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Visit of the Univention Summit 2017

2017-03-302017-03-30

The Document Foundation has enabled us to visit the Univention Summit in Bremen, so here is our report

Univention’s primary product is the Univention Corporate Server (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univention_Corporate_Server#App_Center). UCS combines various free software applications into a comprehensive server platform based on Debian GNU/Linux.

The goal of the summit was networking in the field of open source software and, of course, to popularize UCS. This package is used by companies, administrations, and schools – and we (coming from the south of Germany) noticed that the new version of the paedML, the educational sample solution at the schools of Baden-Württemberg, runs on the basis of UCS. Accordingly, pedagogy was a focus of this meeting, in addition to a technology track and a series of app programming. There were also lectures on this central question: how should school IT structure look now and in the future? Several members of the host company and media representatives from schools, municipalities and federal states, including the Senator for Children and Education in Bremen, who played a major role at the beginning of the development of UCS between 2002 and 2004, spoke about this question.

LibreOffice played a role in many lectures and discussions – because it is open and free, but also because the resistances are often (still) great. The entire program and the presentations can be found at https://www.univention-summit.de/programm/ or via http://en.slideshare.net/Univention. There were more than the originally announced 250 visitors present, and this high number (in addition to the plans of the federal government for a €5 billion nationwide support program for IT in schools) shows the importance of this conference.

Besuch des Univention-Summits 2017

Die TDF hat uns den Besuch des Univention-Summit in Bremen ermöglicht, deshalb hier unser Bericht

Das Hauptprodukt von Univention ist der Univention Corporate Server (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univention_Corporate_Server#App_Center). UCS vereint verschiedene freie Softwarepakete in einem umfassenden Server-Betriebssystem auf Basis von Debian GNU/Linux.

Ziel des Summits war das Netzwerken im Bereich der Open Software und natürlich die Bekanntmachung von UCS. Dieses Paket wird von Unternehmen, Verwaltungen und Schulen eingesetzt – besonders fiel uns auf, dass die neue Version der paedML, der pädagogischen Musterlösung an den Schulen Baden-Württembergs, auf der Basis von UCS läuft. Entsprechend war ein Schwerpunkt dieser Tagung (neben einem Technik-Track und einer Reihe über App-Programmierung) ein Pädagogik-Track mit Vorträgen z.B. der Senatorin für Kinder und Bildung in Bremen, deren Amt schon am Beginn der Entwicklung von UCS zwischen 2002 und 2004 eine wichtige Rolle spielte. Zentrale Frage: Wie muss die schulische IT-Struktur jetzt und in Zukunft aussehen? Zu dieser Frage äußerten sich einige Mitglieder der gastgebenden Firma und Medienbeauftragte von Schulen, Kommunen und Bundesländern.

LibreOffice spielte in vielen Vorträgen und Diskussionsbeiträgen eine Rolle – weil es offen und gratis ist, aber auch, weil oft die Widerstände dagegen (noch) groß sind. Das gesamte Programm und die Vorträge finden sich unter https://www.univention-summit.de/programm/ oder alternativ über http://de.slideshare.net/Univention. Es waren mehr als die angekündigten 250 Besucher anwesend und diese hohe Zahl zeigt (neben den Plänen der Bundesregierung für ein 5 Milliarden schweres bundesweites Unterstützungsprogramm für die IT an Schulen) die Bedeutung dieser Tagung.

Ellen und Walter Pape

Celebrating Document Freedom Day 2017

2017-03-29

Open standards, especially open document formats, are essential tools for bridging digital divides and giving content creators control over their work. We would like to see governments, organisations and companies around the world switch to fully open and standardised file formats, freeing them from vendor lock-in and improving compatibility across multiple platforms and operating systems.

So, today we celebrate Document Freedom Day, an international day for spreading awareness about open standards and open document formats. You can help to spread the word by getting involved, using social media, and talking to public bodies about how the benefits of open standards. You can even help to prepare next year’s Document Freedom Day by organising events and giving presentations! See this page on the site for full details.

LibreOffice Conference 2018: Call for location

2017-03-22

We’re currently organising the LibreOffice Conference 2017, which will be held in Rome from September 27 – 29. But we like to plan even further ahead, so today we’re putting out a Call for Location for 2018’s conference.

Why are we doing this so early? Well, we want to give the 2018 conference organiser a chance to attend this year’s conference to see how it works. So if you’re a member of the LibreOffice community and are interested in organising 2018’s conference in your town or city, you can write up a proposal. All the details are on the wiki, including what you need to know in advance, and what your proposal should contain.

The deadline for proposals is June 30 2017. We’ve already had great conferences in Paris, Berlin, Milan, Bern, Aarhus and Brno – and we look forward to hearing your ideas!

LibreOffice Contributor Interview: Lera Goncharuk

2017-03-212017-04-25

Our native language projects benefit enormously from volunteers around the world, who help make LibreOffice a success in many different locations. In our latest contributor interview, we talk to Lera Goncharuk who is active in the Russian community, helping out with translations and documentation.

What is your IRC nickname, nationality and current location?

I am “tagezi” in the IRC channels on Freenode, as well as The Document Foundation (TDF) wiki, but my friends call me Lera – that is a short version of my full name, Valerii. I was born in the USSR and lived in the Russian Federation the biggest part of my life. Now I live in Finland.

Do you work for a LibreOffice-related company or just contribute in your spare time?

I have been using Linux as my primary operating system since 2004 on a daily basis. And I started to use LibreOffice since the early days of the project’s formation, which came to replace OpenOffice.org.

What areas of the project do you normally work on? Anything else you want to tackle?

My main goal is translating documentation, wiki articles and news for the Russian community. But in addition, I have made a few patches for the Help system, and I have been trying to improve the formatting and navigation of the wiki pages. I am also a TDF wiki administrator and moderator of Russian-speaking communities in Google+ and Facebook, and I sometimes write articles about LibreOffice on my blog.

What was your initial experience of contributing to LibreOffice like?

At that time, I was working in Calc, visualizing data using charts. And I saw that I couldn’t find good Russian articles about using charts in LibreOffice. There is a proverb: “If you want something done well, do it yourself.” So I did that, starting to write articles myself, and now there are several available – not only about charts in Calc, but also on general topics related to LibreOffice.

In 2014, one member of the Russian-speaking community asked me for help with finding mistakes in the Russian interface of LibreOffice Calc 4.3. I began to help, and in the process found out more about the needs of the community, its concerns, and its hopes. And my next step was to start translating the TDF wiki. So I came to global LibreOffice community.

Which is your preferred text editor? And why?

I can use any text editor. Even if I have never worked in it, I can master it quickly. But I prefer to work in either Vim or LibreOffice Writer. I use Vim when I need to write or edit low-level texts such as source code or documents in markup languages like XML and HTML. Perhaps this is just a habit. When I switched to Linux, Vim was the first editor I used, and at the beginning I experienced significant difficulties – but about a week later, I was able to deal with simple tasks, to make templates and write simple scripts.

A month later, my skills improved, and now I cannot imagine how I could get along without it. For higher-level texts, when the text needs to be edited and printed by other people, I use LibreOffice Writer. I really like its implementation of the style concept, which helps to quickly create and edit documents with a complex structure. I use other editors and IDEs when necessary – when a problem requires a specific editor. But that happens less and less.

How much time do you spend on the project? What do you do when you’re not working on LibreOffice?

I devote myself to the LibreOffice community at least a few hours a day, typically four to six hours per day. In addition, I also often use LibreOffice on a daily basis. I have a radio-amateur database, several calculators for fast computations, and I often use Calc for data processing. Based on it I take notes and gather thoughts, which then grow into ideas and articles for my blog. Therefore, I can say that LibreOffice is an essential part of my life. The rest of the time, when I am not engaged in LibreOffice-related activities, I devote myself to my family or to learning new stuff.

Do you have any hobbies or interests you want to mention?

I am a radio-amateur and I like history and hiking. Especially the latter, because it lets me get distance from everyday routine, to refresh my mind and to come back to the project being full of energy and with new ideas. The rest are just ways to relax, to switch activities, when there is no opportunity to go to mountains.

What would you advice to people considering joining the LibreOffice community?

First of all, welcome. Do not be shy, but try instead. Many people think: “I’m not a developer. I don’t know programming languages, so how can I be useful?” In fact, developers constitute the community core, but the community is much bigger. There are many people around them: teams of documentation, localization, QA and marketing. All these people play important roles in the community.

Who will write documentation and translations, or spread the word about LibreOffice, if not these other people? There are a variety of tasks and jobs that satisfy any taste. Even if your English isn’t perfect and you don’t know programming, you can contribute to your local LibreOffice community. So, there is work for everyone, waiting for to come and do it. In my experience, the LibreOffice community is like a big family. You always can get support and help if you have difficulties. So welcome – the doors are open for you.

Thanks Lera! And as he says, there are so many ways to get involved with LibreOffice – so join us today and help make the software better for millions of users around the world. We look forward to meeting you!

Meet the Brazilian LibreOffice 5.3 team

2017-03-152017-10-05

We can assure readers of this blog that LibreOffice 5.3 in Brazilian Portuguese did not simply sprout from the last tropical rainfall. It is the product of a team of volunteers working to make the best free office suite in Portuguese a reality.

Following the experience gained by translating the Getting Started with LibreOffice 5.0 guide, the team began to translate the Help Contents of LibreOffice 5.3 in December 2016. This task involved translating 18,000 words on our Pootle server in two months, due to all the improvements, updates and corrections that went in the software since version 5.2. The work was split into smaller tasks under the supervision of Olivier Hallot, translator leader since 2007 (during the OpenOffice.org days). The LibreOffice 5.3 user interface translation was handled by Olivier in that period.

So, the Brazilian community and the Brazilian users say thanks to Chrystina Pelizer, Túlio Macedo, Raul Pacheco da Silva and Douglas Vigliazi for the new LibreOffice 5.3 and Help system in Brazilian Portuguese.

“It was like a challenge for me: to actively take part in a collaborative, international software project. Learning and using the tools and techniques that volunteers use to translate the software made me feel more important and met my expectations, because they greatly reduce the effort and we get results very quickly. Also, I am very happy to be part of a project team.” Chrystina Pelizer (Florianópolis – SC)

“I always liked to be part of the LibreOffice community when my professional activities let me do so. Specifically, I like to be part of the translation projects of the software and the documentation. I use all the resources I can to fulfil my duties within the team and I don’t like to miss our weekly team call.” – Raul Pacheco da Silva (Suzano – SP)

“I took advantage of the fact that my professional duties are related to LibreOffice, and for me, taking part in the LibreOffice project is an opportunity to develop my professional skills, including at an international level. The translation project is one of the opportunities to contribute to the community.” – Douglas Vigliazi (Santos – SP)

“I already had translation experience with the Fedora project in Brazilian Portuguese, and that helped me a lot with using the LibreOffice toolset. The translation helped me to get to know LibreOffice in depth, in order to understand the context of the translation I was doing. I also liked very much being part of a team.” – Túlio Macedo (Brasília – DF)

“After years of personal commitment to keeping the Brazilian LibreOffice fully translated and with quality, it was a great satisfaction to assemble a team that will be able to keep the project alive by themselves, ensuring part of the translation effort of this wonderful software.” – Olivier Hallot (Rio de Janeiro – RJ)

A big hooray for the team! Click here to discover Native Language Projects in your area

LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2017 – get involved!

2017-03-142017-03-14

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a yearly programme in which Google funds university students to work on free and open source software projects. LibreOffice has benefited from this – last year 11 students were accepted into GSoC to do various programming jobs, helping to improve the software.

GSoC students are assisted by experienced “mentors” in the LibreOffice community, as 2016 student Jaskaran Veer Singh explains:

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For 2017, LibreOffice is once again an organisation in the GSoC programme, so if you’re a university student and want to get experience working on a well-known free software project, while also being paid for your efforts, get involved! But don’t delay: the application period runs from March 20 to April 3, so it’s not far off.

To get started, check out some ideas for projects you can work on. Each project describes what’s involved, the skills required, and the mentor you can contact to get help. If you see something you’d like to work on, contact the mentor as soon as possible! Then you can discuss how to proceed.

After that, read the general GSoC 2017 page on our wiki, which provides more information on the GSoC programme and tells you how to apply. You will have to complete an Easy Hack (simple programming challenge) to be accepted, which demonstrates that you’re comfortable modifying the LibreOffice source code, building it, and submitting a patch.

So, check out the ideas, talk to the mentors, and good luck with your projects!