This FOSDEM we had a popular LibreOffice Dev-Room, with many interesting talks focused on a technical audience. Starting from Italo’s overview of where we’re at as of now, and moving into how to how to write filters, the code structure of our major components, how to get involved with easy hacks, and more.
If you missed some of that, the slides are now available (where there were slides) in our wiki, please do check them out.
Intel becomes a Member of TDF Advisory Board
Berlin, February 23rd, 2012 – The Document Foundation (TDF) today announced LibreOffice for Windows from SUSE is now available in the Intel AppUpSM Center, an online repository designed for Intel® processor-based devices. Intel is also becoming a member of TDF Advisory Board, a body that provides advice and funding for the LibreOffice project.
LibreOffice for Windows from SUSE is available in Intel AppUpSM Center as a special, five-language version featuring English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. As a validated Intel AppUpSM Center app, LibreOffice for Windows from SUSE features a new, smooth, silent installation flow and improved uninstallation cleanup.
“I have been using LibreOffice from day one for presentations at conferences and for data analysis,” said Dawn Foster, open source community lead, Intel. “Our engineers have worked with the LibreOffice codebase to optimise it for Intel hardware. Adding it to the AppUpSM Center is an obvious extension, and will provide an exciting feature for all Ultrabook users.”
“We welcome Intel to The Document Foundation, and look forward to working with them,” said Dr. Gerald Pfeifer, senior director of product management, SUSE. “It’s great to see Intel providing LibreOffice through an exciting new channel so that more and more users can experience LibreOffice on Windows, with access to our world class support, that can make organizations more productive while saving costs.”
“We are thrilled to add Intel to our existing roster of supporters”, said Florian Effenberger, volunteer and TDF board member, “TDF is first and foremost a vendor neutral project committed to excellence in the office suite space, but we greatly value the support and advice we gain from organisations such as SUSE, Red Hat, Google, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Software in the Public Interest (SPI).”
About the Intel AppUpSM Center
Downloaded by more than one million consumers to date, the Intel AppUpSM Center is a key initiative to provide rich, compelling digital content and experiences, specifically designed for Intel® processor- based devices. Through its ever growing network of partner stores, the Intel AppUpSM Center is an open application distribution model which works across multiple platforms and operating systems. The Intel AppUpSM Center software can be downloaded at http://www.appup.com.
About The Document Foundation (TDF)
The Document Foundation is an open, independent, self-governing, meritocratic organization, incorporated in Berlin as a German Stiftung, which builds on ten years of dedicated work by the OpenOffice.org Community. TDF was created in the belief that the culture born of an independent foundation brings out the best in corporate and volunteer contributors, and will deliver the best free office suite. TDF is open to any individual who agrees with its core values and contributes to its activities, and warmly welcomes corporate participation, e.g. by sponsoring individuals to work as equals alongside other contributors in the community. As of February, 2012, TDF has 146 members and over a thousand volunteers and contributors worldwide.
Media Contacts
TDF
Florian Effenberger (based near Munich, Germany, UTC+1)
Phone: +49 8341 99660880 – Mobile: +49 151 14424108
E-mail: floeff@documentfoundation.org – Skype: floeff
Italo Vignoli (based in Milan, Italy, UTC+1)
SIP Phone: +39 02 320621813 – Mobile: +39 348 5653829
E-mail: italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org – Skype: italovignoli
SUSE
Amie Johnson (based in Provo, Utah, UTC-6)
Phone: +1 801 8612893 – E-mail: amie@suse.com
Berlin, February 14, 2012 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 3.5, the third major release of “the best free office suite ever”, which shows to end users the improvements derived from the development strategy adopted since September 2010. LibreOffice 3.5 derives from the combined effort of full time hackers – the largest group of experienced OOo code developers – and volunteer hackers, coordinated by the Engineering Steering Committee.
During 16 months, an average of 80 developers each month have provided a total of over thirty thousand code commits, introducing new and interesting features:
Writer
Impress / Draw
Calc
Base
In addition, for the first time in the history of LibreOffice, we will be enabling the online update checker, which informs users when a new version of the suite is available.
“We inherited a 15 years old code base, where features were not implemented and bugs were not solved in order to avoid creating problems, and this – with time – was the origin of a large technical debt,” says Caolán McNamara, a senior RedHat developer who is one of the founders and directors of TDF. “We had two options: a conservative strategy, which would immediately please all users, leaving the code basically unchanged, and our more aggressive feature development and code renovation path, which has created some stability problems in the short term but is rapidly leading to a completely new and substantially improved free office suite: LibreOffice 3.5, the best free office suite ever.”
“In sixteen months, we have achieved incredible results – comments Michael Meeks, a SUSE Distinguished Engineer, who is also a founder and director at TDF – with nearly three hundred entirely new developers to the project, attracted by the copyleft license, the lack of copyright assignment and a welcoming environment. In addition to the visible features, they’ve translated tens of thousands of German comments, removed thousands of unused or obsolete methods – sometimes whole libraries – and grown a suite of automated tests. Although we still have a long way to go, users – who have sometimes complained for the stability of the software, as they were not aware of the technical debt we were fighting with – can now benefit from a substantially cleaner, leaner and more feature rich LibreOffice 3.5.”
LibreOffice 3.5 is the first release where the contribution of local communities and associations, such as ALTA in Brazil, has been acknowledged. In addition, TDF tried to recognize those volunteers – where we could easily identify them – who put so much into the 3.5 release, with a “hacking” or “bug hunting” hero badge presented the same day of the announcement. TDF is encouraging the development of a global, open and diverse ecosystem where companies, associations, local communities and volunteers share the common objective of developing the best free office suite ever.
The Document Foundation invites power users to install LibreOffice 3.5, and more conservative users to stick with LibreOffice 3.4 branch. Corporate users are strongly advised to deploy LibreOffice with the backing of professional support, from a company able to assist with migration, end user training, support and maintenance. The Document Foundation will soon provide a list of certified organizations providing these professional services.
LibreOffice 3.5 is available from: http://www.libreoffice.org/download. The new features and the improvements are described in the infographic which can be downloaded from: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/116590/lo35-infofinal.pdf.
LinuxQuestions members have awarded LibreOffice the title of Office Suite of the Year 2011, with over 80% of the 537 votes. LibreOffice is the winner with the highest percentage of votes, and Office Suites is one of the categories with most voters.
Looking at the poll, you can discover why LibreOffice is so popular amongst LinuxQuestions members, and why some of them still prefer to use other office suites.
POST UPDATED on February 11 at noon UTC.
The Document Foundation was announced on September 28, 2010. So far, it has been an umbelievable ride, especially under the development point of view. Our core development team has managed to attract close to 400 new developers, and has achieved a large number of the ambitious goals set on that date. We still have quite a long way to go, but LibreOffice 3.5 – due next week – will be the very first release showing TDF “development directions” not only to geeks but also to end users: a leaner and cleaner office suite, packed with new features. If you happen to be in Brussels for FOSDEM, you are warmly invited to join our DevRoom in Building H or walk by our booth on the first level of Building K.
You can download a PDF or a JPG of the infographic, for printing or publishing on your website or blog. From now on, we will update it on a monthly basis, adding more numbers as soon as they will be available.
The Internet, January 24, 2012 – TDF and LibreOffice will be on stage at FOSDEM 2012 conference in Brussels, Belgium, on February 4 and 5, with a dedicated track and a booth where it will be possible to meet developers and other volunteers and ask for information about contributing to the project.
Michael Meeks, member of TDF Board of Directors, says: “We’re honored to be hosted at FOSDEM again, the key event for Free Software hackers in Europe, and we’ve lined up a large number of our core contributors to give talks and mentor interested hackers”.
LibreOffice has just surpassed the number of 390 code contributors completely new to the project since the announcement on September 28, 2010. The 400th new code contributor might be announced at FOSDEM, and will be awarded a free LibreOffice T-Shirt.
With an average of close to 80 code contributors per month since January 2011, LibreOffice has been one of the largest Free Software projects during the last year (source: Ohloh).
