Behind the scenes at TDF: Jan Iversen, mentoring development lead

I started working for Document Foundation in November. I live and work in southern Spain, Malaga, a nice warm place. I wrote my first program in 1975, so I have been active in the pre-unix, pre-linux, pre-pc worlds, and have been involved in developing drivers, micro kernels and compilers. I retired from my international companies in 2011, dedicating time to open source.

LibreOffice is one of the most complex and biggest open source software packages, and at the same time one of the most well known. Today, having developed open source is a big plus on a CV, but starting with LibreOffice can be a challenge. In the upcoming period, I will be focusing on making a simple non-complex step by step guide to make the first patch, and will personally be there for new (and old) people.

In open source projects, it is perfectly normal to have people come and go, although – as a community – we would like people to stay and grow their development experience. I will devote time researching what can be done to make our community even more attractive, by getting input from people who are less experienced developers.

Many mature open source projects have a “not invented here” attitude, simply because senior developers know how to do things, and tend to refer new people to a lot of information. The core LibreOffice developers have a very open attitude, but are also very busy. So, my role will be to connect newcomers to the most relevant developer.

My mailbox is always open, so if you have any comment/suggestion/complaint please e-mail me.