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The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

collaboraonline.com

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Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#81

Post by roenxi »

cap11235 wrote: post #65

Fix the title. No one seems to recognize "TDF" (The Document Foundation) despite their daily dramatics, myself included.

"The Document Foundation" for anyone too lazy to look it up.

It has been a while since I've noticed a high-profile OSS schism; for anyone who isn't used to them, this is how communities behave. They're generally healthy as long as the stakes aren't too high. In a lighter moment, I might also call on TDF to expel any vim users too in the hope that they'll take the hint and switch to a more C-x aligned editor.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#82

Post by khalic »

zhongwei2049 wrote: post #78
khalic wrote: post #68

So, basically, TDF doesn’t want Collabora (a company) people on their board. The technical vs non-technical framing seems contrived at best. The excuse by TDF seems… suspicious.

Classic pattern. The board gets populated by people whose main skill is board politics, and they use governance tools to push out the people who actually build the thing. Seen this happen in multiple open source foundations.

This is anecdotal at best, but it does play into the tired old technical vs non-technical simplification. The fact that the two entities have now become direct competitors is a better explanation grounded in facts

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#83

Post by steve1977 »

tclancy wrote: post #74
bakugo wrote: post #71

Why does an open source project, apparently developed by a handful of core developers, have a "board", a "membership committee", "elections" etc? And why do these include people who do not contribute directly to development at all? Let me guess, these same people also pushed to introduce a "code of conduct" to the project?

Because to accomplish anything at scale you need organization. And organizing humans in anything other than forced labor involves respecting them, thus things like codes of conduct. These stories could be about anything and you gamergate veterans will show up grinding one of those axes. Care to throw in wild speculation about whether they use “master” as their main branch name, “slave” as backup database terminology…

> Because to accomplish anything at scale you need organization.

I guess the question is does the size of the organization match the scale of what they want to accomplish?

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#85

Post by chuckadams »

khalic wrote: post #73
mikkupikku wrote: post #72

What are the plausible motivations for the TDF board members here? Do they pay themselves with org funds, or is it just a fight for turf and clout? I think identifying factors like this might be helpful, because if these factors could be eliminated or reduced it might save future orgs from infestations of the sort of people who seek out boards to sit on, as they'd find a better opportunity for parasitism in some othe…

They’re relaunching Libre Office online apparently, they don’t want competitors on their board I’m guessing

Possibly they don't want corporations on the board that are actively sandbagging an initiative that competes with that corporation's products. But much like the RubyGems fiasco, all the decisions seem very opaque, so I can't say whether that's actually the case.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#86

Post by steve1977 »

mikkupikku wrote: post #75
bakugo wrote: post #71

Why does an open source project, apparently developed by a handful of core developers, have a "board", a "membership committee", "elections" etc? And why do these include people who do not contribute directly to development at all? Let me guess, these same people also pushed to introduce a "code of conduct" to the project?

From the article: "These days some at TDF seem to emphasize equality instead." I'm not sure exactly what is meant by that. My guess, having some experience with board-sitter parasites, is they're just appealing to empty principles to create the illusion of being important to the organization, because they're unable or unwilling to make more tangible and substantial contributions. When somebody can't justify their rol…

These parasitic patterns are also visible in lower management levels, not only boards (not disputing your point, just adding to it).

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#88

Post by vntok »

torginus wrote: post #79
vntok wrote: post #66

> The project welcomes contributions from true believers in open source. As the majority of people at Collabora are such believers, we expect them to continue contributing when the time comes. Kids, that's a perfect example of institutionalized passive-aggressive behavior.

So essentially 'we f**ked you over but we still expect you to do the work'?

For free!
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