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Author: Mike Saunders

Community Member Monday: Rania Amina

To start with, tell us a bit about yourself!

Hi! I live in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and work remotely on PT Sakti Kinerja Kolaborasindo (the office is in Bogor, West Java) as UI and Graphic Designer. Aside from being an active member of the Indonesian LibreOffice community, I am also one of the founders of the Gimpscape ID community (a design community focused on open source applications). Regarding hobbies – hmm, I have an interest in ancient manuscripts (Malay manuscripts), Kamen Rider, and really always enjoy detective, mystery, adventure, and comedy-themed drama films.

You can find me on Instagram, Twitter and Telegram.

Why did you decide to become a member of The Document Foundation?

The first reason is, because Ahmad Haris (he’s my boss in the office) “sudo’d” me to apply for membership 🙂 But to be honest, I was indeed very interested in becoming a member since the LibreOffice Conference Indonesia in Surabaya about two years ago.

By becoming a member, I think I can do things related to contributing to LibreOffice better than before. Being a member is a responsibility, in my opinion. Because it means I have to do my best from time to time for the LibreOffice community, both in Indonesia and outside. LibreOffice will get better if the community ecosystem is also good. Well, one of the tasks of members (in my mind) is to ensure that these communities can actively give feedback to LibreOffice, so that they can grow and develop better.

What are you working on right now?

At the moment I am still improving the LibreOffice Theme Changer extension (which I presented some time ago at FOSDEM), occasionally helping with translations, QA, managing Indonesian LibreOffice social media (Instagram, Twitter, and the blog), and inviting community members to learn how to be active contributors. For example, I invited two female members to work on two sets of icons named that we named Srikandi and LibreKids. Making these two icons is a form of learning to contribute to LibreOffice in terms of design.

When there isn’t too much work (both at office or at the university), I usually take time to create a video tutorial related to LibreOffice or other FOSS that I upload on my YouTube channel.

In addition, I and many other Asians (Haris, Frank, Shinji, Naruhiko, DaeHyun, and others) are currently spreading the spirit of Open Document format in the Asian region, through the LibreOffice Asia League.

Anything else you plan to do in the future? What does LibreOffice really need?

I really wanted to realize the LibreOffice for Kids task with Marina Latini – I heard she was one of the people who was also working on this topic. One of the reasons why LibreOffice is still less popular in Indonesia, compared to similar applications, is this: since elementary school, children have already been introduced to proprietary office applications.

I know that change cannot happen overnight, but if it does not start from now it will not happen for a thousand years. Therefore, with the presence of LibreOffice for Kids, I personally hope that this will be the first step to make next generation more familiar with LibreOffice.

One more thing, and with all respect and thanks to all LibreOffice developers: I think LibreOffice needs a team of marketing volunteers who can compare LibreOffice in order to compete with others. LibreOffice has great features that are very powerful, but it will be useless if not many people know about it. Short infographics or interesting videos about features, or working on a task with LibreOffice, will help a lot.

However, it should be underlined, that to be able to do this community support is needed, because it is the community that makes LibreOffice really what it is.

Indeed, as Rania says, everyone is welcome to join our community and help to make LibreOffice even stronger. See what you can do for LibreOffice – we look forward to meeting you!

Annual Report 2019: LibreOffice Conference

(Note: this is a section from The Document Foundation’s Annual Report 2019, which will be published in full in the coming weeks.)

The LibreOffice Conference is the annual gathering of the community, our end-users, developers, and everyone interested in free office software. Every year, it takes place in a different country and is supported by members of the LibreOffice commercial ecosystem.

In 2019, the conference was organized in Almeria by the Spanish community, and took place from Tuesday, September 10 to Friday, September 13. Most of the conference took place in the Universidad de Almeria, next to the sea, but some social events and meetups were held in the city itself.

Over 100 people from across the globe attended the conference; for several people, it was their first LibreOffice Conference and therefore the first time they could meet other community members in-person.

On Tuesday, before the main conference presentations got underway, there was a community meeting. Various members of the LibreOffice community joined for informal talks about marketing and localisation of the software, and what we can do to bring more people into the project.

Conference Tracks

Wednesday kicked off with the opening session: a welcome and introduction from the university’s staff; the “state of the project” (summarising the last 12 months of activity in LibreOffice); quick introductions to the TDF team, Board of Directors and Membership Committee; and messages from the sponsors.

During the conference, there were over 70 talks, workshops and feedback sessions on all manner of topics. Some talks focused on technical aspects, such as continuous integration, build systems and debugging, while others were geared towards the community and other non-technical matters – for instance, getting new contributors, how the Membership Committee works, and reports from events in Asia.

In addition, community members and developers gave talks about LibreOffice Online, the PDF export feature, SmartArt editing in Impress, reproducible builds, and a neural machine translation plugin for the suite. Videos of most of the presentations – and a quick summary of the whole conference – are available on TDF’s YouTube channel as a playlist:

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Additional Events

Outside of the conference tracks, various social events and meetups took place over the four days. On Tuesday evening we had a welcome party outside the accommodation, with drinks and light snacks. A beach dinner party was held on Wednesday, with more great local food to try, while a hackfest took place on Thursday, giving developers the opportunity to work shoulder-to-shoulder and discuss ideas in person.

On Friday, the conference organisers took us on a visit to the Alcazaba – the city’s castle – parts of which date back around 1,000 years. We had an entertaining guided tour with excellent views over the city as the sun set. Once the tour had finished, many people headed back into the city to sample tapas. Finally, on Saturday there was another guided tour, this time through the city’s historical downtown area.

So much of this was made possible thanks to your generous donations. If you find LibreOffice useful, support us with a donation so that we can continue to build our community, share knowledge, and improve LibreOffice for everyone!

Hispanic LibreOffice community meets online

LibreOffice communities around the world love to meet in person, share ideas, work on the software, and have a good time. Of course, “real life” meetings have been difficult in recent months, so communities are going online instead. Daniel A. Rodriguez, LibreOffice contributor based in Argentina and TDF Board member, tells us about an online meetup at the weekend:

On Saturday, the Hispanic LibreOffice community held an online event via TDF’s Jitsi instance, and streamed on YouTube. The event started 17:00 UTC and last almost 4 hours. More that 35 people took part, which benefited from the presence of several members who are well-recognised for their participation and collaboration in the project:

  • Celia Palacios, from Mexico, told us about the work of the documentation team.
  • Mauricio Baeza, also from the Aztec land, talked about the potential of macros using Python.
  • Xisco Fauli, from Spain, explained how quality control is applied to software in the development stages.
  • Ismael Fanlo, another Spaniard, presented pivot tables.
  • Gustavo Pacheco, from Brazil, talked about becoming a member and invited everyone to apply.

Meanwhile, I gave a tour of the collaboration possibilities presented by the project. This was, of course, an open event – free and aimed at anyone interested in the FOSS office suite per excellence. The event took place on Saturday May 16th on our Jitsi server. Also, thanks to our friend Servio from the open-source Latin community, we had a live broadcast through YouTube, now available as recording.

Thanks to everyone who took part! LibreOffice benefits enormously from the work of communities around the globe. If you’re reading this and want to boost LibreOffice in your country or language, check out our native-language projects and give us a hand!

Month of LibreOffice, May 2020 – Two weeks in!

Two weeks ago, we started a new Month of LibreOffice, saying thanks to contributors from our worldwide community. Everyone who helps out with our projects this month can claim a cool sticker pack at the end – and also has a chance to win a hoodie, T-shirt or mug!

So far 259 sticker packs have been awarded – click the link to see if your name/username is in the list. If not, read on and find out what you can do, to take part!

How to get your stickers

There are many ways you can help out – and you don’t need to be a developer. For instance, you can be a…

  • Handy Helper, answering questions from users on Ask LibreOffice. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim your shiny stickers.
  • First Responder, helping to confirm new bug reports: 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 6.4.3”.
  • Drum Beater, spreading the word: tell everyone about LibreOffice on Twitter or Mastodon! Just say why you love it or what you’re using it for, add the #libreoffice hashtag, and at the end of the month you can claim your stickers.
  • Globetrotter, translating the user 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.
  • Docs Doctor, writing documentation: Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.

We’ll be posting regular updates on this blog and our Mastodon and Twitter accounts over the next two weeks – stay tuned!

Annual Report 2019: The Document Foundation’s activities

(Note: this is a section from The Document Foundation’s Annual Report 2019, which will be published in full in the coming weeks.)

2019 was a busy year for The Document Foundation, with elections for the Chairperson and Deputy, new staff members, and other activities.

Election of new TDF Board of Directors

The Board of Directors (or “BoD”) is the Foundation’s Board of Directors, the main administration of the Foundation’s projects and teams. Directors are directly elected by Community Members. The Board of Directors consists of seven (7) members and two (2) deputies. The Board of Directors may launch any other teams or committees ad hoc if necessary. In December, an election was held for a new Board.

Gabriele Ponzo, Chairman of TDF’s Membership Committee, announced the results:

The vote preliminary results were in conflict with § 8 IV of our statutes, as three candidates – Michael Meeks, Cor Nouws and Jan Holešovský – have the same affiliation. The elected candidates and the membership committee discussed the options to resolve the conflict and Jan Holešovský decided to not accept the role. The Membership Committee would like to thank Kendy for his support in this and especially for his longtime work in the board!

Elected as member of the Board of Directors, in this order, were: Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, Franklin Weng, Daniel Armando Rodriguez, Cor Nouws, Lothar Becker and Emiliano Vavassori. Elected as deputies of the Board of Directors were: Nicolas Christener and Paolo Vecchi.

Advisory Board members and meetings

The Document Foundation relies on its Advisory Board Members in order to receive advice and support. The Advisory Board’s primary function is to represent The Document Foundation’s supporters and to provide the Board of Directors with advice, guidance and proposals. Members are the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), Software in the Public Interest (SPI), UK Government Digital Services (joined in 2019), City of Munich (Landeshaupstadt München), BPM-Conseil, Kopano b.v., GNOME, Google, Adfinis SyGroup (joined in 2019), RPA RusBITech, KDE e.V., the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Collabora, CIB Software and Red Hat.

Throughout the year, TDF had regular calls with representatives of the Advisory Board. Staff and Board members at TDF provided updates on the foundation, software and community, and described plans for the future. Advisory Board members were invited to provide valuable feedback on TDF’s activities, and various ideas and proposals were discussed. TDF would like to express its thanks to all Advisory Board members for their help.

New staff members

In 2019, two new staff members joined The Document Foundation’s team. Ilmari Lauhakangas (aka “buovjaga”) was well known in the community for his work in Bugzilla, and joined TDF as a Development Mentor. He described his work and plans in an interview here on the blog.

In addition, Stefan Ficht joined as an Administrative Assistant, helping Florian Effenberger (Executive Director) and the rest of the team with various tasks.

Highlights of activities

Throughout the year, TDF supported various campaigns and events, via this blog and our social media channels. For instance, on February 14 we joined the Free Software Foundation Europe’s campaign “I love Free Software”. This is “the perfect opportunity to say thank you to the contributors of the various Free Software we love: developers, translators, designers, testers, or documentation writers, of huge software projects – or smaller ones.”

Similarly, we backed International Women’s Day on March 8, raising awareness against bias. Free Software projects tend to be heavily male-dominated, but our community is trying to be more open and inclusive.

In May, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) announced “Open Projects”, the first-of-its-kind program that creates a more transparent and collaborative future for open source and standards development. Open Projects gives communities the power to develop what they choose–APIs, code, specifications, reference implementations, guidelines– in one place, under open source licenses, with a path to recognition in global policy and procurement. TDF supports this effort, along with OpenDocument Format (ODF) Advocacy.
October 12 was the International Day Against DRM – Digital “Rights” Management, but many argue it should be called Digital Restrictions Management.

DRM is the practice of imposing technological restrictions that control what users can do with digital media. When a program is designed to prevent you from copying or sharing a song, reading an ebook on another device, or playing a single-player game without an Internet connection, you are being restricted by DRM. In other words, DRM creates a damaged good; it prevents you from doing what would be possible without it. If we want to avoid a future in which our devices serve as an apparatus to monitor and control our interaction with digital media, we must fight to retain control of our media and software. The Document Foundation supports “Defective by Design”, a broad-based anti-DRM campaign that targets Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors.

So much of this was made possible thanks to your generous donations. If you find LibreOffice useful, support us with a donation so that we can continue to build our community, share knowledge, and improve LibreOffice for everyone!

Community Member Monday: Marco Marinello

Today we’re talking to Marco Marinello from the Italian LibreOffice community, who recently became a member of The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I live in Bolzano, which is a small city in the northernmost part of Italy. My main interests are robotics and computer technology. In my spare time I often enjoy going for a ride with the bike, which I use almost every day to get around. In the summer I spend my holidays sailing with my family and some friends.

Why did you decide to become a member of TDF?

During SFScon – the Free Software Conference in Bolzano – I met Marina Latini, former Chairperson of the Board. We talked about the work I did on LibreOffice Online, and she encouraged me to send the application and become a member of TDF.

I share the values of TDF, and I love working on something that’s useful for everyone.

What exactly are you working on right now?

Mostly, I’m working on the documentation for LibreOffice Online, but I’m even submitting some changes. Documenting features that have already been implemented well is the first goal which I have set myself.

Anything else you plan to do in the future?

If I became more skilled in C++, I would like to get more involved with developing LibreOffice. I think a solid and compact group of members who really care about the product and the strategies is the strength of TDF.

Thanks to Marco for all his contributions! Everyone is welcome to join our friendly community, develop skills and meet new people. We look forward to meeting you!

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