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

[Joel Madero]

Hi Zeki,

As always you raise interesting points :)
> 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?
Sure my general definition is something along the lines of "a feature or
enhancement that would predominantly benefit enterprise users and which
day to day users would either not notice at all, or not find entirely
useful." You said that the items you listed were "enterprise" items - I
didn't think much about them to determine if I agree, but since you said
they were enterprise items, I'll trust your judgment and stick to my
previous remark :-D
>
> 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...

"Some basic needs" is not entirely useful. Let's say a company with 20
employees switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice - we're talking
about $2k a year that they'll be saving. If they put 20% back into the
ecosystem to build these "basic needs" items we'll be in good shape.
What would be best is if people like you (who advocate that they donate)
- get a group together of these small companies to share resources to
get these things implemented. If you could get 100 small companies
together, each giving $1k a year - and who speak with "one voice" as to
what these "basic needs" items are....you'd make *tremendous* progress.

>
> 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.
Sure - that's a marketing issue. This is about spreading the message
about the benefit of openness, transparency, and a *different* kind of
software where we collectively seek the best solutions and to grow an
ecosystem that sustains people's livelihoods.

> 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.
+1 to funding pool - but that should be separate from TDF proper and
maybe could be a pool that does tenders about specific things that a
collective group of people/small businesses want to see. If such an
organization arises (which I highly encourage) - I would be the first
one within TDF to support them and try to find ways to assist in their
success.

If you try to do such a thing - feel free to contact me (personally,
outside of the mailing list) to brainstorm about possibilities. I know
Robinson is also quite interested in this subject.

Best,
Joel