Many people have asked The Document Foundation for its official position on what Collabora announced in a blog post.
This is not the first announcement of this kind in FLOSS environments, nor will it be the last. Collabora feels that it has to invest in a specific product that differs from traditional, full-featured office suites such as LibreOffice. They are, of course, free to take this approach based on the MPL licence.
However, Collabora has framed this as a direct consequence of the Membership Committee’s decision to remove Collabora employees from TDF membership based on the recently approved Community Bylaws.
The Community Bylaws require that employees of companies involved in legal disputes with The Document Foundation be removed from TDF membership because, in the past, people made decisions in the interest of their employers rather than in the interest of The Document Foundation.
We would prefer to avoid further discussion about who is responsible for what, as this would lead to endless debates that would not benefit the project as a whole (i.e. The Document Foundation, its ecosystem companies, and its volunteer contributors).
Unfortunately, a series of wrong decisions in the past have turned into an ongoing problem which has grown to the point of posing a significant risk to the project. The Document Foundation could have lost its charitable status, which would have had unforeseen consequences.
This risk remains, but thanks to hard rules such as those included in the Community Bylaws, whose enforcement is unpleasant for everyone, it is being significantly reduced and hopefully avoided.
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.
Also, removal from membership does not mean removal from community. Anyone is welcome to contribute and participate.
On the other hand, The Document Foundation is hiring developers and donations are growing, which will allow for further developer and team member recruitment.
In the current environment, the project’s focus should be on leveraging the opportunity presented by growing interest in true FLOSS solutions that support digital sovereignty — or, if you prefer, the freedom to own and control your infrastructure, applications, and documents.