Home » Foundation » Page 29

Category: Foundation

KDE e.V. joins advisory board of The Document Foundation

ev_largeBerlin, June 16, 2016 – The Document Foundation announces that KDE e.V. is joining the organization’s Advisory Board, and at the same time The Document Foundation joins KDE’s group of advising community partners as an affiliate.

KDE is creating Free Software since 1996 and shares a lot of values around Free Software and open document formats with The Document Foundation, and brings the experience of running a Free Software organization for almost two decades to their advisory board.

Both organizations are working in the OASIS technical committee for the OpenDocument format, and also collaborate on common aspects of development of office software, such as usability and visual design. The affiliation of KDE and The Document Foundation at an organizational level will help to move forward with the shared goal of giving end users control of their computing needs through Free Software.

“The KDE project is one of the essential pieces of the FLOSS desktop initiative, and we are most happy to liaise with them now also on an organizational level. Beyond the shared goal of liberating people’s software experience, there is also lots of synergies to explore in areas ranging from document filter technologies to volunteer-driven governance,” says Thorsten Behrens, member of the board at The Document Foundation.

Lydia Pintscher, President of KDE e.V., says: “KDE has been one of the first Free Software non-profit organizations incorporated according to German law. We are happy to share some of the things we learnt over the many years we are running KDE now. Free software and open formats are two of the cornerstones which unite us with many other organizations, such as The Document Foundation, working on establishing freedom for users of digital devices everywhere. In order to achieve our vision of a world in which everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and privacy, we need strong partnerships with like-minded organizations like The Document Foundation.”

About KDE e.V.

KDE e.V. is a registered non-profit organization that represents the KDE Community: an international technology team dedicated to creating a free and user-friendly computing experience, offering an advanced graphical desktop, a variety of applications for communication, work, education and entertainment, and a platform to easily build new applications upon. More information about KDE and KDE e.V. can be found at www.kde.org.

The new Board of Directors of The Document Foundation

TDF_Logo_WikiBerlin, February 19, 2016 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces the new Board of Directors, in charge from February 18, 2016, to February 17, 2018. Elected as directors are, in order of votes: Marina Latini (Studio Storti), Michael Meeks (Collabora), Thorsten Behrens (CIB), Jan Holesovsky (Collabora), Osvaldo Gervasi (independent), Simon Phipps (independent) and Eike Rathke (Red Hat). Elected as deputies are, in order of votes: Norbert Thiebaud (independent), Bjoern Michaelsen (Canonical) and Andreas Mantke (independent).

The board has elected Marina Latini as Chairwoman and Michael Meeks as Deputy Chairman. “The new board of directors provides at the same time the continuity with the past, and the new energies to push forward the project. After four years, The Document Foundation is globally recognized as one of the most successful free software projects. I look forward to the next two years, as we will have the challenge of growing our community to improve the awareness of LibreOffice and open document standards in every geography”, comments TDF Chairwoman Marina Latini.

membermapAs of January 1st, 2016, The Document Foundation has more than 200 members – representing 50 different countries or native language communities, from the five inhabited continents (a map is attached) – and thousands of volunteers worldwide. For additional information, please visit: http://www.documentfoundation.org.

TDF@4

Please confirm that you want to play a YouTube video. By accepting, you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

The Document Foundation was officially registered in Berlin on February 17, 2012. Four years have gone by, and the project has grown to a size that nobody would have dared to dream at that time. Happy Birthday !

R.I.P. John McCreesh

533120_10151138749737628_577502702_nJohn McCreesh, a founding member of The Document Foundation and the author of the project “manifesto“, has suddenly passed away on Saturday, January 16, at the age of 61.

This is an extremely sad time for The Document Foundation, as John has been a friend of every project founder, and often a mentor for the younger members. Without his work as a volunteer, the free office suite environment would have not been what it is today.

In fact, John wrote the original OOo Strategic Marketing Plan, which was instrumental for the growth of the project from 2004 to 2010, and contributed to the birth of LibreOffice and The Document Foundation.

If you have never met John, you can read his LinkedIn professional profile or his FaceBook page. His recent activity is summarised in the News & Star commemorating article.

Our thoughts and condolences go out to his family and friends. We will never forget John.

 

Announcement elections for the Board of Directors

Cor Nouws, Chairman of TDF’s Membership Committee, announced the following today:

Dear Community,

We hereby officially announce the upcoming elections for the next Board of Directors of The Document Foundation.

As per § 7 II of our statues, [1] the Board’s term lasts two years. The current board started its duty on February 18, 2014. Therefore, the old board remains in charge until the end of February 17, 2016, so the new board will be in charge the day after that, which is February 18, 2016.

As per § 6 III, only members of the Board of Trustees of The Document Foundation, as well as current members of any of its bodies, are eligible to be elected into the Board of Directors, and the election is overseen by the Membership Committee (§ 7 II).

The active electoral right is reserved to those who have been members of the Board of Trustees before this announcement (§ 7 II).

§ 6 III also states that members of the Board of Directors or their deputies may not be members of the Membership Committee and vice versa. This means that current members of the Membership Committee are eligible to be elected, but given that with the acceptance of their new role they lose their current role in the MC, they would have to step down from the Membership Committee the minute before accepting to become a member of the Board of Directors.

There is one more notable limitation: Per § 8 IV of the statutes, a maximum of 1/3 members of the Board of Directors is allowed to work on an employment basis for the same company, organization, entities, affiliates or subdivisions.

Nomination of candidates fulfilling the above requirements, as well as self nomination is welcome. In total, at least seven Board of Directors members are required, and given there are enough candidates, up to three deputies can be elected (§ 7 II).

Re-election of current members of the Board of Directors is explicitly permitted (§ 7 II).

Please send nominations and self-nominations via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private) and also (!) to board-discuss@documentfoundation.org (which is a public mailing list). We kindly ask nominees who would like to stand for elections to provide a 75 words statement on their candidacy as continuous text (so no bullet lists or multiple paragraphs). In addition, please also provide your full name, e-mail address and your corporate affiliation, if any.

Discussions with the candidates and questions to them as well as questions about the elections should take place on the public board-discuss@documentfoundation.org mailing list. For details on how to use the mailing list, see http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/

Eligible voters will receive further details via e-mail prior to the start of elections, including a summary of the candidates, details on how to access the voting system, and instructions on how to independently verify the vote count. Please ensure the Membership Committee has your recent and correct e-mail address on file. For questions, you can reach the Membership Committee in private at elections@documentfoundation.org

Following the time line set forth in § 7 II, requiring a 45 day advance notice, we hereby announce the following time line for the elections:

  1. 2015-10-19: announcement of the elections (this e-mail); and start of the nomination phase
  2. 2015-11-26, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the nomination phase (one week before the election starts, as per § 7 II)
  3. 2015-12-04, 00:00 CET/UTC+1: official start of the elections (at least 45 days after #1, as per § 7 II)
  4. 2015-12-11, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the elections
  5. 2015-12-12: announcement of the preliminary results
  6. 2015-12-14, 00:00 CET/UTC+1: start of the challenging phase
  7. 2015-12-18, 24:00 CET/UTC+1: end of the challenging phase
  8. afterwards: official announcement of the final results

Be advised that the newly elected Board of Directors will only be in charge beginning from February 18, 2016. The current Board of Directors will however include them in the decision making process, to easen up the transition.

Challenges to this announcement with respect to the deadlines outlined have to happen no later than seven (7) days after this announcement, via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private).

Challenges to the preliminary results of the election have to happen until the deadline set forth above, via e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org (which reaches the Membership Committee in private).

On behalf of the Membership Committee,

Cor Nouws

[1] http://www.documentfoundation.org/satzung.pdf (binding version) and http://www.documentfoundation.org/statutes.pdf (non-binding translation)

Behind the scenes at TDF: Openness, transparency and projects

by Florian Effenberger, Executive Director of TDF

Florian Effenberger

With the second quarter being over, the longest day of the year having passed by, and summer vacation time coming up for many of us, it’s time to look back what happened at TDF the first six months of the year. With many projects, activities and developments going on, time has passed by once again at lightning speed, and I want to highlight a few of the things that happened, enabled by our invaluable volunteer contributions, our generous donors, and our wonderful and amazing community, end-users and adopters. In my capacity as Executive Director, I mostly shed a light on the administrative bits of the foundation running, and my staff colleagues will give an overview on their respective areas of working later on.

One of the most noteworthy things for sure is the publication of our annual report, which for the first time since TDF’s existance has been published in English and in German at the same time, a model we want to follow also for the upcoming years. The English version has been polished up by a designer, and will also serve as printed brochure for upcoming events and meetings.

Likewise, we have begun publishing the accounting ledgers to the general public, to give you an overview on how we spend donors money and what projects we invest in. Accompanied by that is the publication of the board reports on the various area of our project.

Staff-wise, I am very happy that since spring of 2015, Italo Vignoli has been contracted by TDF for marketing and PR, a role he has been filling on a volunteer basis for some time already. Supported by a future marketing intern, Italo will work on press releases in joint cooperation with the community, regular marketing calls and a TDF merchandising online store.

A lot of other projects have been prepared behind the scenes, like our tenders on MozTrap and on LibreOffice UX, where we’re working hard on making them a success just like last year’s Android tender.

Community-Meeting in Essen
Community-Meeting in Essen

On the foundation side, we now have 204 members and even more contributors around the globe. Being a Bavarian, one thing that makes me particulary proud is of course that we welcomed the city of Munich in our Advisory Board early this year.

There’s a lot of things cooking at TDF, and the second half of the year will be at least as exciting as the first one. With the LibreOffice Conference coming up in Denmark, the certification program growing strong and our grant request page online for community proposals, I’m more than excited to see what projects, ideas and new things come up at TDF the next weeks and months.

One of my personal tasks for the rest of the year is to engage stronger again in my native language community. We recently had an exciting community meeting at Linuxhotel in Essen, where we also had a chance to exchange thoughts and views with the Italian community, represented by Italo Vignoli. The German community has traditionally been a strong one, so 18 people in total found their way to the meeting. With the setup of regular German community phone conferences, including one dedicated call for the marketing of LibreOffice 5.0, we will work on getting more contributors in and engage in local marketing of LibreOffice – the best free office suite and one incredibly exciting community!

Press Releases

Announcement of LibreOffice 25.8.4

Berlin, 18 December 2025 – LibreOffice 25.8.4, the fourth minor update to the free office suite developed by volunteers for…

Open Document Format

The Future of Open Standards and the Importance of ODF

Open standards don't make headlines. Instead, they work quietly behind the scenes to define how information is created, shared and…