24 Nov 2016

LibreOffice contributor interview: Leif Lodahl

Posted in Community, Interviews, LibreOffice By Mike Saunders On November 24, 2016

With the Month of LibreOffice nearly over (stay tuned for a wrap-up!) we now return to our regular interviews with contributors to the project. This week it’s the turn of Leif Lodahl, who helps out with localization…

 

What do you do in the LibreOffice project?

I am the lead of the Danish localization team, and I live and work in the Copenhagen Area in Denmark. You can find my LibreOffice contributions and social media accounts here:

I live with my wife Marianne (with whom I have just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary) in the suburbs to Copenhagen. My two sons are both adults and have left our home.

 

Do you work for a LibreOffice-related company or just contribute in your spare time?

Until September 1st I was working as project manager and business developer in the company Magenta. From September 1st I’m working as IT architect at City of Ballerup (Ballerup Municipality). My work for (and with) LibreOffice has, until recently, been both professional and in my spare time.

 

How did you get involved with LibreOffice?

Many years ago, when OpenOffice.org was at version 1.1.0, I accidentally found the project and complained about the machine-translated graphical user interface (GUI). I then started improving the GUI and when Sun Microsystems was preparing OpenOffice.org 2.0 we managed to translate both the GUI and the Help content.

 

What areas of the project do you normally work on?

I’m primarily working as the country and language lead, but have also been involved in LibreOffice as member of the Membership Committee. As one of the founding members I have been with The Document Foundation from the beginning.

Over the years I have been involved in implementation projects in various public organizations in Denmark, and back in 2006 I was engaged in the public and political discussions in Denmark about open standards.

In 2015 I was in charge of organizing the LibreOffice Conference in Aarhus, Denmark.

 

What was your initial experience of contributing to LibreOffice like?

Back in the OpenOffice.org days I found that contributing to the project by translating was pretty easy and I could see my own contributions in later releases, which was very encouraging.

 

What do you do in your spare time?

“Run, Forrest, Run.” I usually run at least twice a week. Not because of the completion – just for the health benefits. Also, once a week I have the pleasure of taking care of a six year-old child with both physical and mental disabilities.

 

Thanks Leif! And to all blog readers: if you want to improve the localization of LibreOffice in your language or location, you can get involved here. Thanks in advance for your contributions!

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