Entrevista a Leif Lodahl de LibreOffice

Tuve la oportunidad de comunicarme con Leif Lodahl quien fue lider (y aún hace parte) de The Document Foundation, la fundación que asegura al libertad de la suite LibreOffice; la mayoría fueron miembros de OpenOffice.org. A continuación sus respuestas:

1 - Make a short introduction of yourself. Who are you? Where are you from? What is your role in LibreOffice/TDF?

I'm Leif Lodahl. I work as project manager and business developer in a consulting company in Copenhagen Denmark. I primarily work with open source software.

Since 2007 I have been the native language lead in the Danish OpenOffice.org community. Today I'm managing the Danish language team. I was one of the founding members of The Document Foundation and in the first year I was deputy member in the lead group in TDF. Currently I'm deputy member in th membership committee.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

2 - Why did you choose to participate in LibreOffice/TDF?

I decided to join even before it was announced. It was for me a natural step to do to get away from the Oracle managed project OpenOffice.org. When Oracle took over from Sun the project became more and more closed.

3 - Do you live thanks to free software or have another source of income?

As mentioned I work in a consulting company. so yes I live thanks to free and open source software.

LICENSING AND BUSINESS MODEL

4 - How LibreOffice is kept? Are there governments or organizations that support LibreOffice?

I don't quite understand the question. In Denmark there is no tradition for government to "support" free software. Internationally LibreOffice is supported by many companies and organisations. https://www.documentfoundation.org/supporters/
Some government offices are supporting LibreOffice indirectly by sponsoring individual projects. Region Ile de Paris (the Paris region) has been sponsoring the browser version and a few German local governments has been sponsoring some important OOXML integration projects.

5 - What is the philosophy of licensing style of LibreOffice? and what strengths it provides?

The Document Foundation is based on free as in libre. We believe strongly in the idea of copy left licensing. That is - we believe - the reason that we have been able to attract more than 300 developers to the project. The meritocratic structure of the foundation is also a key point. Any person who contribute to the foundation has the right to raise his voice and have an opinion. The more he works for the project the more weight his word gets. But the merit is personal even if he are paid by a company. We have a strong commitment to independence and no company or affiliation can ever get majority or the right to veto anything.