Author: Italo Vignoli
Best Wishes from TDF
Dear community members, TDF members, Advisory board members, team members, membership committee and board!
Another year marked by the global pandemic is coming to an end these days. In addition to all the depressing news and circumstances that affect us all, there are also pleasing and uplifting developments.
Apart from the painfully missed opportunity to meet in person, be it in the local communities or at our annual conference, we have nevertheless achieved so much together, worked together and brought our foundation forward, so that we can already say that it was one of the most successful years for and with our project.
I would like to thank all of you on behalf of our project. Everyone has contributed to the success story in different ways. All the contributions intertwine, and without these individual parts the whole thing would not be possible and so successful. Especially in these times. Thank you very much again for this.
And it is precisely this commitment, this proof of the resilience of our project during this time, that allows me to look to the future with good cheer. Please continue to support our community in so many ways in the coming year, every contribution is needed.
After two very intensive and busy years, I myself will say goodbye to the board, but after a short phase of rest, I will continue to work with you in the project in one or two different places again. I wish the newly elected board all the best!
I wish you and your beloved ones a few days of recreation at the end of this year and a stable good health for the next one.
Thanks again and hope to see you all with your contributions in the new year again,
yours
Lothar Becker
as chairman of the board
LibreOffice has been awarded the Editor’s Pick badge by Software Informer
This is Software Informer’s editor rating.
Work with document files either imported from programs like MS Word, Excel and other office tools or created natively in formats like ODF or PDF compatible with modern and open standards. Editing, copying and incorporating data in databases is possible.
LibreOffice is an open-source free alternative to heavy commercial office suites like MS Office. While having generally the same functionality, LibreOffice is more open to modification and updates, making it a more attractive suite if you want a comfortable and adjustable tool for working with documentation.
LibreOffice consists of several tools capable of working with documents of any type, from standard Word files and Excel tables to presentations and Publisher files. There’s a word processing and desktop publishing tool called Writer; spreadsheet program Calc; tool for creating effective multimedia presentations called Impress; a sketching tool named Draw; database manager Base; formula editor Math; advanced chart and diagram creator Charts. Every tool has all the features of an advanced editor for the kind of files you could work with. The tools work stable and fast, they are easy to use even if you’re not an experienced user of office tools.
LibreOffice adds several unique features into its programming, such as the support for ODT documents and the ability to incorporate various plugins and extensions. You can always add new templates for various documents.
Open-source tools sometimes disappoint by being attempts to copy a licensed product. LibreOffice is different in that, it’s a genuinely good product itself.
PRELIMINARY results of the elections for the next Board of Directors at The Document Foundation
TDF Membership Committee announces the PRELIMINARY results of the elections for the next Board of Directors at The Document Foundation.
The number of TDF Members who voted is 120, from a total amount of 211 eligible voters. This means that 91 TDF Members did not vote. The Membership Committee would like to thanks all the voters, as the elections are the most significant time of the year for TDF Members, because they can decide about the project’s governance.
Based on the PRELIMINARY results, the following candidates are elected as members of TDF Board of Directors, in order of preference:
Full Members:
- Thorsten Behrens
- Paolo Vecchi
- Jan ‘Kendy’ Holešovský
- Emiliano Vavassori
- Caolán McNamara
- Cor Nouws
- László Németh
Deputies:
- Gábor Kelemen
- Ayhan Yalçınsoy
- Gabriel Masei
Results were calculated using the same tooling and rules of previous elections, based on the single transferable vote (STV) voting system and the Meek algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_single_transferable_votes). The software used is OpenSTV (https://github.com/Conservatory/openstv).
The Membership Committee agreed on the ranking of the first six candidates, but is still discussing about the last four candidates.
Unfortunately, given that there are 10 candidates and 10 seats, OpenSTV 1.7 does not provide more than one round to rank all candidates that have not reached the threshold, and considers all candidates as elected. For more details, see: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/results.php?election_id=14. The Membership Committee will investigate this further, and will update TDF Members and the general public as soon as possible.
Before the results can be considered as final, we have the challenge phase from Wednesday, December 15, to Monday, December 20, at midnight CET (UTC+1).
TDF Members are invited to check their votes as explained after the voting, by using the anonymous token received at that time (each voter has received a different token, and is the sole owner of that token). Election results to verify are available here: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/votes.php?election_id=14.
If you have any questions or if you think that there were irregularities during the vote, please get in touch with the Membership Committee AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, and in any case no later than Monday, December 20, at midnight CET (UTC+1), using the email address elections@documentfoundation.org.
For reference, details of the whole election process have been outlined in the first announcement: https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/tFJzSYUUGcSjf0c0NtNiEOou.
Open Letter to Members of EU Parliament
Today, the Coalition for Competitive Digital Markets (https://competitivedigitalmarkets.eu/), a group of more than 50 technology companies from 16 different European countries, sent an open letter to members of the European Parliament to raise awareness about interoperability and to impose stricter rules on big companies – the so-called ‘big tech’ companies – that act as gatekeepers and prevent transparency and openness in digital markets.
Open Letter 6 DecemberLibreOffice 7.2.4 Community and LibreOffice 7.1.8 Community available ahead of schedule to provide an important security fix
Berlin, December 6, 2021 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 7.2.4 Community and LibreOffice 7.1.8 Community to provide a key security fix. Releases are immediately available from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/, and all LibreOffice users are recommended to update their installation. Both new version include the fixed NSS 3.73.0 cryptographic library, to solve CVE-2021-43527 (the nss secfix is the only change compared to the previous version).
LibreOffice 7.2.4 Community is also available for Apple Silicon from this link: https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7.2.4/mac/aarch64/.
LibreOffice Community is based on the LibreOffice Technology platform, the result of years of development efforts with the objective of providing a state of the art office suite not only for the desktop but also for mobile and the cloud.
LibreOffice individual users are assisted by a global community of volunteers: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/. On the website and the wiki there are guides, manuals, tutorials and HowTos. Donations help us to make all of these resources available.
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can provide financial support to The Document Foundation with a donation via PayPal, credit card or other tools at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.