Category: Community

Last week LibreOffice was present at CeBIT, and it was a good opportunity to meet users, listen to their suggestions, and talk about the future of the project. Our stand in hall 3 was well-staffed by The Document Foundation team and members of the German LibreOffice community.

CeBIT focuses primarily on IT in business, so we had a lot of inquiries about large-scale migrations to LibreOffice and what can be done to make them as smooth as possible. Our flyers about LibreOffice in the enterprise helped here, but it was also good to speak face-to-face with IT managers who are considering LibreOffice, pointing them to the many successful migrations that have taken place in recent years.

But it wasn’t all about big business. Our stand received lots of visits from people who use LibreOffice at home or in other places such as churches and mailing rooms. It’s fascinating to see how the software is being used in so many different scenarios. Many visitors to our stand simply wanted to say thank you for working on LibreOffice – but of course, we were just a tiny sample of the wider LibreOffice community, so we’d like to pass on those thanks to everyone who has contributed to the suite!

And, of course, we had lots of merchandise to give away. Our sweets and stickers were especially popular, with some visitors asking for handfuls of the latter to adorn every computer and gadget they own. Thanks to everyone who visited us!

CeBIT, the world’s largest computer expo, is just around the corner. CeBIT 2016 will take place as usual at the Messegelände in Hannover, from Monday 14th to Friday 18th of March – and the LibreOffice community will be there. So if you’re attending the event, come by and say hello! We will have a stand (D30) in Hall 3, and many of us from The Document Foundation will be present along with other LibreOffice users, developers and supporters.

CeBIT is a great opportunity for us to spread the word about LibreOffice and open document formats. We’ll be explaining how the software is developed, talking about what’s new in the foundation, and (hopefully) encouraging new developers to get involved with open source projects. With over 300,000 people expected to attend over the week, we’ll be very busy.

So we hope to see you there – have a chat, pick up a leaflet, and maybe even buy a T-shirt to support LibreOffice. And when you’ve talked to us, why not post the image above (large version here) on your Twitter account or blog to let others know that we’re here!

March 8 is the International Women’s Day. The theme for 2016 is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”.

The Document Foundation has 210 members, but only 20 are women: Belinda Dibra (Albania), Christina Roßmanith (Germany), Eliane Domingos de Sousa (Brasil), Ellen Pape (Germany), Gülşah Köse (Turkey), Irmhild Rogalla (Germany), Jacqueline Rahemipour (Germany), Jean Hollis Weber (Australia), Katarina Behrens (Czech Republic, living in Germany), Linda Martinez (Venezuela), Marina Latini (Italy), Pallavi Jadhav (India), Priyanka Gaikwad (India), Rajashri Bhat Udhoji (India), Regina Henschel (Germany), Sigrid Carrera (Germany), Sonia Montegiove (Italy), Sophie Gautier (France), Surbhi Tongia (India) and Vinaya Mandke (India).

Marina Latini has recently been elected to the Board of Directors, and is the current ChairWoman of the Board of Directors.

Women active in the LibreOffice and Document Liberation communities are definitely more than 20. They should apply for membership, not only to be recognized for their contributions, but also to elect and be elected to the Board of Directors and the Membership Committee.

They can find the application form on the website: http://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/members/application/.