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LibreOffice / The Document Foundation needs €50,000. Please donate.

102 points by Garbage 16y ago

ldng 16y ago
Why an expensive Foundation ? Non profit organisation isn't enough ? Do they the plan to be imitating the MozFo / MozCo or Wikipedia system ? They do look like to money laundry system at times to me. I'm not a huge fan from a FOSS point of view.
- benatkin 16y ago
  Some things really do vary between countries.
ajarmoniuk 16y ago
No.
rebelde 16y ago
Geez. They should incorporate (or form a non-profit) somewhere where it is closer to $500 instead of €50,000. My Delaware Registered Agent does all the paperwork for $329, and I think it can be even cheaper if you register on your own.
- Maakuth 16y ago
  I don't think it's about the cost of paperwork. I assume they get to keep the money, and the point with this requirement is that something's actually going to happen in the Stiftung with this kind of money. Wikipedia has more information about the topic[1]. They seem to say there that the 50k€ isn't a strict requirement, but more like a recommendation. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung#Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung#Germany
  - rebelde 16y ago
    I realized that they get to keep the money, or at least most of it. Just it seems like an recommendation/requirement that shouldn't exist. Despite this, I think it makes a great excuse to get 50,000€ in the bank, which can help in other ways.
mkr-hn 16y ago
It seems too early for them to be asking for this kind of money. They've only shipped one marginal improvement over OpenOffice. It doesn't make sense to me for them to toss down so much money formalizing such a new organization. This also has some unpleasant implications. Imagine if a large portion of credible forks popped up on HN asking for money before they had a few versions shipped. It would be a mess.
- Garbage 16y ago
  They might be able to ship "more marginal improvements" if they are well funded.
- benatkin 16y ago
  > Imagine if a large portion of credible forks popped up on HN asking for money before they had a few versions shipped. It would be great if we could have an argument about which of several credible OpenOffice fork organizations we could support. However, this search pretty much just turns up LibreOffice: http://www.google.com/search?q=openoffice+fork http://www.google.com/search?q=openoffice+fork If they're gaming the system by finding a significant gap in the market, so be it. (By the way, I just downloaded and installed LibreOffice and it works great, and there's no Oracle baggage. That counts for something!)
00joe 16y ago
Foundations have quite a good tradition in Germany, and the benefits in terms of taxes, limited liability and international credibility are high. With the German-based model, activities are not limited to one country: the foundation can and will be active worldwide. In addition, the German model provides a high security and stability, as the foundation's statutes cannot be changed and, therefore, cannot be abused. Setting up a corporation or an association, on the other hand, would expose us to the risk that, if a majority of all stakeholders so decided, the statutes could be changed, even as far as removing charitable purposes. In order to provide safety and stability, not only for our users, adopters, developers and enterprises, but for the whole community, a German-based foundation is ideal. In addition, we have many active community members in Germany: the roots of the product originally lie here, we expect a lot of support from corporations and governmental bodies, and the adoption rate for free office productivity software is very high. http://challenge.documentfoundation.org/why/ http://challenge.documentfoundation.org/why/
- paral_10 16y ago
  a few key points (some added): # a foundation is fully legal person # the foundation has no members # therefore nobody can decide to change the foundations mission afterwards (f.e. no shifting of mission values or other priorities possible) # the 50.000 € is a recommendation, yes. part of the reason: only dividends and interest must be used to finance the foundations activities. the 50.000 must stay untouched forever. 50.000 € * 0,03 (average interest rate) = 1.500 € per year available for expenses # again: the foundation is a cemented full legal entity which can hold copyright owner rights
endtime 16y ago
If I thought there was any chance of them creating a decent competitor to Office, I'd consider donating. Can anyone persuade me this is the case? The "free as in beer" argument doesn't work when you're asking for money, and while I think "free as in freedom" is nice, if I'm going to donate money there are other causes that come first for me.
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  It (OpenOffice/Libre Office) is already a decent competitor to Office. I've used it for a decade or so. The last version of Office I purchased and used was Office 97. That said, this particular group of folks might not have had a significant hand in developing that decent competitor. I don't know enough about it to know if they're the people I should be donating to. Forks are complicated that way. I'm a little suspicious of them needing 50k right off the bat like this, but it's been a long time since I've followed development or the people involved very closely. It's such a huge project, it probably does need a reasonably large and funded organization to really push it forward, and I obviously wouldn't trust Oracle to do it. We are, however, probably reaching the end of life for desktop-based office suites. I use Google docs for writing everything except books at this point, and I've considered trying it for a collaborative book, as well. Likewise spreadsheets...I haven't made a spreadsheet in OpenOffice in a couple of years. The free software fanatic in me worries about this move to a platform I have no control over, but the convenience and power of online editing is hard to beat.
  - endtime 16y ago
    I've used Office too, and currently use 2010. I've also used OOo, and I'm sorry but it's really not competitive. If you haven't used Office since 97 (three or four versions ago) then I don't know how you can justify having an opinion how OOo/LO compare.
    - SwellJoe 16y ago
      Let's just say that there is nothing I need an office suite to do that OpenOffice couldn't do five or even ten years ago. I'm not a heavy office suite kinda user, but I have written two books in OpenOffice (one published), without major complaint. These days, as I mentioned, I use Google docs for most stuff, and that's dramatically less capable than either MS Office or OpenOffice. I simply don't need millions of features to get the work done. I think the relevance of desktop office suites is fading rapidly, and with it the need for Office or OpenOffice. (Though I do wonder if I could write a book for publication at this point in Google Docs and have editors/publishers be happy with that decision.)
mcantelon 16y ago
Sorry, I'd rather donate to developers rather than, indirectly, to lawyers.
- moondowner 16y ago
  If the lawyers don't set the ground what will the developers work on to? The developers, all contributors, and users of LibreOffice need this.
  - mcantelon 16y ago
    LibreOffice is the first foundation I've seen attempting to solicit this kind of money just to set up. I would suggest that LibreOffice talk to other project foundations and get advice on how to do this for less than $50K euros.
joe_the_user 16y ago
Both Open Source Desktop and web startups give a lot out for free. Web startups have massively succeeded at times. It don't see why an Open Source Desktop startup couldn't succeed if it started out with the aim to disrupt rather than to copy. What I would like to see is someone formulate a plan for a series of small and/or more modular tools that could be used instead for office purpose instead of a massive office suite. Open source seems doom to lose in a race to create Microsoft-style monster applications. And this isn't to deny the usefulness of MS Office or Open Office. But an approach that could play to the strengths of Open Source would be needed if you want to win. Creating a good browser is possible if not easy because the browser is modestly well-defined application. Inkscape is the best open source GUI app I know of. Indeed it's app that isn't bad. As far as I can tell, a factor that let's it be good is that it's objective and domain are really well defined. It would be nice to see people focus Open Development modular tools with a standard, well-defined domain. Those are the apps that the most enjoyable to program too.
forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
That is the reason Free software products have so much problems becoming competitive wit proprietary solutions. People will pay without doubt $600 for a commercial product like Office but have a lot of problems to contribute with someone making software for him for free. We don't value what is cheap, like a woman that plays "hard to get", we value most what is expensive. When people pirate Photoshop they fell the value of their software is at least $1000 because it cost that much, while the effort deployed in GIMP, Inkscape or Blender seems worthless. Those software products feel "almost there" but needs a lot of work for being useful for a professional. These projects need real money for having people working on them full time, not as hobbies like fontforge with his horrible UI because the author does not care, just a hobby. Note to LibreOffice guys: When people read EUR 50,000 they think "Those greedy bastards want so much money from my pocket". Geeks or normal people seems to ignore a lot about business, that it takes MILLIONS of dollars to make a successful software product like Firefox, Android, Blender, Wikipedia, Photoshop, FinalCut or AutoCAD. It took BILLIONS to made Office, Windows or Linux. So ask for small contributions and put a bar progress like wikipedia(people love them) and write down the reasons people or companies paying you $20 is good business for them. That you are more than 25 people working for them because if you don't tell people don't know it. If you were a company that asked $100 per seat, you will need just 500 seats to get this money, MILLIONS of companies in the world need an Office suite so don't be shy, ask for millions of dollars-euros like firefox did(And you will get it because there is a need for it).
- patio11 16y ago
  People will pay without doubt $600 for a commercial product like Office but have a lot of problems to contribute with someone making software for him for free. Additionally, corporations (which is where most of the money is in software) can't donate money. They have no problems paying $600 for a copy of MS Word (meh, it's deductible), but the managers/accountants would pitch a fit if you donated $6 of corporate money to whatever the currently popular OSS knockoff of Word is.
maxharris 16y ago
No.

102 points by Garbage 16y ago

ldng 16y ago

Why an expensive Foundation ? Non profit organisation isn't enough ? Do they the plan to be imitating the MozFo / MozCo or Wikipedia system ? They do look like to money laundry system at times to me. I'm not a huge fan from a FOSS point of view.

benatkin 16y ago
Some things really do vary between countries.

ajarmoniuk 16y ago

No.

rebelde 16y ago

Geez. They should incorporate (or form a non-profit) somewhere where it is closer to $500 instead of €50,000. My Delaware Registered Agent does all the paperwork for $329, and I think it can be even cheaper if you register on your own.

Maakuth 16y ago
I don't think it's about the cost of paperwork. I assume they get to keep the money, and the point with this requirement is that something's actually going to happen in the Stiftung with this kind of money. Wikipedia has more information about the topic[1]. They seem to say there that the 50k€ isn't a strict requirement, but more like a recommendation. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung#Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung#Germany
- rebelde 16y ago
  I realized that they get to keep the money, or at least most of it. Just it seems like an recommendation/requirement that shouldn't exist. Despite this, I think it makes a great excuse to get 50,000€ in the bank, which can help in other ways.

mkr-hn 16y ago

It seems too early for them to be asking for this kind of money. They've only shipped one marginal improvement over OpenOffice. It doesn't make sense to me for them to toss down so much money formalizing such a new organization. This also has some unpleasant implications. Imagine if a large portion of credible forks popped up on HN asking for money before they had a few versions shipped. It would be a mess.

Garbage 16y ago
They might be able to ship "more marginal improvements" if they are well funded.
benatkin 16y ago
> Imagine if a large portion of credible forks popped up on HN asking for money before they had a few versions shipped. It would be great if we could have an argument about which of several credible OpenOffice fork organizations we could support. However, this search pretty much just turns up LibreOffice: http://www.google.com/search?q=openoffice+fork http://www.google.com/search?q=openoffice+fork If they're gaming the system by finding a significant gap in the market, so be it. (By the way, I just downloaded and installed LibreOffice and it works great, and there's no Oracle baggage. That counts for something!)

00joe 16y ago

Foundations have quite a good tradition in Germany, and the benefits in terms of taxes, limited liability and international credibility are high. With the German-based model, activities are not limited to one country: the foundation can and will be active worldwide. In addition, the German model provides a high security and stability, as the foundation's statutes cannot be changed and, therefore, cannot be abused. Setting up a corporation or an association, on the other hand, would expose us to the risk that, if a majority of all stakeholders so decided, the statutes could be changed, even as far as removing charitable purposes. In order to provide safety and stability, not only for our users, adopters, developers and enterprises, but for the whole community, a German-based foundation is ideal. In addition, we have many active community members in Germany: the roots of the product originally lie here, we expect a lot of support from corporations and governmental bodies, and the adoption rate for free office productivity software is very high. http://challenge.documentfoundation.org/why/ http://challenge.documentfoundation.org/why/

paral_10 16y ago
a few key points (some added): # a foundation is fully legal person # the foundation has no members # therefore nobody can decide to change the foundations mission afterwards (f.e. no shifting of mission values or other priorities possible) # the 50.000 € is a recommendation, yes. part of the reason: only dividends and interest must be used to finance the foundations activities. the 50.000 must stay untouched forever. 50.000 € * 0,03 (average interest rate) = 1.500 € per year available for expenses # again: the foundation is a cemented full legal entity which can hold copyright owner rights

endtime 16y ago

If I thought there was any chance of them creating a decent competitor to Office, I'd consider donating. Can anyone persuade me this is the case? The "free as in beer" argument doesn't work when you're asking for money, and while I think "free as in freedom" is nice, if I'm going to donate money there are other causes that come first for me.

SwellJoe 16y ago
It (OpenOffice/Libre Office) is already a decent competitor to Office. I've used it for a decade or so. The last version of Office I purchased and used was Office 97. That said, this particular group of folks might not have had a significant hand in developing that decent competitor. I don't know enough about it to know if they're the people I should be donating to. Forks are complicated that way. I'm a little suspicious of them needing 50k right off the bat like this, but it's been a long time since I've followed development or the people involved very closely. It's such a huge project, it probably does need a reasonably large and funded organization to really push it forward, and I obviously wouldn't trust Oracle to do it. We are, however, probably reaching the end of life for desktop-based office suites. I use Google docs for writing everything except books at this point, and I've considered trying it for a collaborative book, as well. Likewise spreadsheets...I haven't made a spreadsheet in OpenOffice in a couple of years. The free software fanatic in me worries about this move to a platform I have no control over, but the convenience and power of online editing is hard to beat.
- endtime 16y ago
  I've used Office too, and currently use 2010. I've also used OOo, and I'm sorry but it's really not competitive. If you haven't used Office since 97 (three or four versions ago) then I don't know how you can justify having an opinion how OOo/LO compare.
  - SwellJoe 16y ago
    Let's just say that there is nothing I need an office suite to do that OpenOffice couldn't do five or even ten years ago. I'm not a heavy office suite kinda user, but I have written two books in OpenOffice (one published), without major complaint. These days, as I mentioned, I use Google docs for most stuff, and that's dramatically less capable than either MS Office or OpenOffice. I simply don't need millions of features to get the work done. I think the relevance of desktop office suites is fading rapidly, and with it the need for Office or OpenOffice. (Though I do wonder if I could write a book for publication at this point in Google Docs and have editors/publishers be happy with that decision.)

mcantelon 16y ago

Sorry, I'd rather donate to developers rather than, indirectly, to lawyers.

moondowner 16y ago
If the lawyers don't set the ground what will the developers work on to? The developers, all contributors, and users of LibreOffice need this.
- mcantelon 16y ago
  LibreOffice is the first foundation I've seen attempting to solicit this kind of money just to set up. I would suggest that LibreOffice talk to other project foundations and get advice on how to do this for less than $50K euros.

joe_the_user 16y ago

Both Open Source Desktop and web startups give a lot out for free. Web startups have massively succeeded at times. It don't see why an Open Source Desktop startup couldn't succeed if it started out with the aim to disrupt rather than to copy. What I would like to see is someone formulate a plan for a series of small and/or more modular tools that could be used instead for office purpose instead of a massive office suite. Open source seems doom to lose in a race to create Microsoft-style monster applications. And this isn't to deny the usefulness of MS Office or Open Office. But an approach that could play to the strengths of Open Source would be needed if you want to win. Creating a good browser is possible if not easy because the browser is modestly well-defined application. Inkscape is the best open source GUI app I know of. Indeed it's app that isn't bad. As far as I can tell, a factor that let's it be good is that it's objective and domain are really well defined. It would be nice to see people focus Open Development modular tools with a standard, well-defined domain. Those are the apps that the most enjoyable to program too.

forgottenpaswrd 16y ago

That is the reason Free software products have so much problems becoming competitive wit proprietary solutions. People will pay without doubt $600 for a commercial product like Office but have a lot of problems to contribute with someone making software for him for free. We don't value what is cheap, like a woman that plays "hard to get", we value most what is expensive. When people pirate Photoshop they fell the value of their software is at least $1000 because it cost that much, while the effort deployed in GIMP, Inkscape or Blender seems worthless. Those software products feel "almost there" but needs a lot of work for being useful for a professional. These projects need real money for having people working on them full time, not as hobbies like fontforge with his horrible UI because the author does not care, just a hobby. Note to LibreOffice guys: When people read EUR 50,000 they think "Those greedy bastards want so much money from my pocket". Geeks or normal people seems to ignore a lot about business, that it takes MILLIONS of dollars to make a successful software product like Firefox, Android, Blender, Wikipedia, Photoshop, FinalCut or AutoCAD. It took BILLIONS to made Office, Windows or Linux. So ask for small contributions and put a bar progress like wikipedia(people love them) and write down the reasons people or companies paying you $20 is good business for them. That you are more than 25 people working for them because if you don't tell people don't know it. If you were a company that asked $100 per seat, you will need just 500 seats to get this money, MILLIONS of companies in the world need an Office suite so don't be shy, ask for millions of dollars-euros like firefox did(And you will get it because there is a need for it).

patio11 16y ago
People will pay without doubt $600 for a commercial product like Office but have a lot of problems to contribute with someone making software for him for free. Additionally, corporations (which is where most of the money is in software) can't donate money. They have no problems paying $600 for a copy of MS Word (meh, it's deductible), but the managers/accountants would pitch a fit if you donated $6 of corporate money to whatever the currently popular OSS knockoff of Word is.

maxharris 16y ago

No.