Suraj Bhattarai, our Liaison for the LibreOffice Nepali Community, sent us this report:
In October 2023, the LibreOffice Nepali Community organized an online localization event. They called it the “LibreOffice Localization Sprint 2023” with a tagline “Unlock Native: LibreOffice Speaks Nepali”. The localization sprint was mentored by localization expert Saroj Dhakal, our liaison in Nepal (me – Suraj Bhattarai) and Kathmandu University engineering student Aadarsha Dhakal.
In order to build excitement around the event, they invited key open source community and student clubs from different locations in Nepal. The invitation was generously accepted by AskBuddie, Kathmandu University Open Source Community (KUOSC), Birendra Open Source Club (BOSC), and Nepal Open Source Klub (NOSK) – and they all joined the collaboration. Following the immediate announcement, many volunteers came forward and expressed their willingness to join in and contribute to the LibreOffice project.
LibreOffice’s Nepali Community started their sprint on 11th of October. 42 people appeared on the first day orientation. Since many of the involved people were absolutely new to localization, expert Saroj Dhakal begin with an introduction to LibreOffice and The Document Foundation’s Weblate instance. Later, the mentors made participants familiar with the localization process in our tools, with a quick demonstration on how to proceed with strings, checks, and different glossary terms.
The webinar was hosted by Satya Raj Awasthi from NOSK and facilitated by Saroj, Suraj, Adarsha from KUOSC, Abhishkar Aryal from AskBuddie, and Kushal Pathak from BOSC. The sprint was initially considered for a span of two weeks – but the participants showed strong interest, and carried it on for the full month.
The localization sprint had a hard choice with clashing timelines, due to two of the approaching major festivities affecting the consistency of the sprint. Indeed, the sprint had to take a break for 10 days, so effectively the sprint only took place for 19 days. Still, some very committed participants still utilized some of their time in between.
Each day, the participants met online in a video call, querying mentors about difficult translations. Those who were inexperienced with localization were suggested only to proceed for one hour a day while in the group call with mentors. But other, more experienced people were free to utilize any appropriate time of the day based on their flexibility.
Most students thanked the LibreOffice Nepali Community for organizing the localization on such an open scale. At the same time, they admitted that they could effectively utilize their vacation time in learning new things, all thanks to the sprint. The event finished on the10th of November. So the effective hours each participant contributed to the project was around 19. With this, the LibreOffice localization Sprint 2023 officially counts as the third longest LibreOffice localization sprint organized by the Nepali Community.
Summary
- Name: LibreOffice Localization Sprint 2023
- Event Duration: 11th October- 10th November
- Active Participation: 16 (until the end date)
- Involved from the community: 4
First half
- Winners: 7
- Prize: LibreOffice printed 750ml Aluminum Water Bottle
- Strings localized: 6,817+
Breakdown
- Translated: 4025
- New strings suggested: 2792
- Checks corrected: 12
Second half
- Winners: 3
- Prize: LibreOffice printed 750ml Aluminum Water Bottle
- Strings localized: 4,118+
Breakdown
- Translated: 2316
- New strings suggested: 1802
- Checks corrected: 6
Leaderboard winners
- Winners: 6
- Prize: Event logo printed T-Shirt
In total
- Winners: 16
- Prize: Event logo printed T-Shirt
- Strings localized: 10,935+
Breakdown
- Translated: 6341
- New strings suggested: 4594
- Checks corrected: 18
The participation and appreciation certificate for the involved communities were issued on 18th of November. The prizes to all the winners were shipped by Dec 4th. The individual communities invited winners and participants in their own campus space and celebrated in-person handover and closing of the sprint, promising members to introduce more LibreOffice activities in their space.
