TDF Freelance Job Opening (#201512-01) – User Experience Mentor

The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks a

User Experience Mentor

to start work as soon as possible.

We are looking forward to integrate user experience deeper into our development processes. The role, which is scheduled for 20 hours a week, may include any of:

Main goals

  • acting as a peer of other UX volunteers
  • working with developers to find out what is technically possible and makes sense
  • growing the UX/design contributions and contributor base via outreach, and searching for good contributions in various forms (mailing lists, g+, irc, blog)
  • research in bugzilla, searching for consensus for ux-advice bugs

Main tasks

  • mentoring new contributors in the user experience community, to introduce them the existing workflows
  • volunteer inclusion: both UX/design, and also developers interested in hacking user interface
  • growing the contributor base and doing community outreach
  • organizing remote UX meetings (via phone, video conference or IRC) and in-person
  • establishing and fostering coordination and communication between developers, the user experience team, marketing and design, acting as a gateway between these

Other tasks

  • conducting surveys to improve the LibreOffice user experience and presenting results to the community
  • working on improving existing LibreOffice Glade-based dialogues and drafting/developing new ones
  • working with others on concepts, designs, strategies to evolve the LibreOffice user interface, drafting new user interface elements
  • prototyping
  • identification of EasyHacks to lower the entry barrier to the UX community
  • triaging ux-advice bugs in bugzilla

Tasks have to be carried out in joint cooperation with our existing developer, marketing and UX/design community, and with our Development Mentoring Lead.

The role requires the following:

  • experience using LibreOffice
  • experience in interacting with the LibreOffice community or another large open source project
  • working closely with our volunteer community on tooling, processes and means of collaboration
  • a track record in user experience and design
  • advantageous: teaching/mentoring

The work time during the day is flexible, apart from some fixed times when availability is required (e.g. during meetings, which usually take place at 1400 or 1500 UTC once per week).

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

The job is offered on a freelance basis. Work happens from the applicant’s home office, which can be located anywhere in the world.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, including curriculum vitae, your financial expectations, and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at no later than January 8, 2016. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

If you haven’t received feedback by February 8, 2016 your application could not be considered.

TDF Freelance Job Opening (#201510-02) – Documentation Lead

The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks a

Documentation Lead

to start work as soon as possible. The role, which is scheduled for 20 hours a week, includes amongst other items:

  • Mentor and train new members of the documentation project: how we do things, how to use the tools, and writing style as needed
  • Guide and coordinate work: what needs to be done when, set priorities
  • Set standards and templates
  • Maintain Contributors Guide, which includes Style Guide
  • Improve and enhance the online help, including building and mentoring a community to work on it
  • Research, write and edit, as needed to fill gaps when volunteers contributions are lacking
  • Publish chapters and full books
  • Identify requirements for books and formats (ODT, PDF, ePub, HTML, other)
  • Develop a vision, a plan and a strategy for documentation, to include things like version tracking, workflow, scheduling and recruitment
  • Identify other forms of documentation that we should do, either in addition to, or instead of, the user guide books we’ve been producing
  • Liaise and coordinate with marketing, translation, other user support, Help

The role requires the following:

  • Experience using LibreOffice and other open source tools (such as GIMP)
  • Experience in interacting with the LibreOffice community or another large open source project
  • Working closely with our volunteer community on tooling, processes and means of collaboration
  • Project management skills
  • Technical writing and/or editing to know what’s involved, what’s realistic etc.
  • Advantageous: teaching/mentoring
  • Advantageous: native English speaker, or similar level of skill
  • Advantageous: Familiarity with and proven contribution to Open Source project documentation

The work time during the day is flexible, apart from some fixed times when availability is required (e.g. during meetings, which usually take place at 1400 or 1500 UTC once per week).

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

The job is offered on a freelance basis. Work happens from the applicant’s home office, which can be located anywhere in the world.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, including curriculum vitae, your financial expectations, and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at floeff@documentfoundation.org no later than November 27, 2015. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

If you haven’t received feedback by December 18, 2015 your application could not be considered.

Announcement elections for the Board of Directors

Cor Nouws, Chairman of TDF’s Membership Committee, announced the following today:

Dear Community,

We hereby officially announce the upcoming elections for the next Board of Directors of The Document Foundation.

As per § 7 II of our statues, [1] the Board’s term lasts two years. The current board started its duty on February 18, 2014. Therefore, the old board remains in charge until the end of February 17, 2016, so the new board will be in charge the day after that, which is February 18, 2016.

As per § 6 III, only members of the Board of Trustees of The Document Foundation, as well as current members of any of its bodies, are eligible to be elected into the Board of Directors, and the election is overseen by the Membership Committee (§ 7 II).

The active electoral right is reserved to those who have been members of the Board of Trustees before this announcement (§ 7 II).

§ 6 III also states that members of the Board of Directors or their deputies may not be members of the Membership Committee and vice versa. This means that current members of the Membership Committee are eligible to be elected, but given that with the acceptance of their new role they lose their current role in the MC, they would have to step down from the Membership Committee the minute before accepting to become a member of the Board of Directors.

There is one more notable limitation: Per § 8 IV of the statutes, a maximum of 1/3 members of the Board of Directors is allowed to work on an employment basis for the same company, organization, entities, affiliates or subdivisions.

Nomination of candidates fulfilling the above requirements, as well as self nomination is welcome. In total, at least seven Board of Directors members are required, and given there are enough candidates, up to three deputies can be elected (§ 7 II).

Re-election of current members of the Board of Directors is explicitly permitted (§ 7 II).

Please send nominations and self-nominations via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private) and also (!) to board-discuss@documentfoundation.org (which is a public mailing list). We kindly ask nominees who would like to stand for elections to provide a 75 words statement on their candidacy as continuous text (so no bullet lists or multiple paragraphs). In addition, please also provide your full name, e-mail address and your corporate affiliation, if any.

Discussions with the candidates and questions to them as well as questions about the elections should take place on the public board-discuss@documentfoundation.org mailing list. For details on how to use the mailing list, see http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/

Eligible voters will receive further details via e-mail prior to the start of elections, including a summary of the candidates, details on how to access the voting system, and instructions on how to independently verify the vote count. Please ensure the Membership Committee has your recent and correct e-mail address on file. For questions, you can reach the Membership Committee in private at elections@documentfoundation.org

Following the time line set forth in § 7 II, requiring a 45 day advance notice, we hereby announce the following time line for the elections:

  1. 2015-10-19: announcement of the elections (this e-mail); and start of the nomination phase
  2. 2015-11-26, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the nomination phase (one week before the election starts, as per § 7 II)
  3. 2015-12-04, 00:00 CET/UTC+1: official start of the elections (at least 45 days after #1, as per § 7 II)
  4. 2015-12-11, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the elections
  5. 2015-12-12: announcement of the preliminary results
  6. 2015-12-14, 00:00 CET/UTC+1: start of the challenging phase
  7. 2015-12-18, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the challenging phase
  8. afterwards: official announcement of the final results

Be advised that the newly elected Board of Directors will only be in charge beginning from February 18, 2016. The current Board of Directors will however include them in the decision making process, to easen up the transition.

Challenges to this announcement with respect to the deadlines outlined have to happen no later than seven (7) days after this announcement, via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private).

Challenges to the preliminary results of the election have to happen until the deadline set forth above, via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private).

On behalf of the Membership Committee,

Cor Nouws

[1] http://www.documentfoundation.org/satzung.pdf (binding version) and http://www.documentfoundation.org/statutes.pdf (non-binding translation)

Tender for design and implementation of “All about LibreOffice” community and developer dashboard (#201510-01)

The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks for companies or individuals to

design and implement an “All about LibreOffice” community and developer dashboard

to start work as soon as possible.

TDF wants to invest in a webpage showing latest activity, summaries and trends of the LibreOffice project in all areas, like development, QA, user-to-user support and other key areas of the project. The developed webpage should be easily extensible for developers providing scripts analysing current and historic data from various project infrastructure.

Further details on this project can be found at http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/msg03653.html

TDF is looking for an individual or company to, as a turnkey project, design and implement the following:

  1. a dashboard that displays the latest events and actions happening in the project, with a maximum latency of 2 hours
    1. on a webpage
    2. in RSS and Atom feeds for displaying in feedreaders and embedding into websites
    3. both including displaying of graphics, images and charts
    4. an integration into our Silverstripe content management system, for easy implementation of the generated content into our website
  2. extensive support of individual filters, queries, tags and summaries, to modify the output
  3. a feature to have fixed subpages for incorporation and reference in our existing websites
  4. support for filtering if an event creates or resolves an action item for a specific subproject
    Samples based on Bugzilla: regression filed would be qa-task-created (need confirmation/triage), regression triaged/moved to NEW (qa-task-resolved, dev-task-created), regression fixed (dev-task-resolved).
  5. collection of historic data for displaying and analysis
  6. a statistics feature, to output contributor numbers and top contributors like on our credits page (http://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/credits/)
  7. implementation of an easy theming features for designers to improve the visual layout of the dashboard
  8. adding data to the dashboard should be possible by providing a RSS or Atom newsfeed, created by common *nix script languages (Python, Perl, Ruby, PHO); optionally also support for C/C++/Haskell/Ocaml
  9. for #8, integration with our existing Gerrit instance for authentication
  10. proper documentation, including a working Salt recipe for deployment and installation of the dashboard on Debian 8-based machines
  11. regular blogposts about the project progress, and a final blog posts that advertises the dashboard to the LibreOffice community and invite contributions

The developer area should be a git repository containing scripts (Python/Perl/Ruby/PHP/etc.) generating RSS and Atom feeds. These will be triggered to be run in regular intervals of approximately five minutes and their output will be published for the database cronjob to pick up. The same is true for scripts creating images, graphics and charts. Ideally, the developer area regularly polls the hosted repository on e.g. gerrit for updates, thus adding new events/actions/summaries to the database (and thus the websites which present a view on the database). Additionally there should be an directory that can be read from the scripts, but isn’t part of the repository to store auth tokens/credentials for scripts to access their source systems (e.g. bugzilla, askbot, git, etc.) if needed.

Required Skills

Programming Languages and Framework

  • Frameworks, languages and tools used should be popular and widely used to allow the result to be community maintained and sustained after initial development. Extensibility should allow developers to refine the dashboard without deep insight in the used frameworks and tools.
  • We exclusively use free, libre and open source (FLOSS) software for development whereever possible and the resulting work must be licensed under MPLv2.
  • For the creation of the frontend (website, feeds) a lean web framework like Django or CodeIgniter should be used. The use of a full-blown CMS should be avoided. Both the language and the framework should have a reasonable wide community supporting it (e.g. Top10 at http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html) and more popular that most of the competition at http://www.alternative.to/. The Backend DBMS is recommended to be PostgreSQL.
  • Website and feeds should be delivered by a small application based on a lean web framework presenting the data out of the backend database. The application layer should really be thin — it should essentially only present the database as as good-looking webpage and well-formed feeds. A cronjob running on this machine will fetch a set of RSS/Atom feeds and import them into the database.

Other Skills

  • English (Conversationally fluent in order to coordinate and plan with members of TDF)

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

The task offered is a project-based one-off, with no immediate plans to a mid- or long-term contractual relationship. It is offered on a freelance, project basis. Individuals and companies applying can be located anywhere in the world.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, your financial expectations (name the final price for the turnkey project), and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at floeff@documentfoundation.org no later than November 2, 2015. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

Applicants who have not received feedback by December 2, 2015 should consider that their application, after careful review, was not accepted.

Extension of TDF Freelance Job Opening (#201507-01) – Development Mentoring Lead

The Document Foundation hereby extends the

TDF Freelance Job Opening (#201507-01) – Development Mentoring Lead

The new deadline for applications is September 24, midnight UTC.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, including curriculum vitae, your financial expectations, and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at floeff@documentfoundation.org. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

Find the role description below:

The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks a

Development Mentoring Lead

to start work as soon as possible. The role, which is scheduled for 20 hours a week, includes amongst other items:

  • Helping new contributors to get started with LibreOffice code including:
    • building LibreOffice
    • getting started with patch submittal on gerrit
    • patrol bugzilla, github and mailing lists for patches uploaded there and help author to upload to gerrit proper
    • clarifying beginner tasks (Easy Hacks) and connecting beginners with domain experts
    • manage, update and watch the list of beginner tasks
    • select attractive beginner tasks and promote, share and advertise those
    • together with other TDF staff, manage quick access to TDF cloud resources for developers (see: Anytime Builder VMs for Developers and Using a VM)
    • Talking to people
      • make the first time contributors feel they are awesome
      • get them to IRC ASAP
      • watch them, ping them, ask them what’s the next thing they want to
      • work on, help them to choose if they are unsure
  • ensure changes are not lingering too long (2 weeks) on gerrit unreviewed by reviewing them or finding someone to review them
  • organizing, announcing and leading regular events for onboarding beginners (virtual Hackfests)
  • updating, steamlining and maintaining developer documentation
  • broadening developer resources with podcasts or screencasts for newcomers
  • reporting and blogging about interesting developments on LibreOffice code to attract new contributors
  • regularly check back with the existing volunteer developer base:
    • to identify and clear out stumbling blocks
    • to learn about reasons why volunteers move on
  • encourage contributors with basic experience to move on from EasyHacks to more challenging and interesting tasks
  • coordinate with QA, design and other groups in the LibreOffice community
  • put outstanding volunteer contributions into the limelight
  • take part in weekly Engineering Steering Committee meetings
  • reach out to other OSS communities (desktop environments, programming languages and frameworks, databases, IDEs etc.) and find opportunities for collaboration, integration and shared marketing

The role requires the following:

  • C++ coding experience
  • basic LibreOffice development know-how
  • excellent communication skills

Previous experience with such tasks is highly welcome, so is using free software for creation of media. Speaking and writing English fluently is a mandatory requirement.

The work time during the day is flexible, apart from some fixed times when availability is required (e.g. during meetings, which usually take place at 1400 or 1500 UTC once per week).

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

The job is offered on a freelance basis. Work happens from the applicant’s home office, which can be located anywhere in the world.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, including curriculum vitae, your financial expectations, and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at floeff@documentfoundation.org no later than September 24, 2015, midnight UTC. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

If you haven’t received feedback by October 1, 2015 your application could not be considered.

TDF Freelance Job Opening (#201507-01) – Development Mentoring Lead

The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks a

Development Mentoring Lead

to start work as soon as possible. The role, which is scheduled for 20 hours a week, includes amongst other items:

  • Helping new contributors to get started with LibreOffice code including:
    • building LibreOffice
    • getting started with patch submittal on gerrit
    • patrol bugzilla, github and mailing lists for patches uploaded there and help author to upload to gerrit proper
    • clarifying beginner tasks (Easy Hacks) and connecting beginners with domain experts
    • manage, update and watch the list of beginner tasks
    • select attractive beginner tasks and promote, share and advertise those
    • together with other TDF staff, manage quick access to TDF cloud resources for developers (see: Anytime Builder VMs for Developers and Using a VM)
    • Talking to people
      • make the first time contributors feel they are awesome
      • get them to IRC ASAP
      • watch them, ping them, ask them what’s the next thing they want to
      • work on, help them to choose if they are unsure
  • ensure changes are not lingering too long (2 weeks) on gerrit unreviewed by reviewing them or finding someone to review them
  • organizing, announcing and leading regular events for onboarding beginners (virtual Hackfests)
  • updating, steamlining and maintaining developer documentation
  • broadening developer resources with podcasts or screencasts for newcomers
  • reporting and blogging about interesting developments on LibreOffice code to attract new contributors
  • regularly check back with the existing volunteer developer base:
    • to identify and clear out stumbling blocks
    • to learn about reasons why volunteers move on
  • encourage contributors with basic experience to move on from EasyHacks to more challenging and interesting tasks
  • coordinate with QA, design and other groups in the LibreOffice community
  • put outstanding volunteer contributions into the limelight
  • take part in weekly Engineering Steering Committee meetings
  • reach out to other OSS communities (desktop environments, programming languages and frameworks, databases, IDEs etc.) and find opportunities for collaboration, integration and shared marketing

The role requires the following:

  • C++ coding experience
  • basic LibreOffice development know-how
  • excellent communication skills

Previous experience with such tasks is highly welcome, so is using free software for creation of media. Speaking and writing English fluently is a mandatory requirement.

The work time during the day is flexible, apart from some fixed times when availability is required (e.g. during meetings, which usually take place at 1400 or 1500 UTC once per week).

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

The job is offered on a freelance basis. Work happens from the applicant’s home office, which can be located anywhere in the world.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, including curriculum vitae, your financial expectations, and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at floeff@documentfoundation.org no later than August 15, 2015. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

If you haven’t received feedback by September 15, 2015 your application could not be considered.