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Digging into drama at The Document Foundation
The Document Foundation (TDF) is the nonprofit entity behind the LibreOffice productivity suite. Most of the time, the software takes the spotlight, but that has changed in the past few weeks, and not for pleasant reasons. TDF has revoked foundation membership status from about 30 people who work for or have contracting status with Collabora. In response, Collabora has announced plans to focus on a "entirely new, cut-down, differentiated Collabora Office
" project and reduce its involvement with LibreOffice. TDF's representatives claim that its actions were necessary to maintain the foundation's nonprofit status, while other community members assert that this is part of a power grab. The facts seem to indicate that there are legitimate issues to be addressed, but it is unclear that TDF needed to go so far as to disenfranchise all Collabora-affiliated contributors.
Membership and contribution
Understanding the current dispute requires going into the weeds of the foundation's governance, and its relationship with Collabora. TDF is a Stiftung, a type of nonprofit foundation, that was incorporated in Berlin in 2012. The foundation's objective is to support the development of open-source office software and to promote its use. To facilitate that, TDF holds LibreOffice assets such as its trademarks, as well as funds to support development, put on community events, and so forth.