[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 134486] UI: Branding: LibreOffice Personal edition

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134486

--- Comment #57 from Timur <gtimur at gmail.com> ---
There are multiple channels of discussion, this bug, mailing list and continues
on blog. 
I add some comments from the blog
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/07/09/marketing-plan-draft-discussion-about-options-available-and-timetable/
I add them as text for all arguments to be listed here (I correct previous
post). 


By James Harking

It is worth considering that the danger or dithering can be worse than acting,
is it worth causing such discussions and bickering for an additional 6 months?
If the decision is such that the name is changed to ‘Community Edition’ then
that would appear to me to be an acceptable compromise.

The strategy of having these two conceptually different versions (Community and
Enterprise) is sound in my mind. Or else you could well find yourself in the
same position as now for a long time and that does not serve the long term
strategy of the DF or the development requirements of the application.

You risk unnecessary delay and not showing leadership. You will never be able
to please everyone with the strategy that you choose, but making a decision
shows leadership by choosing and sticking with a decision.

I would vote for Variant 2.

on 2020-07-09


By Mark S.

Calling something “Community Edition” does not give a positive impression. You
might as well call it the “Lesser Edition” or “Crippled Edition”. That is what
companies do when they open-source a restricted subset of their commercial
product. It is not something a Free Software project should even consider.

Is there a Linux Community Edition? An Apache Community Edition? A PostgreSQL
Community Edition? The answer is “No”, because these are not subsets of a
commercial product. They are the canonical reference projects that any
derivative commercial products would be based on. It is the derivative products
that must append some diminutive suffix or permutation of the original name,
based on the trademark policies of the source project.

Let LibreOffice stay LibreOffice, and let any commercial derivatives deal with
naming issues of their products on their own time.

on 2020-07-09 


    By Vince

    I do agree with you.
    Just keep LibreOffice LibreOffice.
    The swap from MSO to LO is a very difficult step for any (as a person, a
small or large enterprises), and first of all, you have to convince the
decision-maker. And for a decision-maker, ‘Personal edition’ or ‘Community
edition’ will give a definitive feeling of cheap, low advanced, limited, while
just ‘LibreOffice’ will be more rewarding. Going to an ‘Enterprise edition’ is
a step further.

    on 2020-07-10


By lemc

I’m in the academia, and I have been using LibreOffice (and OpenOffice before
that) daily for more than 10 years.
What really concerns me is that this new marketing strategy might lead to the
differentiation, or branching, of the code base of the regular (“community”)
and enterprise editions, with the former being stripped down in terms of
functional features.
One reader in another forum
(https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2020/07/07/libreoffice_community_protests_at_introduction/)
rightfully said that the “Worst thing they can do is to split it into personal
and commercial editions and reserve highly useful and desirable features for
commercial users only”. And herein in this blog, a reader (Mark S) also
expressed his concern that a “community” edition might actually end up being a
“Lesser Edition or Crippled Edition”. His considerations about an eventual
“community” edition being a subset of the “enterprise” edition are also highly
pertinent.
So TDF should clearly make a statement about this issue, informing users
whether the “community” and enterprise editions would continue to be exactly
the same in terms of features, and that the two editions would simultaneously
receive the same updates and bug fixes. It would also be extremely desirable if
the two editions had exactly the same version number, to clearly indicate that
the core programs are the same.
However, it would be perfectly acceptable if the enterprise edition came with a
much larger collection of fonts, clip arts, and templates, as well as
pre-installed business-oriented extensions and a commercial grammar checker. In
this context, I also concur with the opinion that a special naming should be
reserved to the commercial edition, while the regular one would remain known
simply as LibreOffice.

on 2020-07-09 


By JR

Yes. Keep LibreOffice and LibreOffice Business Edition.
That sounds like enrichment for the company, but not crippling for the others.

on 2020-07-09 


By Franck Routier

I also think that renaming the base product is a bad idea…
Why not simply create an “enterprise” brand, like “Corporate edition”,
“Professional support edition”, or anything that sounds as a added value
offering.
Would not adding a potentially pejorative qualifier make the “entreprise”
offering less attractive ?
I don’t think so. Organizations that might need professional services will seek
for it anyway. And nothing prevents from promoting the professional offering in
the product anyway.
This will make clear that LibreOffice remains the product, and that enterprise
edition deals with professional services and support.
This will make clear that “Community edition” won’t be a crippled version.
This will make clear that TDF remains strong on its core values.

on 2020-07-10 


By Óvári

We previously wrote to suggest changing “Personal Edition” to “Community
Edition”. We were wrong as we agree with “lemc” that “special naming should be
reserved to the commercial edition, while the regular one would remain known
simply as LibreOffice.”

Please don’t have “Personal Edition” or “Community Edition” at all.

on 2020-07-09   


By Martin Steigerwald

I also prefer no name change for LibreOffice.

Calling it Community Edition would be acceptable to me, however… I think not
changing the name is even better.

Again: “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”

Call enterprise offerings LibreOffice Enterprise or LibreOffice Business and
please make it clear that this does not mean that the LibreOffice as it we know
it now is about to be crippled in any form or features only implemented in some
enterprise editions. Of course that would mean that the enterprise offerings
would mostly be about support, long term maintenance, consulting and things
like that.

on 2020-07-10 


By Jeremy Andrews

I would like to suggest a “club membership” type of annual member fee which
would give members some advantages, create a sense of community and belonging
and encourage product evangelism.

Advantages could be things like easier access to programmers, early previews of
new versions and a membership bulletin board that would enable communication
between members with similar uses of the software. I am sure many serious users
( I started with Star Office years ago) would be happy to pay a reasonable
membership subscription if it will help sustain a really incredible effort by
the community.

It would be a sad day if developement stopped.

Best of luck with marketing – in all these years I have never had the need off
using “other” office systems

on 2020-07-10

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