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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

#121

Post by cge »

I do not know enough about this particular drama to have any opinion on the merits of the sides involved. However, I cannot help but notice the parallels with the infancy of TDF and the separation of LibreOffice from OpenOffice.org. In 2010, Oracle demanded the resignation of every TDF member from the OOo Community Council that was nominally its governance board; this constituted the removal of every community member (ie, non Oracle employee) from the council [1]; I don't know the full details of what happened after the meeting [2], but it seems like the TDF members refused to resign and that they were removed. The justification was quite similar to the justification here [3]: that the TDF members had a conflict of interest by virtue of being TDF members, and that they could continue to be involved if they left TDF.

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/10/oracle-want... [2]: https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Community_Council_Log_20101... [3]: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-...

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#122

Post by salawat »

roenxi wrote: post #81
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.

:tabnewa Begone Emacs harlot! The user's of the one true universal editor will not be done away with so easily!:wq!

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#123

Post by tomstockmail »

fn-mote wrote: post #98
bee_rider wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on that table it looks like “LibreOffice the name” ejected “LibreOffice the software development project” basically. Although, it isn’t really a corporate takeover, right? There was one company that was doing most of the work, now they’ve been ejected. So why not just fork it under a new name.

> So why not just fork it under a new name. Again? Sigh. Isn't that how we got LibreOffice in the first place? (From OpenOffice.)

They already have their version, it's called Collabora Online/Office.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#124

Post by toyg »

replooda wrote: post #103
tclancy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

OpenBSD, a rather more complex project, seems to be doing fine without a code of conduct — in the sense bakugo employed "code of conduct," not in the generalized sensed you conflated it with in your non sequitur.

I mean, I like openbsd the product, but the community culture is notoriously terrible and unwelcoming to newbies.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#125

Post by ecshafer »

> There are many great ways to contribute to FLOSS projects and coding is only one of them - let me underline that.

I've seen this a lot and really disagree. Maybe writing books or evangelism is useful, but those are still technical. These foundation boards and groups get filled up with people padding their career resume and make detrimental choices to oss. They want to get "Board member of X foundation" so they can try to get a corpo board seat.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#126

Post by rmunn »

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. And organizing humans in anything other than forced labor involves respecting them, thus things like codes of conduct.

This part of your comment was worthwhile. You should have stopped there, before starting to grind an unrelated political axe. Let's at least try to follow the "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity." guideline, eh?

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#127

Post by ryandrake »

bee_rider wrote: post #119
fn-mote wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So why not just fork it under a new name. Again? Sigh. Isn't that how we got LibreOffice in the first place? (From OpenOffice.)

I don’t think LibreOffice ever really took over the mindspace of OpenOffice anyway. Maybe they can a more distinct split will give it a more independent identity. Since Collabora already has an online version, maybe they should fork completely and call this offline version something that implies independence. So, I suggest: SolOffice. Haha.

> I don’t think LibreOffice ever really took over the mindspace of OpenOffice anyway.

It was really a terrible name if you're going after normie office workers. Nobody outside of open source people knows what "Libre" means or even how to pronounce it.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#128

Post by calibas »

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.

Yeah, that seems like an odd thing to say.

It's like they're setting themselves up for a "no true Scotsman" argument. Anybody who disagrees with their decisions isn't a "true believer" in open source.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#129

Post by garciansmith »

There's more context in another HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47602859

As an outsider it's pretty opaque to me. I think the Document Foundation (handling LibreOffice) wanted to (re)release an online office suite that seems to compete with Collabora, which sells one. But the biggest contributors to LibreOffice are Collabora employees. I thought maybe they feared Collabora taking over the org, but it looks like there are formal legal disputes between the two, I think (see the post from the LibreOffice side https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-...).

And of course when legal issues are involved everyone is being very vague. I just hope it doesn't hurt LibreOffice's development too badly.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#130

Post by Tuna-Fish »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #95
throwawee wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you really take over a project anybody can fork? Freedom is just a name change away.

That will just create another dead fork that no one works on.

LibreOffice exists because the devs of OpenOffice forked it. If the project leadership now ejects the devs, I think that the new fork will be the living one.
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