The Debian Project was officially founded by Ian Murdock 30 years ago, on August 16, 1993. The Debian Community celebrates its birthday, Debian Day, on this day each year. And we celebrate with them, as they are one of the organizations supporting the LibreOffice project since day one.
Author: Italo Vignoli
The Document Foundation’s Annual Report 2022
The Annual Report of The Document Foundation describes the foundation’s activities and projects, especially in regards to LibreOffice and the Document Liberation Project.
We’ve been posting sections of the 2022 report here on the blog, and now the full version is available in PDF format on TDF’s Nextcloud server in two different versions: low resolution (8.2MB) and high resolution (57.4MB). The Annual Report is based on the German version presented to the authorities.
The document has been entirely created with free open source software: written contents have obviously been developed with LibreOffice Writer (desktop) and collaboratively modified with LibreOffice Writer (online), charts have been created with LibreOffice Calc and prepared for publishing with LibreOffice Draw, drawings and tables have been developed or modified (from legacy PDF originals) with LibreOffice Draw, images have been prepared for publishing with GIMP, and the layout has been created with Scribus based on the existing templates.
We at The Document Foundation are very grateful to all contributors to our projects and communities in 2022 – none of this would be possible without you!
The Document Foundation releases LibreOffice 7.5.4 Community
Berlin, June 8, 2023 – LibreOffice 7.5.4 Community, the fourth minor release of the LibreOffice 7.5 line, the volunteer-supported free office suite for desktop productivity, is available from https://www.libreoffice.org/download for Windows (Intel/AMD and ARM processors), macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel processors), and Linux [1].
Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS), for mobile platforms (Android and iOS), and for the cloud.
For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners – for desktop, mobile and cloud – with a large number of dedicated value-added features and other benefits such as SLA (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.
Availability of LibreOffice 7.5.4 Community
LibreOffice 7.5.4 Community is available from: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.14. LibreOffice Technology-based products for Android and iOS are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/.
The Document Foundation does not provide technical support for users, although they can get it from volunteers on user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: https://ask.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate
[1] Change log pages: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.5.4/RC1 and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.5.4/RC2
REMINDERS: LibreOffice Conference
If you plan to attend the LibreOffice Conference 2023 in Bucharest, it’s time to:
REGISTER: https://conference.libreoffice.org/2023/registration-form/
CHECK IF YOU NEED A VISA: https://igi.mai.gov.ro/en/coming-travelling-to-romania/
If you want to share your experience about contributing to LibreOffice, or using LibreOffice:
SEND YOUR TALK PROPOSAL: https://events.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice-conference-2023/cfp
If you are a company, and want to support the annual community gathering of the LibreOffice project:
CHECK THE SPONSOR PACKAGE: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2023/05/08/libocon-sponsor-packages/
Last, but not least, if you are interested in hosting the next LibreOffice Conference:
CHECK THE CALL FOR LOCATIONS: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2023/03/08/host-for-libocon-2024/
See you in Bucharest !!!
We are looking for tender ideas and proposals to improve LibreOffice
One of the goals of The Document Foundation and the community it represents is to improve LibreOffice to make it even more competitive with other office suites. One of the tools to achieve this goal are tenders for the development of specific features, such as the implementation of OpenDocument Format version 1.3, the standard format used by LibreOffice and other applications.
Until now, tenders have followed internally developed rules, which have had the merit of getting us where we have got, i.e. very high – but for the reason that we got very high, they were no longer adequate to guarantee a further step forward, given the current size of The Document Foundation and the tender projects. Also, with the arrival of two developers, our possibilities wrt. running and overseeing tenders have emerged.
As of today, the tenders will follow new rules defined by legal experts that will allow us to be aligned with the best practices of not-for-profit foundations, and to further grow LibreOffice and LibreOffice Technology, which is already the most flexible and high-performance platform for individual productivity, and can thus evolve further for the benefit of users.
To grow, we need the ideas and proposals of community members and users. Everyone is invited to send in their ideas! Beware, however, because we need contributions that allow us to further evolve LibreOffice in the area of office suites, an extremely competitive market that today is worth nearly 30 billion dollars.
So, we ask you to make an effort and avoid submitting ideas and proposals that you, individually, would like to see implemented because they fit your idea of an office suite, but to engage with other members of the community and other users and to think big, because LibreOffice is big and needs to grow even bigger.
Talk to the community, and especially to developers, because they can help you structure your ideas and proposals in such a way that they are first accepted, then evaluated and finally voted on by the members of the Engineering Steering Committee, who will be decisive from a technical point of view, before being approved by the Board of Directors.
Also, because the proposals must respect the following structure:
Cost Estimate: x week(s)
Contact: Anakin Skywalker
Reviewers: Luke Skywalker
Short Description: …
It is clear that only the contribution of one or more developers makes it possible to calculate the cost in terms of development weeks, and to describe the functionality in such a way that it is comprehensible to those who must assess its feasibility, place it in the context of a complex development process such as that of LibreOffice, and prioritise it. Cost estimates can also be added by other parties at a later stage of the process, but proposals without a cost estimate cannot be accepted for final consideration.
Before you make your proposal, you can consult the existing ones on the wiki to get an idea of what the Engineering Steering Committee expects from all of you: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2023
The deadline for proposals is Sunday, May 28, at 1800 (UTC+2, Berlin time). Any proposals made after this date will as a general rule not be considered in this round of evaluation, unless very exceptional circumstances exist.
As soon as the evaluation and ranking of proposals by the Engineering Steering Commitee begins, we will announce the details, including the “live” ranking spreadsheet, in a follow-up blogpost.
When you are ready, register and add your text. We look forward to your contributions! Again, everyone is welcome to contribute, and we look forward to your ideas!
Announcement of LibreOffice 7.4.7 Community
Berlin, May 11, 2023 – The Document Foundation releases LibreOffice 7.4.7 Community, the seventh and last minor release of the LibreOffice 7.4 line, which is approaching the end of life [1]. The new release is immediately available from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/ for Windows (Intel and Arm processors), macOS (Apple and Intel processors), and Linux.
LibreOffice offers the highest level of compatibility in the office suite market segment, with native support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) – beating proprietary formats for security and robustness – to superior support for MS Office files, to filters for a large number of legacy document formats, to return ownership and control to users.
LibreOffice Technology Platform
Products based on the LibreOffice Technology platform – the transactional engine shared by all LibreOffice based products, which provides a rock solid solution with a high level of coherence and interoperability – are available for major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS), for mobile platforms (Android and iOS), and for the cloud.
For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners – for desktop, mobile and cloud – with a large number of dedicated value-added features and other benefits such as SLA (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/. All code developed by ecosystem companies for enterprise customers is shared with the community and improves the LibreOffice Technology platform.
Availability of LibreOffice 7.4.7 Community
LibreOffice 7.4.7 Community is available from: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/ [2]. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.12. LibreOffice Technology-based products for Android and iOS are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/
The Document Foundation does not provide technical support for users, although they can get it from volunteers on user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: https://ask.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate
[1] LibreOffice 7.4.x users should move to LibreOffice 7.5.x as soon as possible, as the older family will not be updated and maintained after June 12, 2023.
[2] Change log pages: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.4.7/RC1 and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.4.7/RC2