28 Jan 2019

Community Member Monday: Pierre-Yves Samyn

Posted in Community, Interviews, LibreOffice By Mike Saunders On January 28, 2019

Today we’re chatting with a member of the French-speaking LibreOffice community, Pierre-Yves Samyn, who helps our marketing and documentation projects with videos and translations:

Where do you live, and what do you enjoy in your spare time?

I live in metropolitan France. Outside of LibreOffice, I like to read, listen and play music.

In which areas of the LibreOffice project are you active?

Thesedays, my main activities for the project are:

  1. Following up the French part of the wiki (translation of the release notes mainly)
  2. The creation of videos, posted on the French TDF channel (click the playlist button in the top-left to see other videos):

     

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    I started with a more-or-less weekly rhythm, with the idea of making “videos of the week”, like the tips of the week we have on the Twitter account. I have kept that pace for around three to four years. Today, I make videos more according to the inspiration of the moment, or following a question that was asked. I also try to add English subtitles.

  3. The other thing I do in the project is to respond punctually to questions on English-speaking Ask LibreOffice site (not as often as I would like).

How did you get involved with LibreOffice?

I get involved through my work, at the time with OpenOffice.org version 1.1.3 if my memory is good. The software imported less than the ODF format for this project, consisting (in part) of using the software conversion features. I was immediately seduced, and reported to the project my experience in creating training support, user support, etc.

What was your initial experience of contributing to LibreOffice like?

Helping first: I was active member on the OpenOffice.org forum, then on all the French mailing lists (discuss, users, QA etc.) Then I moved on to testing new versions (reports or comment on Bugzilla). I also participated in making content for the wiki (creation/update of FAQs, macros, release notes…). And I participated in the documentation project (proofreading).

What tools do you use for your work?

Eclipse, Vim, Notepad++, Atom, VLC…

Finally, what does LibreOffice need most right now?

I probably do not have a sufficient overall vision of the project, but here are some topics that resonate in me (in no order of priority):

Many thanks to Pierre-Yves Samyn for all his help and contributions! Learn more about the French LibreOffice community here, and then get to know us – we’re a friendly, growing free software project, so by taking part you can meet new people and build up valuable experience. Join us today!