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Author: Italo Vignoli

LibreOffice Conference 2020 Proposals

The Document Foundation has received two different proposals for the organization of LibOCon 2020 from the Turkish and German communities. When this has happened in the past, in 2012 (Berlin vs Zaragoza) and 2013 (Milan vs Montreal), TDF Members have been asked to decide by casting their vote.

This document provides an outline of the two proposals, which are attached in their original format.

TURKEY: ISTANBUL

City. Istanbul, formerly known as Byzantium and Constantinople, is the most populous city in Turkey and the country’s economic, cultural and historic center. Istanbul is a transcontinental city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosporus strait (which separates Europe and Asia) between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. With a total population of around 15 million residents in its metropolitan area, Istanbul is one of the world’s most populous cities, ranking as the world’s fourth largest city and the largest European city. (Source Wikipedia)

Entity. Tubitak Ulakbim (Pardus) will handle legal and financial responsibilities on behalf of LibreOffice Turkish community. Tubitak Ulakbim is a research institute which support FOSS (mostly Pardus Linux and LibreOffice) and ODF in Turkey, targeting primarily public institutions. Each year, it funds and/or supports many FOSS events in Turkey.
Tubitak Ulakbim (Pardus) has agreed to support the event by covering expenses up to an amount of approximately 25,000 Euro.

Venue. Boğaziçi University (BOUN), İstanbul. The main venue has three conference rooms of different sizes and a foyer area, plus other conference rooms in a nearby building (at walking distance) which can be used in case of need. All conference rooms are in the same campus. Almost all areas in the venue are wheelchair-accessible. BOUN is extremely sensitive to this topic.

Team. Muhammet Kara: main contact. Nurcan Tür, Enes Kıdık, Furkan Tokaç, F. Ahmet Kara, M. Çağrı Dolaz, Ülkem Kasapoğlu, Ömer Çakmak, Doğa Deniz Arıcı, Berkay Aktunç.

We are a group of enthusiast volunteers who love LibreOffice, and would like to see LibreOffice/ODF widely used and known in Turkey, along with other FOSS projects. We see LibOCon as a very good opportunity to integrate the local and the global community, with a positive impact on the local community.

LibOCon2020 Turkey Proposal

GERMANY: NUREMBERG

City. Nuremberg is the second-largest city of the German federal state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, with 511,628 inhabitants in 2016. The city lies about 170 kilometres (110 mi) north of Munich. (Source Wikipedia)

Entity. The organization is lead by the openSUSE community and it’s legally supported by SUSE.

Dates. The proposal is to organize the conference during week 42, from October 12 to October 18, 2020, including internal pre-meetings and conference. The geek number 42 is the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”.

Venue. Z-Bau, a large building with many rooms of several sizes, and a large outdoor area with a beer garden. With four event rooms, two outdoor areas and various project rooms, there is plenty of room for events of all kinds. The entire area is barrier-free and the various rooms are equipped with basic technical equipment for events and day-to-day operations.

Team. Douglas DeMaio and Marina Latini: main contacts. Andrew Wafaa, Axel Braun, Simon Lees, Christian Boltz, Gertjan Lettink, Richard Brown.

2020 will be an important milestone date for both the LibreOffice and the openSUSE project. LibreOffice will celebrate its 10th birthday while openSUSE will achieve the 15th anniversary of the project. One more notable connection between the two communities is the historically strong relationship between the core LibreOffice development team and SUSE, given that a big number of core developers were all working together at SUSE.

LibOCon2020 Germany Proposal

LibreOffice 6.2.6 is ready, all users should update for enhanced security

Berlin, August 14, 2019 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 6.2.6, the sixth minor release of the LibreOffice 6.2 family, targeted at users in production environments. All users of LibreOffice 6.1.x and LibreOffice 6.2.x versions should upgrade immediately for enhanced security, as the software includes both security fixes and some months of back-ported fixes.

LibreOffice’s individual users are helped 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 are invited to join the community at https://ask.libreoffice.org, where they can get and provide user-to-user support. While TDF can not provide commercial level support, there are guides, manuals, tutorials and HowTos on the website and the wiki. Your donations help us make these available.

LibreOffice 6.2.6’s change log pages are available on TDF’s wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.2.6/RC1 (changed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.2.6/RC2 (changed in RC2).

LibreOffice in business

For enterprise class deployments, TDF strongly recommend sourcing LibreOffice from one of the ecosystem partners to get long-term supported releases, dedicated assistance, custom new features and bug fixes, and other benefits. Also, the work done by ecosystem partners flows back into the LibreOffice project, benefiting everyone.

Also, support for migrations and trainings should be sourced from certified professionals who provide value-added services which extend the reach of the community to the corporate world and offer CIOs and IT managers a solution in line with proprietary offerings.

In fact, LibreOffice – thanks to its mature codebase, rich feature set, strong support for open standards, excellent compatibility and long-term support options from certified partners – represents the ideal solution for businesses that want to regain control of their data and free themselves from vendor lock-in.

Availability of LibreOffice 6.2.6

LibreOffice 6.2.6 is immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.9. Builds of the latest LibreOffice Online source code are also available as Docker images: https://hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online/.

LibreOffice Online is fundamentally a server-based platform, and should be installed and configured by adding cloud storage and an SSL certificate. It might be considered an enabling technology for the cloud services offered by ISPs or the private cloud of enterprises and large organizations.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

LibreOffice 6.2.6 is built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org.

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 6.3

Berlin, August 8, 2019 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 6.3, a feature-rich major release of the LibreOffice 6 family with better performance, a large number of new and improved features, and enhanced interoperability with proprietary document formats:

  • Writer and Calc performance has been improved by an order of magnitude based on documents provided by end users: text files with different bookmarks, tables and embedded fonts, large ODS/XLSX spreadsheets, and Calc files with VLOOKUP load and render more quickly. Saving Calc spreadsheets as XLS files is also faster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • The Tabbed Compact version of the NotebookBar user interface, introduced in LibreOffice 6.2, is now available for Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw. It leaves more space for user documents, spreadsheets and presentations on laptops with wide screens. In addition, the new Contextual Single UI is ready for Writer and Draw.

  • In Calc, a new drop-down widget in the formula bar replaces the old Sum tool, giving the user quick access to the most frequently used functions. Also, a new FOURIER function has been added, to compute the discrete Fourier transform of an input array.
  • Export as PDF has been improved with the support for the standard PDF/A-2 document format, which is required by several organizations for long term file storage. In addition, the design of editable PDF forms has been simplified with the addition of the Form menu to Writer, to further improve one of LibreOffice strongest features.
  • Documents can now be redacted to remove or hide sensitive information such as personal data before exporting or sharing the file, to help companies or organisations to comply with regulations.

  • On Windows, a proper console mode was added, with better output and error codes. This makes it easier to use LibreOffice to perform batch operations such as printing or converting many documents.
  • Interoperability with Microsoft Office proprietary file formats has been improved in several areas with export support for DOTX document templates and XLTX spreadsheet templates, import of charts from DOCX drawingML group shapes, import/export of SmartArt from PPTX files, to preserve editing capabilities in PowerPoint, and better XLSX Pivot table interoperability.

LibreOffice 6.3’s new features have been developed by a large community of code contributors: 65% of commits are from developers employed by companies sitting in the Advisory Board like Collabora, Red Hat and CIB, plus other organizations, and 35% are from individual volunteers.

In addition, there is a global community of individual volunteers taking care of other fundamental activities such as quality assurance, software localization, user interface design and user experience, editing of help system and documentation, plus free software and open document standards advocacy.

A video summarizing the top new features of LibreOffice 6.3 is available on YouTube:

LibreOffice for individual users

LibreOffice 6.3 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites, and as such is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users. The Document Foundation does not provide any technical support to users, although they can get help from other users on mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website.

For users whose main objective is personal productivity and therefore prefer a release that has undergone more testing and bug fixing over the new features, The Document Foundation maintains the LibreOffice 6.2 family, which includes some months of back-ported fixes. The current version is LibreOffice 6.2.5, and all users are invited to update.

LibreOffice in business

For enterprise class deployments, TDF strongly recommend sourcing LibreOffice from one of the ecosystem partners to get long-term supported releases, dedicated assistance, custom new features and bug fixes, and other benefits. Also, the work done by ecosystem partners flows back into the LibreOffice project, benefiting everyone.

Also, support for migrations and trainings should be sourced from certified professionals who provide value-added services which extend the reach of the community to the corporate world and offer CIOs and IT managers a solution in line with proprietary offerings.

In fact, LibreOffice – thanks to its mature codebase, rich feature set, strong support for open standards, excellent compatibility and long-term support options from certified partners – represents the ideal solution for businesses that want to regain control of their data and free themselves from vendor lock-in.

Availability of LibreOffice 6.3

LibreOffice 6.3 is immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.9. Builds of the latest LibreOffice Online source code are available as Docker images: https://hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online/.

LibreOffice Online is fundamentally a server service, and should be installed and configured by adding cloud storage and an SSL certificate. It might be considered an enabling technology for the cloud services offered by ISPs or the private cloud of enterprises and large organizations.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

LibreOffice 6.3 is built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org.

Press Kit

The press kit, with background documents – Hybrid PDF, opened from within LibreOffice can be edited as normal ODT files – and high-resolution images, is here: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/g4zsogp5qxE9bdH

UK Government Digital Service joins The Document Foundation Advisory Board

Berlin, July 22, 2019 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces that the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) has joined the project’s Advisory Board, effective immediately.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is part of the UK Cabinet Office [1]. It leads the digital transformation of Government in the UK, helping people interact with government more easily and supporting government to operate more effectively and efficiently.

In July 2014, the UK Cabinet Office announced the selection of the Open Document Format (ODF) for sharing and viewing government documents.

The Open Standards Team within GDS support and encourage the use of open standards in government. Their aim is to help identify and contribute to open standards for software interoperability and to promote data formats that will help to meet user needs across the UK government and support the delivery of common components.

“GDS has been a long-term supporter of the adoption of Open Document Format, and their participation in the TDF Advisory Board represents a strong endorsement of the project’s commitment to the advancement of open standards and ODF”, says Simon Phipps, TDF Director.

John Strudwick, Interim Director for Service Design and Assurance at GDS, said: “GDS are delighted to have joined the Advisory Board of TDF. We believe that open standards are important in meeting the needs that users have of Government and that ODF plays a big role in helping to deliver this.”

TDF Advisory Board’s (AB) [2] primary function is to represent supporters of the project, and to provide the Board of Directors (BoD) with advice and guidance. In addition, the AB is at the kernel of the LibreOffice ecosystem, and as such is key to the further development of the project.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/cabinet-office
[2] https://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/advisory-board/

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 6.2.5

Berlin, July 4, 2019 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 6.2.5, the fifth bug and regression fixing release of the LibreOffice 6.2 family, targeted at tech-savvy individuals: early adopters, technology enthusiasts and power users. Users in production environments can start evaluating LibreOffice 6.2.5.

LibreOffice’s individual users are helped 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 are invited to join the community at https://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/, to improve LibreOffice by contributing back in one of the following areas: development, documentation, infrastructure, localization, quality assurance, design or marketing.

LibreOffice 6.2.5 provides many bug and regression fixes over the previous version, contributed by a thriving community of developers, which are described in the change log pages: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.2.5/RC1 (changed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.2.5/RC2 (changed in RC2).

Enterprise Deployments

LibreOffice 6.2.5 still represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites, but may also be considered for enterprise class deployments. In early August, when LibreOffice 6.3 will be released, LibreOffice 6.2.5 will replace LibreOffice 6.1.6 as the best choice for production environments.

Organizations looking for an enterprise class application backed by support and service level agreements (SLA) should source a LibreOffice LTS (Long Term Supported) version from those TDF Advisory Board members who provide this product (https://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/advisory-board/).

Also, value-added services for enterprise class deployments – related to software support, migrations and training – should be sourced from certified professionals (https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).

Sourcing software and/or services from the ecosystem of certified professionals represents the best support option for enterprises deploying LibreOffice on a large number of desktops. In fact, these activities are contributed back to the project under the form of improvements to the software and the community, and trigger a virtuous circle which is beneficial to users and all other stakeholders.

Availability of LibreOffice 6.2.5

LibreOffice 6.2.5 is immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.9. Builds of the latest LibreOffice Online source code are available as Docker images: https://hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online/.

LibreOffice Online is fundamentally a server service, and should be installed and configured by adding cloud storage and an SSL certificate. It might be considered an enabling technology for the cloud services offered by ISPs or the private cloud of enterprises and large organizations.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

LibreOffice 6.2.5 is built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org.

The COSM Project

In 2017, contributors to the Open Document Format (ODF) specification at OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) noted that while the Technical Committee continues to generate changes, the integration of these changes – a substantial task, which is key for the future of the ODF standard – is only being conducted on a volunteer basis.

To support current adoptions of the ODF standard format by governments and enterprises and potential adoptions in the future, it would have been important to release the new ODF 1.3 version in a timely manner, to avoid that delays could affect the position of ODF in the marketplace.

Open Document Format 1.0 was published as an ISO/IEC international standard ISO/IEC 26300 – Open Document Format for Office Applications in 2006. Open Document Format 1.2 was published as ISO/IEC standard in 2015.

In early 2018, the Board of Directors of The Document Foundation addressed the need of evolving the standard by establishing the independent COSM – Community of ODF Specification Maintainers – project at Public Software CIC (a UK Community Interest Company) to hold funds and to retain editors to work at the Technical Committee.

The COSM project co-ordinates with the OASIS TC, solicits and secures funds from ODF stakeholders, solicits experienced editors and arranges for one or more to work at the direction of the TC to edit the specification.

As a major ODF stakeholder, TDF donated a seed of Euro 10,000 to get the COSM project started, plus up to Euro 20,000 to match each euro donated by other stakeholders. So far, the COSM project has been backed by Microsoft, Collabora, CIB and the UK Government.

Editors have been working on the ODF 1.3 specifications, which have been regularly reviewed during the weekly meetings of the Technical Committee, and are expected in the third quarter of 2019. A number of features have been also been assigned to ODF 1.4. The COSM Project is now soliciting funds for future work.

Significant contributions to the specifications have been made by Regina Henschel (volunteer from The Document Foundation) and Michael Stahl from CIB.

ODF Advocacy at OASIS

Following the initiation of the COSM project, team members of The Document Foundation and CIB have got in touch with OASIS management to re-launch the defunct ODF Adoption TC as ODF Advocacy. The project has been accepted and has been launched as OASIS Open Project in May 2019, with the objective of increasing the awareness of ODF and fostering adoption by governments.

Press Releases

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