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Author: Mike Saunders

Month of LibreOffice, May 2016: The results!

So we’ve come to the end of the Month of LibreOffice, our campaign to credit the awesome work of contributors across the globe. And it has been a great month: we’ve seen updates and improvements across all areas of the software, from code and translations through to documentation and bug reports. So without further ado, let’s see the numbers…

Number of badges awarded: 341 – click here to see if you got one!

If you got a badge, click one of the share links to tell the world about it – or use the link to the small image to save a version for your blog or website. Thanks very much for taking part, and we look forward to your LibreOffice contributions in the future!

Here’s a chart showing how many badges were awarded as May progressed. There was a big jump at the start as lots of new names were added, but growth was steady and we could constantly see new names appearing as people made contributions to LibreOffice. This chart shows the total amount of badges awarded at the end of each day in the month:

Meanwhile, we also created a page where community members could award Barnstars to each other. These are icons to say thanks for doing a specific job, with bronze for smaller tasks, silver for bigger ones, and gold for making major improvements:

Number of Barnstars awarded: 22 – click to see if you got one!

So what’s next? Every month in the LibreOffice is full of activity, but we have some major events coming up such as the release of LibreOffice 5.2 in August and our conference in September. We plan to do another Month of LibreOffice later in the year – if you have any ideas or want to help out, join our marketing team!

Keeping track of LibreOffice activity

noun_27464LibreOffice is a big project, with over 7 million lines of source code and hundreds of developers, testers, translators and other contributors spread across the globe. With so much activity going on, it can be difficult to keep track of recent developments – so here are a few pointers to keep you in the loop.

Upcoming releases

The current supported release of LibreOffice is 5.1, and the latest bug-fix version is 5.1.3. There are three more bug-fix updates due this year, so see this wiki page for information on the release schedule. The last planned update will be 5.1.6, due in October.

Meanwhile, the development team is working hard on LibreOffice 5.2, which is scheduled to be released in the first week of August. A beta version (for testing) is due very soon – keep an eye on this blog for more information. You can also see a mid-development list of new features in 5.2, but bear in mind that everything is subject to change!

Team calls

Many teams inside the LibreOffice project have regular audio or video calls to catch up, share ideas and ask questions. These teams also share minutes (notes) from the meetings afterwards, so that others can keep track of news and developments.

For instance, the Engineering Steering Committee (ESC) usually has a call every Thursday to discuss technical aspects of the project: release engineering, new features, quality assurance, mentoring new developers, and other matters. Minutes from these are posted on the projects mailing list – see the archive here (search for “minutes of ESC” for recent calls).

Similarly, the Design Team holds regular Hangouts to discuss user interface changes and usability enhancements. Then there’s the Infrastructure Team, which has calls to talk about the hardware and software that’s used by LibreOffice contributors, and the Documentation Team, which has just started regular calls to coordinate content and bring in new writers. Minutes from all of these teams are also posted on the projects list.

Finally, The Document Foundation’s Board of Directors has regular meetings to discuss organisational aspects: finances, budget requests, the yearly conference and so forth. Minutes from these meetings are available on the wiki.

Annual Report

A good summary of last year’s activity in the LibreOffice project is provided in the Annual Report. This is currently being worked on, and will have detailed updates from the native language projects, hackfests, development and QA teams, plus information on donations received throughout 2015 and other aspects of the project.

We’ll post an update on this blog when the 2015 Annual Report is available – meanwhile you can read about what happened in LibreOffice during 2014 in the previous report.

The Document Liberation Project: What we do

While The Document Foundation is best known for LibreOffice, it also backs the Document Liberation Project. But what exactly is that? We’ve made a short video to explain all…

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Month of LibreOffice: Half way there

Yes, we’re just over half way through the May 2016 Month of LibreOffice campaign, and a lot of activity has taken place. So far we’ve awarded over 230 badges for contributions to code, translations, documentation, AskLibreOffice and social media. Take a look at that page and if you spot your name, click one of the Share buttons to tell the world about your contribution!

Want to adorn your website or blog with one of these lovely badges? Just follow these steps and help to make LibreOffice even better than ever before. And, of course, if you want to give someone credit for their work in the LibreOffice project, award them a barnstar and show your thanks.

There’s still two weeks to go in the Month of LibreOffice, so get involved and see how may badges you can collect!

The Month of LibreOffice starts here!

Every contribution to the LibreOffice project – whether it’s a large code patch or just a small bug report – makes the software better for everyone. Over the last few years we’ve had many thousands of contributions from all around the world, and in May 2016 we really want to highlight all the effort goes in to LibreOffice. So we’re running a new campaign to credit everyone who contributes to the project!

Barnstars

If you’re involved with LibreOffice development, design, documentation, translation or QA, and want to show your appreciation for someone’s efforts, award them a barnstar on our special wiki page. This is a bronze, silver or gold icon that shows your thanks for that person’s help or contribution, like so:

To award a barnstar, all you have to do is visit the wiki, log in, and copy and paste the template. Fill in the details for the person you want to credit and show your appreciation!

Badges

Meanwhile, LibreOffice contributors can earn badges throughout May by doing various jobs. These include: confirming a bug report, having a code patch committed to the LibreOffice source tree, translating a string in the interface, helping users, and more. They look like this:

Every time a contributor completes one of these jobs, we will add them to the list of badges on our wiki. Everyone who earns a badge can proudly show it off on their blog or social media accounts! At the end of the campaign we’ll make a high-score list for the contributors who earned the most badges.

How do I get a badge?

There are six badges covering many aspects of LibreOffice:

  • Help to confirm bugs: go to our Bugzilla page and look for new bugs. If you can recreate one, add a comment like “CONFIRMED on Windows 10 and LibreOffice 5.1.2”. Make sure you’re using the latest version of LibreOffice!
  • Contribute code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started. Once you’ve submitted a patch, if it gets merged we’ll award you a badge!
  • Translate the interface: LibreOffice is available in a wide range of languages, but its interface translations need to be kept up-to-date. Or maybe you want to translate the suite to a whole new language? Get involved here.
  • Write documentation: Another way to earn a badge is to help the LibreOffice documentation team. Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.
  • Answer questions from users: Over on Ask LibreOffice there are many users looking for help with the suite. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you’ll get a shiny badge to add to your collection.
  • Spread the word: Tell everyone about LibreOffice on Twitter! Just say why you love it or what you’re using it for, add the #libreoffice hashtag, and we’ll award you with a badge.

Can you get all six badges? Good luck!

So let’s go

The campaigns run until the end of the month, so you have around four weeks to award barnstars (or earn them!) and pick up badges for your contributions. We’ll be posting regular updates on our Twitter account, and of course keep an eye on the wiki pages to see the progress. It’s going to be awesome!

Coming up: the Month of LibreOffice

Month of LibreOffice header

There’s so much fantastic work going on in LibreOffice at the moment, in all areas of the project: development, translations, bug fixing, documentation, user support and much more. The community is doing stellar work to make the software better, faster, more reliable, easier to use, and available for everyone.

In May, we want to really highlight the efforts of everyone involved, so we’re going to run a special campaign: the Month of LibreOffice. This campaign will give contributors the opportunity to thank members of the community for their work, by awarding them barnstars like so:

Month of LibreOffice barnstar

But that’s just the start of it! We’ll also be awarding badges for contributions to LibreOffice. Every time someone has their code merged, confirms a bug, submits documentation updates, helps users on Ask LibreOffice or just spreads the good word on Twitter, we’ll award them a badge:

Month of LibreOffice badges

There are multiple badges to collect, and at the end of the campaign we’ll see who got the most. Maybe you can get them all!

The Month of LibreOffice will kick off on Monday 2nd May, so stay tuned to this blog for the full announcement and information on how to get involved…

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