https://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/vendor-neutral-marketing.html
Yes I agree there are some problems. Michael Meeks. But attempting to fix those problems is not a valid reason to make an individual version as this creates more problems. Collabora really is forking the brand making their own brand of Libreoffice. Same with the Linux Distributions and all the different LTS versions. Sorting out the Linux Distribution problem is really a huge problem in itself by the end of this there is a path to profit that does start to fix this. Why the different LTS versions will be why X user of X distribution at times will have problems sharing a document with Y user on Y distribution. . I have no problem with a LibreOffice Enterprise and LibreOffice Community. I have no problem with the about dialog and/or installer heck even space out the toolbar being use to advertise that you are using a non commercial version and where to buy a supported commercial version. But this has not really be doable without a LibreOffice Enterprise product. https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/jzryGw7XDkJadmo#pdfviewer Page 35 >>Ecosystem members providing a LibreOffice Enterprise version should >>coordinate their announcements with the LibreOffice Project This reads like branding where each existing vendor makes their own LibreOffice Enterprise versions with different features and different levels of compatibility. We have distributions all ready undermining the libreoffice experience doing this. We don't need commercial support side doing this as well long term either. Say we look at this position more carefully look at what competitors and FOSS projects in the same boat have done that is successful . Look what Microsoft has done to give us some base. Microsoft turned out they were not making as much money as they expected from MS office installed on personal machines as they expected. How did they fix this. Cloud services. Another one is blender. Application is free but if you want access to training and resources you pay a monthly cloud access fee. Adobe is another with their creative cloud as a marketplace.. Libreoffice online could be used by TDP and partners to provide a software as service competing Microsoft Office online and Google Docs. If this was under the Libreoffice Enterprise branding a percentage of this income can come back to TDP. Libreoffice has a problem getting extensions and templates and documentation and training videos.... There is no money system here this area has not been monetised. There is nowhere for people to sell their content so there is no major reward to create this content either. There are a lot of places with Libreoffice to make a lot of money that are currently not monetised. The want by the commercials parties like your Collabera who Micheal Meeks works for is going the wrong way. Yes, a lot of this monetise process requires the TDP really to take the lead backed by the commercial parties not the current commercial parties take the lead and expect TDP to follow. This Libreoffice Personal edition is really the wrong way. You want to have as many people install Libreoffice as possible and you want to be offering something where they can pay and get something so profit. If I am paying a professional party like Collabera does that payment give me access to more templates, images, documentation.... that are integrated so I can be more productive? Lets say I buy my office suite from another libreoffice fork vendor. I get different stuff right and Collabera has no chance to profit from that user unless they change right. See Michael Collabera is not getting access to every customer they could sell what they are making for Libreoffice today because there is no market place that all Libreoffice users can access to buy parts of your product that is integrated into the provided client. So the problem is not just bad for TDP because they cannot get a percentage on the sales in the marketplace/cloud those providing support items are missing out on sales as well. So everyone is short on cash here. Lot of talk of how we can market Libreoffice. This risks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and you get tempted to poison the item on the other side of the fence instead of fixing what you are doing on your side wrong. LibreOffice Personal edition instead of Community is really poison what is on the other side of the fence. Looking at providing something like a blender cloud/adobe cloud that the enterprise version has access to with coded into the enterprise client integration and even in the Community edition. Of course the Community edition could show content for the enterprise version and that if they had the enterprise version this would be buyable . There are ways to split the community and enterprise versions without having to say 1 version is not for enterprise or is for individuals. Reality: this requires focus on making an ecosystem for end users so that end users who spend get more access to items that are useful for what they are doing and the possibility for end users to be selling some of the stuff they have made. Providing end users with an ecosystem they need cannot be achieved while all the companies providing supported versions of Libreoffice are doing their own things. There needs to be cooperation between groups supporting Libreoffice to build the marketplace where all can profit including TDP. Mind you for stock images and the like you may be doing integration deals with services already providing this for a percentage of kick back on any purchases done TDP because of Libreoffice. Yes, having a cloud solution like blender or adobe that the clients are connecting to can be used to start pushing back against the LTS version fragmentation. Yes cloud requires X version of client software you are using someone fork the cloud is not going to function perfectly so starting to undermine the LTS fragmentation as the fragments end up less functional as they end up cut out of access to the cloud services. Marketing is a great way to waste money trying to sell a product with critical defects undermining its usefulness to end users. Incorrect marketing can basically destroy your market share as well. Remember the best advertising is word of mouth by end users who use the product and like it so recommend it. Best advertising will come if your product is providing what end users need. Libreoffice is not providing the paid content people need at times to-do their work and does not have a workflow for using paid content this is one of the biggest gaps in Libreoffice profitability. Paid content Libreoffice could be providing a marketplace for or access to. 1) Commercial Fonts. 2) Commercial Stock Images/videos the paid for ones. 3) Commercial Templates yes paid for ones. 4) Documentations paid versions 5) Training materials videos/guides/workbooks paid versions 6) Certifications. There are most likely a few more ways to make money I am not even thinking of. Yes documents using Commercial Fonts, Stock Images and Templates there could be metadata placed in the ODF format and product PDFs so that end users were aware these are commercial items and where to buy them. Profiting from all these areas does not mean needing to make a Personal edition. Yes there would be a lot of coding work to make Libreoffice up to task of being a client to end user to provide ways to buy, acquire and use commercial content simply. Of course those who don't want to use commercial content could. Doing this would fix a lot of the Libreoffice profitability problems. Commerical Fonts, Stock Images and Templates to be able use correctly would require quite a bit of changes. All three you need to see what is paid and what is not and what the restriction on usage for all 3 is in fact. TDP being a not for profit does risk the mindset of not thinking how to make profit because that seems counter to being a not for profit. Long term stability you need to think how to make a profit so the foundation stands on its own two feet very solidly. Making a profit does not come from restricting how end users can use your software. It is making your software provide what end users in fact need and profiting from the process. Think is like printer makers selling printers cheap and making money off the consumables. Fonts, Stock images, Templates are the consumables of an office suite. Blender consumables are like textures, models... all stuff the blender cloud provides and the blender cloud basically funds the core blender foundation these days. Libreoffice project really needs to solve how to sell end users the consumables they need as it a path to lots of ongoing money. Peter Dolding -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: board-discuss+unsubscr...@documentfoundation.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
