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LibreOffice 5.2.2 available for download

birthday_banner_smallBerlin, September 29, 2016 – Just one day after the project 6th anniversary (https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2016/09/28/happy-6th-birthday-libreoffice/), The Document Foundation (TDF) announces the availability of LibreOffice 5.2.2, the second minor release of the LibreOffice 5.2 family.

LibreOffice 5.2.2, targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users, provides a number of fixes over the major release announced in August. For all other users and enterprise deployments, TDF suggests LibreOffice 5.1.5 “still”, with the backing of professional support by certified people (a list is available at: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).

A summary of the most significant new features of the LibreOffice 5.2 family is available on the website: http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/new-features/.

People interested in technical details about the release can access the change log here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/5.2.2/RC1 (fixed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/5.2.2/RC2 (fixed in RC2).

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.2.2 is immediately available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/.

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

Several companies sitting in TDF Advisory Board (http://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/advisory-board/) are providing either value added Long Term Supported versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migrations and trainings, based on best practices distilled by The Document Foundation.

Happy 6th Birthday, LibreOffice

On September 28, 2010, LibreOffice was announced with the distribution of this press release:

OpenOffice.org Community announces The Document Foundation

The community of volunteers developing and promoting OpenOffice.org sets up an independent Foundation to drive the further growth of the project

The Internet, September 28, 2010 – The community of volunteers who develop and promote OpenOffice.org, the leading free office software, announce a major change in the project’s structure. After ten years’ successful growth with Sun Microsystems as founding and principal sponsor, the project launches an independent foundation called “The Document Foundation”, to fulfill the promise of independence written in the original charter.

The Foundation will be the cornerstone of a new ecosystem where individuals and organizations can contribute to and benefit from the availability of a truly free office suite. It will generate increased competition and choice for the benefit of customers and drive innovation in the office suite market. From now on, the OpenOffice.org community will be known as “The Document Foundation”.

[snip]

The Document Foundation is the result of a collective effort by leading independent members of the former OpenOffice.org community, including several project leads and key members of the Community Council. It will be led initially by a Steering Committee of developers and national language project managers. The Foundation aims to lower the barrier of adoption for both users and developers, to make LibreOffice the most accessible office suite ever.

The Foundation will coordinate and oversee the development of LibreOffice, which is available in beta version at the placeholder site: http://www.libreoffice.org. Developers are invited to join the project and contribute to the code in the new friendly and open environment, to shape the future of office productivity suites alongside contributors who translate, test, document, support, and promote the software.

Speaking for the group of volunteers, Sophie Gautier – a veteran of the community and the former maintainer of the French speaking language project – has declared: “We believe that the Foundation is a key step for the evolution of the free office suite, as it liberates the development of the code and the evolution of the project from the constraints represented by the commercial interests of a single company. Free software advocates around the world have the extraordinary opportunity of joining the group of founding members today, to write a completely new chapter in the history of FLOSS”.

This is a group picture – at LibreOffice Conference in Brno – of many of the people who made that announcement possible, in different capacities:
TDF founders in Brno
From left to right: Florian Effenberger, Tor Lillqvist, Andreas Mantke, Andras Timar, Caolan McNamara, Miklos Vajna, Olivier Hallot, Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, David Tardon, Sophie Gautier, Jan “Kendy” Holesovsky and Italo Vignoli
This is a group picture of the people – mostly volunteers – who attended the LibreOffice Conference in Brno in September 2016, travelling from Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and South America. They are the ones who make LibreOffice and Document Liberation projects possible today.

brno29

What we have achieved in six years, and what you can expect in the foreseeable future

Six years have gone by, and it seems like only yesterday. The Document Foundation has a stable governance, a growing team taking care of daily tasks and a community spanning over six continents (although there might be LibreOffice users in Antartica).

membersmap

During this timeframe, the project has been able to attract new developers for 72 months in a row, quite an achievement for a source code which was said to be extremely difficult to contribute to (at least, when under the OpenOffice name). Last, but not least, LibreOffice has just won Infoworld’s Bossie (Best of Open Source) Awards for the sixth straight year in a row.

newdevelopers72months

bos16-libreoffice-100683495-orig

Starting from tomorrow, we will be focusing on the next major release – LibreOffice 5.3 – which will be launched at the end of January 2017, just before FOSDEM in Brussels. Stay tuned.

For people new to the project, this is a collection of the articles published on September 28, 2010, and still available on the net:

 

Official Results of the 2016 Membership Committee Elections

noun_545315_ccThe board declares the following Members of The Document Foundation elected into the Membership Committee:

  • Katarína Behrens
  • Cor Nouws (tied for first with Katarína)
  • Gustavo Buzzatti Pacheco
  • Gabriele Ponzo
  • Miklos Vajna

The board declares the following Members of The Document Foundation elected as deputy members of the Membership Committee:

  • Stephan Bergmann
  • Klaus-Jürgen Weghorn
  • Charles-H. Schulz
  • Antonio Faccioli

Full detailed election materials are to be found at: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/2016-mc/, with the processed STV result here: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/results.php?election_id=8, and the list of all votes here: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/votes.php?election_id=8

The board wants to take the opportunity to thank all past and new members of the Membership Committee for their service to the community, and all candidates for running. Congratulations to the newly elected committee members and their deputies!

Community conference starts with 10th release of LibreOffice in 2016

downloadBrno, September 7, 2016 – The Document Foundation (TDF) has celebrated the opening session of LibOCon with the announcement of LibreOffice 5.2.1, the first minor release of the LibreOffice 5.2 family.

LibOCon is a showcase of the project activity, and will feature over 60 talks in three days, covering development, QA, localization, ODF, marketing, community and documentation, a business session in Czech focused on large deployments of LibreOffice, and a meeting of the Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA).

Details of the conference, including the program and collateral activities such as the traditional “hacknight” – a hands-on session where developers hack over food and drinks – are available on the event website: http://conference.libreoffice.org.

LibreOffice 5.2.1, targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users, provides a number of fixes over the major release announced in August. For all other users and enterprise deployments, TDF suggests LibreOffice 5.1.5 “still”, with the backing of professional support by certified people (a list is available at: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).

People interested in technical details about the release can access the change log here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/5.2.1/RC1 (fixed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/5.2.1/RC2 (fixed in RC2).

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.2.1 is immediately available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/.

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

Several companies sitting on the TDF Advisory Board (http://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/advisory-board/) are providing either value-added Long Term Supported versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migrations and trainings, based on best practices distilled by The Document Foundation.

The Document Foundation and the FSFE strengthen their relationship

logoBerlin, 17 August 2016 – The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE, https://fsfe.org) is joining the Advisory Board of The Document Foundation. At the same time, The Document Foundation is becoming an associated organisation of the FSFE (https://fsfe.org/associates/associates.en.html).

The Free Software Foundation Europe’s aim is to help people control technology instead of the other way around. However, this is a goal which no single organisation can achieve on its own. Associated organizations are entities that share the FSFE’s vision and support the foundation and Free Software in general by encouraging people to use and develop Free Software, by helping organisations understand how Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency and self-determination, and by removing barriers to Free Software adoption.

With this mutual expression of support, both organisations strengthen each other in their effort to keep the general public in the technological driver seat. While the FSFE embodies the principles of the community movement working in pro of the adoption of Free Software in companies, public administrations and for private citizens, The Document Foundation turns principles and ethics into actual products, putting a first class, full-featured, but completely free productivity suite in the hands of users.

fsfe-summit-logo“We are happy to welcome the Free Software Foundation Europe as a member of our Advisory Board. Together, we will be able to further develop the adoption of Free Software in Europe, amongst public administrations and enterprises”, said Eike Rathke, a Director of The Document Foundation and a long time Free Software advocate and hacker.

“We believe it is important to join forces with all the organisations active in Free Software around Europe,” said Matthias Kirschner, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, “and work together to reach our common goals. With our associated organisations we want to show that we are a strong and cohesive movement, and we work to achieve common objectives. To do this, we exchange ideas, coordinate efforts, motivate each other, and find opportunities to work together on specific projects. This is the case with The Document Foundation, steward of one of the most successful Free Software projects: LibreOffice”.

Several members of The Document Foundation will join FSFE Summit 2016 in Berlin, from September 2 to September 4, to celebrate FSFE 15th anniversary (https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/frontpage.en.html).

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