LibreOffice in Sri Lanka

ICTer International Conference is the successor to the seminal International Information Technology Conference (IITC) held in Sri Lanka since 1998. We have been invited by the conference organizers, thanks to the connection established by Daniska Navin, a long time project member, to attend the 2023 event on November 8 and November 9, to present LibreOffice during a keynote speech, and to manage a two day workshop about LibreOffice and the Migration Protocol, on November 7 and November 10.

I attended the conference and provided the keynote speech about LibreOffice Technology, and together with Lothar Becker – Certification Co-Chair – managed the two day workshop. The conference was a huge success, as we met many interested people, including some students who asked to organize a similar workshop in 2024 at their universities in other cities of Sri Lanka. We will definitely be back next year to attend ICTer 2024, and to visit the other universities for a workshop.

During the workshop we covered many topics:

1. Workshop Day 1: LibreOffice project’s history, the technical evolution of the development platform, LibreOffice’s six modules, with an introduction to main features, an introduction to open source software and open standards (for software and for documents), and free open-source licenses and business models.
2. Workshop Day 2: LibreOffice Migration Protocol, fixing bugs and regressions, interoperability with proprietary document formats, conversion of document templates and macros, compatibility of VBA macros, and integration with third-party applications.

At the end of the workshop, we handed the basic LibreOffice Certified recognition to the following people (in alphabetical order by first name): BWRU Siriwardhana, CS Jayakody, DN Gunawardana, Dilani Sagarika, DMDC Kumari, Gayani Sadagiri, HK Jayarathna, HP Henegama, JKDI Thilakarathne, JRM Muthumalki, KDPM Kannangara, Malsha Katugampala, Mrs LC Karunasagara, Ms AS Gunathilake, Nisantha Ranathunga, NS Gajasinghe, R Prasanna, Rajika Dilrukshi, Renuka Matiwalakumbura, RMJM Rathnayake, Ruwan Jayalath, Sachini de Silva, Selani Ekenayake, Vimukthika Sewwuandi and WMNK Weerasooriya.

A big thank to all our hosts at the School of Computing of the University of Colombo: the Director Dr DAS Atukorale and the Deputy Director Prof Kasun de Zoysa, and all the other academic and administrative staff members who have welcomed us and made the conference memorable. A special thanks to Sanduni Thrimavithana, who made our stay as memorable as the conference. And a final thanks to all the other people we have met during the four days. See you all in 2024.