Happy Women’s Day
Our inclusive global community celebrates March 8, International Women’s Day, with a tribute to LibreLadies, the group of female volunteers who contribute to the LibreOffice project in different areas. The picture was shot In Rome during the LibreOffice Conference. Marina Latini, first right, has been recently confirmed as TDF Chairwoman (and as such is the longest running BoD Chair since the birth of The Document Foundation in February 2012). Katharina “Bubli” Behrens, first left, is a leading developer. Sophie Gautier, middle (grey hoodie), is a key member of TDF Team, and one of the oldest members of the community. Together with them, a large group of young Albanians who will be involved in the organization of the next LibreOffice Conference in Tirana, and other volunteers from other European countries.
We would like to see more women involved in the LibreOffice and the Document Liberation projects, following the leading example of the Albanian community, where over 50% of volunteers involved in free open source software – including technical roles – are female.
I would like to thank the ladies, and the men, who give their time to developing a rival system to Microsoft. Anyone who makes such efforts should be applauded and thanked for endeavouring to provide a worthy competitor to a company that is arrogant and unworthy of its position as a dominant application provider. Best wishes Nick