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Recap: Free Software and Linux Days 2018 in Istanbul

Native-language projects around the world help to promote LibreOffice by translating the software, building communities, and attending events. Muhammet Kara reports on a recent event in his home country of Turkey…

I am back at home after the Free Software and Linux Days 2018 in İstanbul. It was a small and cozy event. The number of attendees was lower than the previous years, but on the plus side, we had more time for each visitor. It was also a good opportunity to break the ice between different segments of the Turkish Free Software community.

We had a nice booth, jointly run by LibreOffice Turkey and GNOME Turkey community members, next to the Pardus booth. We gave out stickers to the visitors, answered their questions about LibreOffice, GNOME, and Free/Libre Software in general. Community members also had a lot of time to chat, and to discuss the current situation and the future of our community in Turkey.

We also had three LibreOffice related presentation/seminar sessions:

  • LibreOffice Geliştiricisi Olmak (Being a LibreOffice Developer), by Muhammet Kara
  • LibreOffice Sertifikasyonu (LibreOffice Certifications), by Muhammet Kara
  • Açık Belge Biçimi (The Open Document Format), Nurcan Tür

And we now have all materials to set up a complete LibreOffice booth in any upcoming event in Turkey, thanks to The Document Foundation for funding the booth stuff, and the travel costs of the booth staff.

Please see the wiki page for more details, photos, and links to related tweets.

Many thanks to Muhammet and the other attendees and organisers! If you use LibreOffice and want to help promote it in your local region, join our marketing community and we can help you with ideas, presentations and materials.

LibreOffice and VolunteerMatch: Welcoming new contributors

Free and open source software, such as LibreOffice, is all about community. Anyone can get involved, and many people join the LibreOffice community because they want to improve something in the software – features, compatibility, translations, documentation, marketing and more. As we’ve seen in the ongoing Month of LibreOffice, we have hundreds of volunteers active in making the software better.

But new volunteers are always welcome! And we try to reach out to as many people as possible. So we’ve set up a page on VolunteerMatch, a US-based non-profit organisation that “connects millions of people with a great place to volunteer”. Our page currently shows six opportunities to get involved with LibreOffice, including development, user interface, marketing, documentation and QA (quality assurance).

If you use LibreOffice and want to help improve it, check out the opportunities – or let us know if we should add more. And please help us to spread the word, so that we can continue to grow our community and bring in new volunteers. Thank you!

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(Thanks to Ilmari Lauhakangas for his help.)

Month of LibreOffice, May 2018 – The first week in

On May 1st, we started a new Month of LibreOffice, celebrating contributions all across the project. Everyone who gets involved will be awarded a cool sticker for their work – so how many stickers have been won so far?

So that’s almost 150 community members who’ve helped to improve LibreOffice in the last week alone! Click the number above to see if your name (or username) is on the list. And if you’re not there, now’s the time to get involved! There are many ways you can help the LibreOffice project and claim a sticker – and join our friendly community as well:

How to get a sticker

  • Help to confirm bugs: 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 5.4.6”. (Make sure you’re using the latest version of LibreOffice.)
  • Contribute code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started. Once you’ve submitted a patch, if it gets merged we’ll send you a sticker!
  • Translate the 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.
  • Write documentation: Another way to earn a badge is to help the LibreOffice documentation team. Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.
  • Answer questions from users: Over on Ask LibreOffice there are many users looking for help with the suite. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim a shiny sticker.
  • Spread the word: Tell everyone about LibreOffice on Twitter! 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 a sticker. (We have a maximum of 100 stickers for this category, in case the whole internet starts tweeting!)

So join us! We’ll be awarding stickers throughout the whole month, and then posting them in June. See this video for more info:

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Having fun together: The Nepalese LibreOffice Community

Who makes LibreOffice? And who can get involved to make it even better? The answer is – everyone! For instance, the Nepalese LibreOffice community spent much of April 2018 localising the software, and at the end of the month, they had a fun meetup:

Saroj Dhakal summarised what they did:

  • The FOSS Nepal Community and Kathmandu University Open Source Club participated in and co-organised the event
  • For translations of LibreOffice, participants reduced the number of critical error strings from over 9000 down to 3808
  • LibreOffice Online was completely localised during this event
  • The number of active contributors increased from 2 to 35

At the end of the event, participants received a certificate, thanking them for their help:

So, great work by the Nepalese community! One of the main goals of LibreOffice is to make the software available in as many languages as possible, bridging digital divides across the globe. So all help from translators and localisers is really appreciated.

And as you can see, joining an open source community like LibreOffice is a great way to meet new people and have fun! There are many things you can help out with, from translations and marketing through to design and documentation: see here for more.

The May 2018 Month of LibreOffice begins!

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LibreOffice is made by hundreds of people around the world. And throughout May, we want to say a big thank you to everyone involved! Now is a great time to get involved with our friendly community and help out in many areas, from translations and documentation through to user support and marketing.

Over the next four weeks, we’ll be keeping track of contributions to the project, and add your name to this wiki page if you help out. The page will be updated daily, and everyone listed there can claim a sticker, as shown in the video above! Here’s how you can get involved…

How to get a sticker

There are many ways you can help the LibreOffice project and claim a sticker:

  • Help to confirm bugs: 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 5.4.2”. (Make sure you’re using the latest version of LibreOffice.)
  • Contribute code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started. Once you’ve submitted a patch, if it gets merged we’ll send you a sticker!
  • Translate the 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.
  • Write documentation: Another way to earn a badge is to help the LibreOffice documentation team. Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.
  • Answer questions from users: Over on Ask LibreOffice there are many users looking for help with the suite. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim a shiny sticker.
  • Spread the word: Tell everyone about LibreOffice on Twitter! 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 a sticker. (We have a maximum of 100 stickers for this category, in case the whole internet starts tweeting!)

So there’s plenty to do! Dive in, get involved and help make LibreOffice better for millions of people around the world – and enjoy your sticker as thanks from us. We’ll be posting regular updates on this blog and our Twitter account over the next four weeks!

LibreOffice monthly recap: April 2018

Lots of things are happening in the LibreOffice community – in development, documentation, design, QA, translations and much more. Here’s a summary of news and updates in April…

  • LibreOffice 6.0.3 was released on April 3. It includes over 70 bug and regression fixes – see the release announcement for more details.
  • From April 6 – 8, we had a LibreOffice community meeting and Hackfest in Hamburg. There were around 45 participants, who split into two groups. One group focused on a hackfest – a joint coding session. At the same time, a meeting of the German-speaking LibreOffice community took place. See here for the results of the hackfest, and what we discussed.

  • We talked to Edmund Laugasson from the Estonian LibreOffice community about his efforts to promote free and open source software in his country. “ODF is quite widely used in Estonia – for instance, educational institutions usually have LibreOffice installed, along with some local authorities.” – Full interview here.
  • Preparation began for the Month of LibreOffice, May 2018 – crediting contributions all across the project. If you’re a proud user of LibreOffice and would like to join our community, get involved! (We’ll even send you a cool sticker pack.)

  • The next LibreOffice Conference will take place from September 26 – 28 in Tirana, Albania, and TDF put out a call for papers. All members and contributors are invited to submit talks, lectures and workshops for the conference – see here for more info.

  • Finally, we gave a warm welcome to our new Google Summer of Code 2018 students. We have a record off 11 students this year, and they will help to improve LibreOffice in many areas: the LOEclipse Plugin, Notebookbar, LibreOffice Viewer for Android and more. So a big hello to Daniel Silva, Ekansh Jha, Hrishabh Rajput, Kshitij Pathania, Manuj Vashist, Muammer Mert Tümer, Nickson Thanda, Raghav Lalvani, Saurav Chirania, Shobhan Mandal and Vikas Mahato!

Keep in touch – follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Like what we do? Support our community with a donation – or join us and get involved!

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