Maybe I’m silly. Maybe I just can’t read what they write to me (and to other Collaborans).

I read this:

The Document Foundation and the LibreOffice project are open by definition and principle to all developers. Our doors have never been closed to any of you, and they never will be.

… and I somehow feel that this means: “we at TDF have kicked you off of membership, but you are welcome to keep contributing, and to have a warm feeling about it after that”.

Open doors? I can’t even apply for membership for more than three years from now. They have officially informed me about that – this is a link to the EML with the notice from MC; it includes my reply to their original “notification”. They write:

the Membership Committee expels you from the board of trustees with immediate effect. Because you didn’t relinquished your membership immediately, we decided also considering all circumstances to block membership for at least three calendar years, thus at least up to December, 31 2029.

If I had relinquished my membership as the MC asked, I would have lost my right to challenge this “temporary inconvenience” – and I am puzzled by the claim by a board member that “in the meantime … [I] can reapply for membership as soon as the legal matters have been settled.” (https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/comment-about-collabora-blog-post-tdf-community-blog/13626/9). I can re-apply, but – it is clear I will not be accepted until 2030 (the earliest possibility). After that the “bylaws” they invented this January will prevent me from e.g. nominating to BoD for two more years. Definitely honest and welcoming. (No idea how the remaining TDF members feel about the amazing fact that the board could decide and implement a restriction like that, limiting you without asking your opinion.)

Well, enough of that. No more posts about TDF. It was nice, and I met many people during that period, that I hope I can continue to call friends; but the current policy of that thing claiming nice goals and high standards is so disgusting, that I am even glad to not have relation to that anymore. Let’s do some hacking instead!

“Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post.”

When I read those opening words in Italo’s recent statement, “Let’s put an end to the speculation,” they stung. I don’t know if that specific post should have existed or not, but those first few words are a perfect reflection of the current TDF attitude. It is an attitude directed toward the very people who devoted large parts of their lives, their passion, and their hearts to the Foundation’s ideals.

What I am missing is not that specific post that Italo wrote. What I expected—what I felt I earned—was a post that looked me in the eye. I wanted an explanation as to why I am being cast out from the Trustees after everything I’ve honestly given. I wanted to know my specific “guilt,” or why the Foundation now finds “guilt by association” to be an acceptable standard.

And then—I would hope—they would publicly say: “Mike, we appreciate everything you’ve done. We deeply regret the unfortunate decisions we—not you—made over the years. But we feel this is the only path forward, and we are sorry.”

But that is the post they successfully avoided writing.

I have nothing to add to this:

https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/

Not too long ago, a change landed, that brought Biff12 clipboard format support in Calc v.26.2 – thanks Laurent!

It was an easyhack that I authored some time ago; and Laurent volunteered to implement that long-standing missing feature. The small detail was, that the feature was Windows-specific (it is trivial to get the wanted clipboard content there, simply copying from Excel), while Laurent developed on another platform.

Laurent had made the majority of work, before he was stuck, without being able to test / debug further changes. Then, he asked me, if there a way to continue on the platform he used.

At that time, I answered, that no, one would need Windows (and Excel) to continue the implementation. So I jumped in, and added the rest, and in the end, we have created the change in co-authorship.

But later, when part of my code turned out problematic, and I needed to fix it and create a unit test for it, I discovered a trick, that could put Biff12 data into system clipboard on any platform, without Excel – allowing then just paste, and debug everything that’s going on there. It relies on UNO API, and can be implemented e.g. in Basic:

function XTransferable_getTransferData(aFlavor as com.sun.star.datatransfer.DataFlavor) as variant
  if (not XTransferable_isDataFlavorSupported(aFlavor)) then exit function
  oUcb = CreateUnoService("com.sun.star.ucb.SimpleFileAccess")
  oFile = oUcb.openFileRead(ConvertToURL("/path/to/biff12.clipboard.xlsb"))
  dim sequence() as byte
  oFile.readBytes(sequence, oFile.available()) ' changes value type of 'sequence' to integer
  XTransferable_getTransferData = CreateUnoValue("[]byte", sequence)
end function

function XTransferable_getTransferDataFlavors() as variant
  aFlavor = new com.sun.star.datatransfer.DataFlavor
  aFlavor.MimeType = "application/x-openoffice-biff-12;windows_formatname=""Biff12"""
  XTransferable_getTransferDataFlavors = array(aFlavor)
end function

function XTransferable_isDataFlavorSupported(aFlavor as com.sun.star.datatransfer.DataFlavor) as boolean
  XTransferable_isDataFlavorSupported = (aFlavor.MimeType = "application/x-openoffice-biff-12;windows_formatname=""Biff12""")
end function

sub setClipboardContent
  oClip = CreateUNOService("com.sun.star.datatransfer.clipboard.SystemClipboard")
  oClip.setContents(CreateUNOListener("XTransferable_", "com.sun.star.datatransfer.XTransferable"), nothing)
end sub

The first three functions are Basic implementation of XTransferable interface.

Running setClipboardContent will prepare the system clipboard on any platform, using a trick of implementing arbitrary UNO interface using CreateUNOListener; and after that, pasting into Calc would allow to see if things work (if content of /path/to/biff12.clipboard.xlsb is pasted, as expected), and make improvements. If I knew this trick back then, I would of course share it with Laurent; but I thought I’d put it here now, so maybe it helps me or someone else in the future. (Note that application/x-openoffice-biff-12;windows_formatname="Biff12" there in the code was the name introduced by Laurent in the discussed commit; indeed, that, and the actual data in the file, would depend on the exact format that you work with.)