The Document Foundation Clarifies LibreOffice 7.0's "Personal Edition" Branding

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Document Foundation Clarifies LibreOffice 7.0's "Personal Edition" Branding

Yes, it's true the LibreOffice builds in recent days -- including the new LibreOffice 7.0 RC1 -- have "Personal Edition" branding for the open-source builds. But given user concerns, The Document Foundation board has issued some clarifications to try to ease any immediate rumors, etc...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LibreOffice-Personal-Edition

[tildearrow]

Why not call it "community edition"? What if I have a family computer and the whole family uses LibreOffice? That's not too "personal"...

[Hi-Angel]

Good luck them with their efforts. Marketing is something FOSS really need.

[RahulSundaram]

Why not call it "community edition"? What if I have a family computer and the whole family uses LibreOffice? That's not too "personal"...

It is as personal as "Personal Computer" aka PC. It just means non-enterprise

[cjcox]

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

[Teggs]

I read the statement, and the slide deck. (Well, eventually I did. The Documentfoundation website took longer to open than Libreoffice itself does. ) It's still a bit unclear what they intend exactly, but I'm getting:

1. There is infighting in the project as to future changes, identified in the materials as a 'community'/'ecosytem partner' split.

2. TDF intends to target several groups that they believe should be using LibreOffice and aren't with a marketing/education push. 'Use LibreOffice instead of pirating software.' Or paying for proprietary software, of course.

3. For corporations and NGOs, TDF will enable separate versions of software based on today's LibreOffice, insulating them from changes in the 'Personal Edition' which they may not like.

4. Even current users of LibreOffice don't give much back, so TDF intends to educate on how doing so is in a group's interest, dangling the ability to have their own version of LibreOffice as bait.

A 'marketing' campaign aimed at educational, NGO, and groups who currently pirate software sounds like a solid idea. And I can understand how corporate users would refuse to be subject to decisions from some 'community' members. Look at mixed reaction to developments in Gnome and KDE over time to see how divisive that can be. Getting groups to pay or contribute, best of luck. I just hope the separate Enterprise version doesn't lead to the project's destruction. My guess is a good portion of the users will actually want that version instead of whatever has them worried that the 'community' will do to the Personal Edition.

[jacob]

Phoronix: The Document Foundation Clarifies LibreOffice 7.0's "Personal Edition" Branding

Yes, it's true the LibreOffice builds in recent days -- including the new LibreOffice 7.0 RC1 -- have "Personal Edition" branding for the open-source builds. But given user concerns, The Document Foundation board has issued some clarifications to try to ease any immediate rumors, etc...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...rsonal-Edition

Their "statement" is just a pile of fluffy weasel wording and doesn't answer THE question: will the Personal Edition become a crippled edition, nagging the user to buy (or worse, subscribe to) the "Enterprise" edition for any feature beyond the deliberately lacking Personal ones?

[RahulSundaram]

Their "statement" is just a pile of fluffy weasel wording and doesn't answer THE question: will the Personal Edition become a crippled edition, nagging the user to buy (or worse, subscribe to) the "Enterprise" edition for any feature beyond the deliberately lacking Personal ones?

Bold preserved from the blog

"1. None of the changes being evaluated will affect the license, the availability, the permitted uses and/or the functionality. LibreOffice will always be free software and nothing is changing for end users, developers and Community members."

[guiaiolfi]

Well well well, if "personal" is to be taken into account, corporations that wont pay are not going to be allowed to use it? That would be a big failure of a free (libre) office suite that was born to have no strings attached to corporates(Oracle).

If that's not the case, the wording choice is a big failure by its own.

[wswartzendruber]

Bold preserved from the blog

"1. None of the changes being evaluated will affect the license, the availability, the permitted uses and/or the functionality. LibreOffice will always be free software and nothing is changing for end users, developers and Community members."

I'm not saying this is what they want to do, but a third party could easily be far more nefarious.

MPL-2.0 permits proprietary code (or code under any license) to be mixed in and distributed as part of a larger work. The only stipulations are that the MPL-2.0 portions of the larger work have to made available to the public.