The Document Foundation ejects its core developers • Hacker News Board

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#131

Post by alexgieg » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:50 PM UTC

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 checked the numbers. OpenOffice reports about 230,000 downloads a week. LibreOffice, in contrast, reports about 1,000,000 downloads a week. Those are both direct downloads from their respective websites, thus not counting Linux distributions, in which the default office suite is LibreOffice. AFAIK, no distribution comes with OpenOffice as its default; it's always LibreOffice.

I also checked Google Trends for the last 3 months, comparing LibreOffice vs OpenOffice. The first is searched on average 4.7 times more than the latter, which tracks with weekly download numbers.

From those numbers, I'd say it's pretty clear the name "LibreOffice" won quite decisively over "OpenOffice". OpenOffice is still used a lot, but nowhere close to LibreOffice, especially when we add Linux distributions counts.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#132

Post by replooda » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #124

replooda wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find it just the opposite. I can think of few communities nearly as patient or welcoming to anyone who's earnest and willing to put in the work to learn; true, there's no coddling or hand-holding, and, indeed, it tends to be very direct in calling out foolishness or laziness, and can reach epic proportions when it comes to dishonesty or entitlement, but nothing which can't be processed by emotional maturity, nor the gratuitous pedanticism-fueled browbeating often seen in some I-use-foo-btw open-source communities despite their shiny CoCs.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#133

Post by kstrauser » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

sgbeal wrote: post #120

kstrauser wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that as they’re ejecting all but 30 people.

> I read that as they’re ejecting all but 30 people. i had to re-read the original sentence several times to figure out how you came to that conclusion but can see it now: "all people over/above/beyond [a limit of] 30..."

It's really hard to parse and I'm just guessing at what it means. Now when I glance at it again, I read it like:

> their Membership Committee has decided to eject from membership all Collabora staff and partners (over thirty people) who...

I don't know if that's correct, either.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#134

Post by harvey9 » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

khalic wrote: post #82

zhongwei2049 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't see it as trying to exclude non technical people, only that people who specialise in organisational politics will have a natural advantage over people who specialise in code so in the long run more of the former will sit on boards

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#135

Post by cge » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

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.

It's strange. I started reading about this expecting that I'd support TDF's position against a company with a somewhat dubious open-non-open split, with a reasonable claim about conflict of interest, but the behavior of the TDF side seems sufficiently toxic that it's difficult to support them.

In similar behavior, one of the votes against the community bylaws that seem to have resulted resulted in the expulsions was "If the Board majority group insists on proceeding with this misguided and premature motion, I vote NO". Those in favor decided that the vote was conditional and not valid, because "this motion is neither misguided nor premature". They then proceeded to tell others complaining about the decision that they were violating community standards in doing so.

As far as I can tell, the invalidated vote made no difference to the outcome; it is difficult for me see a legitimate motivation for the interpretation of the vote.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#136

Post by bawolff » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #116

How about a different take: This isn't really about two open source organizations fighting. It's a psyop from the powers that want to stop the digital sovereignty initiatives going on around the world by amplifying some friction that already existed. People won't want to use products with so much drama and uncertainty. TDF needs to eject the members who pulled the strings hardest on this - they are plants. Damn I did…

> People won't want to use products with so much drama and uncertainty.

Really? You think the average user cares about this drama?

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#137

Post by bawolff » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

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.

On the other side of things, i've seen plenty of examples where technical people try to manage things despite having no administration experience and screw it up.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#138

Post by Arainach » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #136

phkahler wrote: post #116

How about a different take: This isn't really about two open source organizations fighting. It's a psyop from the powers that want to stop the digital sovereignty initiatives going on around the world by amplifying some friction that already existed. People won't want to use products with so much drama and uncertainty. TDF needs to eject the members who pulled the strings hardest on this - they are plants. Damn I did…

> People won't want to use products with so much drama and uncertainty. Really? You think the average user cares about this drama?

Businesses and governments do, and they're both the target market and the drivers behind digital sovereignty efforts.

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#139

Post by toss1 » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #136

phkahler wrote: post #116

How about a different take: This isn't really about two open source organizations fighting. It's a psyop from the powers that want to stop the digital sovereignty initiatives going on around the world by amplifying some friction that already existed. People won't want to use products with so much drama and uncertainty. TDF needs to eject the members who pulled the strings hardest on this - they are plants. Damn I did…

> People won't want to use products with so much drama and uncertainty. Really? You think the average user cares about this drama?

I don't think GP is talking about average users; they seem to be talking about decision-makers in organizations, e.g., a town board that wants to achieve digital independence, but is made unsure by apparent turmoil in the governance in open source orgs...

Re: The Document Foundation ejects its core developers

#140

Post by philipwhiuk » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

On the one hand a foundation led by non-developers is bad.

On the other hand, a foundation captured by a single company and prevented on working on anything that the company works on for profit is also bad.

And finally, a 'personal blog' from someone who is actually senior at a company is a very weird back-hand submission. If the comments weren't defendable to put on the company blog, they probably aren't needed here either.