Well you can read the code, but true 
understanding takes lots of time.  So the whole open source topic is 
actually more domain for developers. And how big part of the world 
population being developer? Obviously software products of developers 
are affecting the whole world, because of the usage of the stuff 
software developers build. But well the source code that's not a topic 
what the end-user keeps awake at night.
Everybody wants to get the job done.

And well open source can fail to. Chromium has big potential for 
disaster: we are getting pretty much a mono-culture (one browser engine, 
one design and all browser developers aggregated around same place). Not 
much room for different voices or doing it differently.
Yes, forks are open. But well before you have a reputation for new 
browser engine.  And well Chromium is more or less defining the 
standards in this case (about being dominant).  Which has also it's good 
side of 'dropping' legacy security flawed stuff. And creating momentum 
for software changes in company (still relaying on very old security 
flawed systems). But in the long run this can/will backfire.

The Linux community kind of lacking 'stability'. How many different 
distro's have been on the top of Distrowatch in the 20 years. The user 
must constantly adapt to something else (different concepts etc) as your 
favorite distro making less optimal choices, goes bust, or developers 
running away to something more 'cool' (so development progress gets a 
hit). It's always touch an go. Whereas Microsoft being pretty old stable 
company and still alive and kicking. Yes, pretty dominant entity; 
setting standards. Having enough practices you can disagree with.  And 
surely has its (big) flaws in technical sense, but still getting away 
with that commercially.

And money - or even wider economic - plays a big role even in the open 
source community. You need financial stability to actually do something. 
You need to have a model to make money. And open source doesn't make the 
business model easier. If you key capital is the 'code' and put that 
online for free.  Mozilla is tied to Google search engine revenue 
(dependency) . LibreOffice tied to the eco-system partners. And those 
eco-system partners still having issues with their business model. Read: 
LibreOffice is cannibalizing on their products. And people are more 
interested functional software (even SaaS). Not some kind get product 
for free with bug fixing agreement for the issue which appear. Where you 
can't estimate the costs this way. You want to pay fixed price in 
advance which includes bugfixes (in general). That obviously exceptions. 
Additional special contracts for priority bugfixes and/ or features 
something else.

The only thing private part of "open source" and code knowledge 
(documentation is mostly so, so) . There only few people with true 
knowledge. Even at LibreOffice. Only one person working on scheduler in 
recent years. And the writer layout code (including track & changes) is 
also more or less domain of single developer. Skia the same. From risk 
management quite interesting. What would happen one of those developers 
suddenly stop? Would the gap be filled. And what if 3 developers would 
quite. How would affect the development progress and bug fixing. How 
sustainable would the eco-system be? Theoretically/ technically 
everybody could look into it, but you need lots and lots of tacit 
knowledge to truly change something. Something the old guard has.
There plenty of abandoned projects on GitHub/ sourceforge. Everybody can 
continue, fork and so on. And does happen, but loss of the initial 
developer(s) means mostly a dead project. And open source leaves you in 
the cold, as commercial company's do.

Open standards (and proper documentation) and more using more common 
data structures is different topic. It's for interoperability this truly 
important. However it's also hard. Custom extensions of the file format 
(prior to official standard) pretty common. Standards are really 
bureaucratic (slow). Proper implementation those standards is also a thing.

LibreOffice does write evil DOCX files once in a while. Not because lack 
of documentation from Microsoft. Reasons are conversion aspects 
(LibreOffice styles model is different compared to MSO) and lack of 
interest and simply awful implementation back in the day (different 
assessment on relevance back in the day)  So instead of one style in the 
whole document, every text portion getting a separate unique style. So 
even open source not warranty that goes well. And well around for 10 
years. So also not especially recent.  Surely some developer would work 
this, but not voluntary (in the sense of being unpaid). Everybody needs 
to make a living. So we end up in the area of money/ revenue topic. Or 
more broader economics. Limited resource and limitless pile of problems. 
And apparently Microsoft being pretty good in resource management. 
Prioritizing the proper projects/ tasks. Else everybody would run away 
at some point.

Also, regarding to DOCX standards. The technical specification/ 
documentation mess is affecting themselves. Implementation is one, 
maintaining step two. So they documentation is also relevant to them. So 
mess isn't only nasty for competitors who want to implement full 
compatibility but also for Microsoft themselves, in the long run. 
Obfuscation of technical documentation is working in the short term 
(giving some advantage), but at some point it will come back at you. And 
part of this isn't on purpose (culture) but simply effect how it worked 
in the past and complex systems with their own dynamics. How many coding 
concepts are applied through LibreOffice code base (every hype from 1985 
- 2010 should be noticeable somewhere). And enough stuff gets unwinded 
again because isn't working in the long run after all. So design choices 
which had merits back in the day hunting you today (even seen as bad 
practice at today standards). And the functionality of buttons and such 
LibreOffice isn't properly documented either. There is enough madness 
inside LibreOffice. Which results in unintended features, unnoticed 
bugs, or sub optimal workflows. Also here not 'on purpose' but simply 
happens.

It's not black/white. Open Source being good and Closed source evil. Or 
visa versa Closed source being the Summum and Open Source worthless. 
Both approaches have their merits. And those debates about which 
religion being the best (open versus closed) worthless, pointless, 
unproductive exercise. Note: I'm using religion in sense of believe 
system. Atheist have a religion too. Most important to me are open 
standards. Note: I do like the 'open source' concept getting traction 
and more attention. As said there are advantages. And I know open source 
has to come from far behind. Dismissed over plenty of years, 
unrightfully. And open source needs it's true believers; 
missionaries/advocates. But there is momentum already, I think. And 
overdoing it is another part of the pendulum. Overshooting means a 
reversal will occur (which likely will overshoot again). However, it's 
hard to predict the future. Those trends are really. So more in terms of 
10-20 years from now. Or maybe it doesn't happen after all? Time will tell.

Kind regards,
Telesto

Op 24-4-2021 om 12:08 schreef Clocked Modular:
> About owning your own data,
> "Open Source or Open Windows"?
> That is the question!
>
>
> Met vriendelijke groet,
> With kind regards,
> Boudi van Vlijmen.
>
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