[Libreoffice-qa] minutes of ESC call ...

[Zeki Bildirici]

2015-03-16 0:42 GMT+02:00 Joel Madero <jmadero.dev at gmail.com>:
Hi Joel,
>> Of course these are my wishes on user side :) And 1,2 are missing
>> features for enterprise usage which we extensively used in companies.
> IMHO - GSoC should not be used in order to subsidize enterprise users
> desires. If this is an enterprise feature - let them pay for support to
> get it enabled.
>
> Just my two cents - I'm not a fan of subsidizing others to make money
> off of LibreOffice. This only encourages these companies to continue to
> "sit on the sidelines" instead of becoming a member of the community by
> using some of the funds that they save by using LibreOffice (over our
> competitors) to help fund development within the project.

I understand you. But there is no a certain borders between enterprise
usage  and regular usage, it is an office software and most of regular
users (also small companies) should benefit from them too. Can you
clearly seperate personale needs and corporate needs? For example
improved docx support, is it a corporate need or personal need? Should
it be left as corporates interchanges docs more often?

In addtion these are not new or innovative needs for certain
compaines, these are the functionalities those are already exists in
other office software, and creates gaps with LibreOffice. I cannot ask
a small company owner to donate thousands of euros (may be greater
then their licence cost for years) to have such basic needs while i
promote LibreOffice them to reduce their licencing costs. I ask them
for a decent and regular donation...

It is really hard to do marketing in developing countries such as our
country, and it can take years to us to find corporate sponsors to add
such 'old' functionalites to LibreOffice. It can be a long discussion
and has many perspectives; marketing, free software awareness, free
riders etc.

I don't know if there is a policy that seperates enterprise needs and
leaves them to be funded from companeis, if so having a funding pool
may be good and we can drive SME's to donate there, otherwise it
becomes irrational to promote LibreOffice to them.


Regards,
Zeki