Let's put an end to the speculation - TDF Community Blog

Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post. However, the articles and comments published in response to Collabora’s and Michael Meeks’ biased posts compel us to provide this background information on the events that led to the current situation. Unfortunately, we have to start from the very beginning, but we’ll try to keep it brief. The launch of the LibreOffice project and The Document Foundation was handled with great enthusiasm by the founding group. They were driven by a noble goal, but also by a bit of healthy recklessness. After all, it was impossible to imagine what would happen after September 28, 2010, the date of the announcement. At the time, nobody could imagine that the companies that had supported OpenOffice.org until then would create a project to kill LibreOffice. Also, if the project were to be successful, it would require resources greater than those available, and above all, a deep management experience. Fortunately, the project grew quite rapidly. However, the founders’ different backgrounds and opinions were at the same time the reason for some bold decisions – many of which right – as well as a few mistakes, which are the root cause of some of the current

TDF Community Blog
For those of us with zero context, what's the story here?

Not sure myself, it seems like some of the founders were kicked out in 2025 for "misuse of funds" according to the auditor of TDF / or the Foundation authorities?

https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/well-known-high-c...

Also found this in the annual report, sounds quite serious:

> In 2023, following a request by the Foundation Authorities in Berlin, given the size our foundation has grown into over the last decade, TDF was audited, and a report was sent back to Berlin. The Board of Directors is working with the authorities to implement the improvements suggested by the audit

https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/fsqeJZrAtXeR7JD?d...

Would be helpful if the blog post was more clear about this

Well known, high contributors were removed

Let me help with the requests for the reasons the MC gave to push me/others out. I think these are useful to get the relevant questions listed - of course with reference to our rules, the statutes. Subject: Re: [tdf-membership] [TDF Membership] Application of Cor Nouws was not approved Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2025 12:19:18 -0300 From: Gustavo Buzzatti Pacheco [email protected] Organization: The Document Foundation To: [email protected] CC: [email protected] Hi, ...

The Document Foundation Community
Yikes. They set up the foundation in Berlin, Germany? A country well known for its braindead tax laws and bureaucracy, particularly when it comes to NGOs?
There are plenty of non-profit software projects headquartered in Berlin, e.g. KDE since 1997, and they seem to do just fine.