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Author: Mike Saunders

Community Member Monday: Peter Schofield

Today we’re talking to Peter Schofield from LibreOffice’s documentation community…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I am Yorkshire bred and born, which was a very long time ago. Left home at 16 to join the Royal Air Force. Served for almost 19 years as an Aircraft Technician, which is where my engineering knowledge started.

Became interested in Technical Writing in the early 80s and became qualified as a Technical Writer in 1985. This has enabled me to work in aviation, defence, mining, plant machinery, construction, electronics, telecommunications, computer peripherals and software. This did involve working in several countries, which has given me a very broad outlook on life.

Now official retired from paid work and have settled down in Poland with my lovely Polish wife.

How did you get involved in LibreOffice?

First came across an early version of LibreOffice in the 90s when I started using Star Office, which then became OpenOffice. I have always been interested in open software being freely available to users to help them save money, not having having to pay the big corporations.

I took to LibreOffice when I retired and realised how good it is, so I decided to help the project. This gave me the chance to create user guides that LibreOffice users could easily understand (I hope). I am now in charge of the Impress and Draw user guides and starting to upgrade both of them to LibreOffice 7.4.

What else are you planning to work on?

My plans for the future is continue being a willing volunteer on the LibreOffice Documentation Team with the hope that I can improve usability of the user guides for the majority of users. I do believe that some parts of the LibreOffice user guides do need improvement because of the poor language used. With this in mind, I am now updating the template to help improve the quality of the user guides. This means that there are hints and ideas in the template on how to improve ones writing.

Eventually I would like to see all the user guides using an easy to understand English. This means it would make the text easier to translate into the languages LibreOffice is available in, and make the English easier to understand for users where English is not their first language. This idea is already in practice with several companies throughout the world. These companies use one of the versions of Simplified English that are available.

Many thanks to Peter for all his help! Everyone is welcome to join the Documentation Team and build up skills for a potential career in technical writing…

Join the LibreOffice Team as a Web Technology Engineer (m/f/d), 10-20h per week, remote

The Document Foundation (TDF) is the non-profit entity behind the world’s leading open source office suite, LibreOffice. We are truly passionate about free software and the open source culture.

To provide high quality tools for our contributors, together working on office productivity for over 200 million users around the globe 🌎, we are searching for a Web Technology Engineer (m/f/d) to start work as soon as possible.

As our future Web Technology Engineer, you work with a great team and collaborate with volunteers around the globe to:

  • Maintain and improve the user-facing (frontend) part of our web applications. This includes external and internal applications, and some custom projects.
  • Implement features and fixes to the applications we use (see the list below for some examples)
  • Take care of localisation needs and accessibility requirements for our tools
  • Make as many of our web-based tools as possible usable both with desktop and mobile devices
  • Evaluate web technologies and bring them to TDF web services

To succeed in this new role, you ideally already have some of the following skills:

  • Self-driven and a motivated team player
  • Fluent in HTML and CSS
  • Demonstrable JavaScript coding experience of at least three years
  • Some experience with TypeScript
  • Experience in backend development (e.g. Django and Python) and/or system administration is a plus
  • Contribution history in FLOSS communities is a plus
  • Design skills are a plus (UX or visual)
  • Experience in implementations conforming with accessibility requirements is a plus
  • Previous experience in remote work
  • Fluent written and spoken English is a mandatory requirement

Examples of the technologies and applications we use:

All jobs at The Document Foundation are remote jobs 🌟, where you can work from your home office or a coworking space. The work time ⌚ during the day is flexible, apart from very few fixed meetings.

Are you interested? Get in touch! We aim to schedule the first interview within two weeks of your application. You can also approach us anytime for an informal chat to learn about the role or in case of questions.

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, gender, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age. Don’t be afraid to be different, and stay true to yourself. We like you that way!

We are looking forward to receiving your application, including information about you, when you are available for the job, and of course your financial expectations. Pointing to public repositories with your code is very helpful. Please send us an e-mail to webtech.application@documentfoundation.org no later than August 12, 2022. If you haven’t received feedback by September 9, 2022, your application could not be considered.

Note: We do not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to any recruiting alias or employee.

Community Member Monday: রিং/ring (S R Joardar)

Today we’re talking to রিং/ring (S R Joardar) from Bangladesh, who’s helping to spread the word about Free Software (as in freedom) – including LibreOffice – in his country…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I am a GNU/Linux user, lover, translator and supporter since 2000, and a sysadmin since 2003 using Red Hat 5.0, later Fedora and RHEL. I am using Ubuntu in personal computers since December 2006. Canonical sent me a zero-priced gift pack of 10 CDs with Ubuntu 6.10 back then. I have started deployment of Ubuntu servers with Ubuntu 8.04 manual installations in 2009, and just provisioned a few instances with 22.04 on Linode and Digital Ocean. In the years 2009-2017, I personally made over 6,000 new desktop or laptop installations with Ubuntu and LinuxMint.

I am from Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 2011, I along with 21 more Free software enthusiasts formed an organization titled “FOSS Bangladesh (Foundation for Open Source Solutions Bangladesh)” and started with official tour to the Universities here in Bangladesh. Up to December 2019, FOSS Bangladesh had organized 75 events in various universities and colleges and schools to spread out the digital freedom knowledge among the pupils, the future leaders. I have invited Mr. Richard M. Stallman came in Dhaka, Bangladesh at Daffodil International University for a session in 2014 and he agreed to my request and visited. I am also a Mozillian (Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird Fan, User and Supporter and end user support volunteer). At present I am working as the General Secretary of FOSS Bangladesh.

I am an IT Freelancer, working on PPH and Freelancer. I love to cook food and play cricket besides my computing and voluntary support to spread Free Software knowledge. 🙂

How well is FOSS, LibreOffice, GNU/Linux etc. known and used in Bangladesh? What are the obstacles to adoption?

In 2011, FOSS Bangladesh ran an online survey to gather approximate user data about GNU/Linux users, with the help of various online local language forums sites here in Bangladesh. Back then, it was around 9,000 people. As per my statistical knowledge nowadays, the pupils I had served with installations and had met by 2017 became professionals, and GNU/Linux users is now more than 100 times of that 15,000 count.

The obstacles to adoption of GNU/Linux and LibreOffice in here in Bangladesh is the lack of law bindings regarding software piracy. So far, can obtain a pirated copy of Windows 10 with Microsoft Office, and many more and get used to that closed, bind and blinded ecosystem. So when it comes to the professional workplace, most people got bound into that closed software ecosystem. They do not think that they are stealing – and on the piracy index globally, they make Bangladesh ashamed. Government offices here also go alike with the closed software ecosystem.

But the scenario is changing day to day. Those who once got the chance to get out of that closed system embracing the GNU/Linux ecosystem or the Free Software getting hold for his/her lifetime. They also spreads the enjoyment of Freedom to their surroundings.

Spreading the knowledge of Free Software and Digital Freedom is a must. Only sharing and caring, and contributing to the Freedom Ecosystem, can make that happen in the future. But the COVID-19 pandemic affected local events ing FOSS Bangladesh since 2020. We hope to start with a new run soon, by November 2022.

You’d like to grow the LibreOffice community in Bangladesh. How can others help out and get involved?

Translation and helping others to use LibreOffice can help grow the community in Bangladesh more quickly. Since 2010, I have transformed three industries in Bangladesh from Microsoft Windows to Ubuntu, and then LibreOffice came along. To this date, date they are using Ubuntu 20.04 or Linux Mint 20.3 with LibreOffice 7.3.2. I have to install, train end users to get into the ecosystem, and provide day-to-day user support. Around 500 users are migrated and get evolved in this Free Software ecosystem, and using it in the professional arena. I can recall 15,000 valid contacts, but the real count is many more than that.

In Bangladesh, I know that there are there are more private companies running only on Free software.

Finally, how can people get involved and help to grow the LibreOffice and Free Software community in Bangladesh?

We have already have setup a Telegram group – join it here.

Many thanks to Ring and all members of the Bangladesh community for their work and support!

LibreOffice project and community recap: June 2022

Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more…

  • We’re still maintaining the LibreOffice 7.3 branch, of course, and on June 9 we released LibreOffice 7.3.4 with over 80 bugfixes and compatibility improvements.

  • Meanwhile, রিং/ring (S R Joardar) from the Bangladeshi LibreOffice community told us about his efforts to spread the word about Free Software in his country. The community has set up a Bangladeshi Telegram channel to coordinate activities. Thanks to everyone involved!

  • And finally, The Document Foundation is supporting a student through the Deutschlandstipendium initiative. We caught up with Julian Hübenthal to find out what he’s doing, and what he knows about FOSS already…

Keep in touch – follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Mastodon. Like what we do? Support our community with a donation – or join us and help to make LibreOffice even better!

Interview with German Scholarship student Julian Hübenthal

In 2019, the German LibreOffice community unfortunately lost one of its most active members, Klaus-Jürgen Weghorn. In his memory, The Document Foundation decided to support a student through the Deutschlandstipendium initiative.

Let’s get to know him…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I come from near Lüneburg. I graduated from the Wilhelm-Raabe-Schule Gymnasium in Lüneburg last year.

I have quite a wide range of interests, which certainly contributed to my Abitur [qualification at the end of secondary education] average of 1.0 and did not make my decision to study any easier. However, my main focus is certainly in the mathematical/scientific/technical subjects.

I like to ride my road bike and go cycling in general, and I like to travel, gladly combining both interests together.

What are you currently studying, and how is it going?

I am currently studying computer science in my second semester. The course is interesting and I like the challenge. However, I have found out that the course is not quite right for me. Therefore, I would like to change to business informatics for the coming winter semester, for which I am currently already taking the appropriate modules. I am impressed by what I have already learned in a comparatively short time during my studies. Apart from that, I have been able to maintain my Abitur during my studies.

Are you familiar with free and open source software?

I have already used free and open source software, for example the Linux distribution Ubuntu as part of my studies, or Eclipse even before my studies. However, I have not yet participated in such a project myself.

Apart from the questions, I would also like to thank you again for the support and recognition of my achievements.

You’re welcome, Julian! We wish you every success in your studies.

Winners in the Month of LibreOffice, May 2022!

At the start of May, we revved up a new Month of LibreOffice, celebrating community contributions all across the project. We do these every six months – so how many people got sticker packs this time? Check it out…

Awesome work, everyone! Hundreds of people, all across the globe, have helped out in our projects and communities. We’re hugely thankful for your contributions – and, of course, everyone who’s listed on the wiki page can get a sticker pack, with these stickers and more:

How to claim

If you see your name (or username) on this page, get in touch! Email mike.saunders@documentfoundation.org with your name (or username) from the wiki page so that we can check, along with your postal address, and we’ll send you a bunch of stickers for your PC, laptop and other kit.

(Note: your address will only be used to post the stickers, and will be deleted immediately afterwards.) If you contributed to the project in November but you’re not on the wiki page, please let us know what you did, so that we can add you!

There is one more thing…

And we have an extra bonus: 10 contributors have also been selected at random to get an extra piece of merchandise – a LibreOffice hoodie, T-shirt, rucksack or snazzy glass mug. Here are the winners – we’ll get in touch personally with the details:

  • Andrew Watson
  • Yotam Benshalom
  • Yuvarani
  • Ulrich Gemkow
  • klaatu1
  • Christophe JAILLET
  • gregors15
  • Riyadh Talal
  • qsu
  • Siddhant Chaudhary

Congratulations to all the winners, and a big thanks once again to everyone who took part! Your contributions keep the LibreOffice project strong. We plan to have another Month of LibreOffice next May, but everyone is welcome to see what they can do for LibreOffice at any time!

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