LibreOffice and the art of overreacting

branon

seems like a missed opportunity not to include a screenshot of said banner in this blog post

c0l0

I am already donating the rough equivalent of the cheapest Microsoft 365 subscription to The Document Foundation each year, and won't stop now just because they're increasing the visibility of their donation-based funding model. I hope they succeed, and many more people start contributing financially as a result.

lynx97

I am not sure the author realizes that Wikimedia fundraising is indeed controversial, given that we know how much money they already have. Same applies to Mozilla. But maybe they have their own bubble and are focused on negative reactions to recent announcements?

VadimPR

I agree with them, nothing wrong to ask for a donation to keep the lights on. At the same time, it needs to be possible to disable this banner for enterprise deployments

PaulKeeble

26.2 has a Donate button on the bottom left of the window alongside showing recent documents and the opening and various sub application launchers. I rarely go to the generic Libre Office screen since I mostly launch documents or the individual applications so I hadn't really noticed it but currently its small.

ethin

I don't understand this immediate reaction. What is it with people getting bitchy the moment a project starts asking for donations? Are people really that greedy that they would want something to be free forever? I mean sure, a corporation like MS might rug-pull like this (the freemium model or worse), but come on, guys, this is the Document Foundation that we're talking about. Unless I missed something massive, they have never once done anything like this, and it would be really, really weird for them to suddenly start doing this now. And they aren't the only OSS projects asking for donations, either. Are we going to crucify everyone who wants donations now?

nogajun

The issue here isn’t that we’re asking for donations. The massive banner is significantly impairing usability. It’s wrong to ask for donations at the expense of usability.

noirscape

While the donation banner doesn't seem like an issue to me, the WMF comparison is extremely inappropriate if they want to talk about appropriate means of fundraising. The WMF is notorious for its donation banners making wildly exaggerated claims about the state of the Foundation (it needs some money to be operational, it is however not by any real stretch of the imagination in financial trouble or losing its independence because it doesn't get enough money; they have a massive endowment that can run Wikipedia for the next 50 years or so, and major corporations already give money to the WMF to keep it in the air, making the statements those donation messages give to regular readers very deceptive), scaring people in third world countries into parting with their meager savings because they are scared of the WMF vanishing through deceptive language and in general their donation drives are extremely intrusive to the respective Wikipedias. I understand that the Document Foundation just wants to bring donations to the attention of their users, but the WMF is the worst point to compare it to.

ozim

I disagree with take on Wikipedia or Wikimedia there was a lot of trash talk because they were totally obnoxious with their fundraising. I donated once to Wikipedia and then I was getting Jimmy Wales in my mailbox basically like everyday. That actually drove me away from ever wanting to donate to them. Then there was a lot of talking if they really are so much in need of money but that's different topic. In contrast I donated to LibreOffice and it was perfectly quiet for one time donation and I am happy to donate from time to time as I use LibreOffice for my personal stuff.

smcleod

Not related to donations but product wise Libreoffice just feels so clunky and Java-ish to use. I switched to OnlyOffice a year ago and other than its almost complete lack of settings it's been so much nicer to use.

armchairhacker

Reminds me of the core-js debacle. I don’t like donation banners. I don’t like more that they’re necessary and actually work. A small problem is they degrade the software even when I’ve already donated. The bigger problem is they’re a downward spiral: people get desensitized, so you have to add more aggressive banners, until you’re like the 33MB news sites where 90% of the screen is intrusive noise. Our society, offline and online, is already crammed with ugly boards asking us to give money. There are ad-free spaces, and it’s at least theoretically possible to make money without ads yourself. I hope eventually ads will become less effective and people will become more inclined to donate (or something like UBI), so it will be more possible. Until then, I don’t really fault LibreOffice for this. Especially because it’s FOSS, so people who really care can just remove it.

ForHackernews

Why can't governments fund LibreOffice as part of their effort to wean themselves away from Microsoft? This seems like such an obvious thing for governments to fund for their own use and bequeath as a gift to their citizenry.

beej71

Smells like shareware from the old days. Didn't mind it then, either.

shaky-carrousel

Yep, calling your users entitled and telling them they're overreacting instead of listening to them. That surely isn't going to backfire. It never did.

II2II

I understand that dealing with complaints is annoying, but the response in the article was very unprofessional. Feel free to say what the change is, why it is there, and perhaps even address some of the concerns. But attacking users, even if it is a small segment of the population, does not paint The Document Foundation in a positive light.

jimjag

LibreOffice suffers from an extreme inferiority complex, which is why they overreact and get overly defensive about _everything_.

red_admiral

They lost me at putting "overreacting" in the title. If that's the way they react to negative user feedback, they deserve more of it. Even Microsoft sometimes caves in if enough people complain - recall is now optional and I believe opt-in; there's noises about maybe not sticking AI in everything and letting you turn it off in future versions.

nyeah

Another pack of evil volunteers trying to give us free stuff. Vote with your wallet. Stop paying your $0 per month until these crooks feel the pain.

TheChaplain

Donated just now, worth every coin for what Calc and Impress gives me.

Baguette5242

Just made a donation. LibreOffice is not going in the direction I would like to, but this software is bringing so much to the community.