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Video: What is The Document Foundation, the non-profit behind LibreOffice?

At our recent LibreOffice Conference 2023 in Bucharest, The Document Foundation’s Membership Committee gave a talk about the foundation’s work, its governance, and why it’s important to become a member. Here’s a recording (or if you’d prefer to view on PeerTube, visit this link):

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LibreOffice Conference 2023 in Bucharest

LibreOffice Conference 2023 will be hosted by the Universitatea Națională de Știință și Tehnologie Politehnica București, Facultatea de Automatică și Calculatoare (National University of Science and Technology, Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Faculty of Automation and Computer Science) at the PRECIS building from Wednesday 20 September to Saturday 23 Septembe. On Wednesday, the community will gather for the usual community meeting to discuss localisation and marketing activities at the local level. The conference will open on Thursday morning and continue with talks and workshops until Saturday lunchtime (schedule). Alongside this, there will be a technical workshop focusing on LibreOffice development.

The conference is sponsored by Collabora Office and Allotropia (main sponsors), dvloper.io and 1&1, with a significant contribution from The Document Foundation, and the technical support of IT Genetics. The event has been organized by a local team of volunteers, backed by 1&1 and supported by the team at The Document Foundation with the help of local NGOs Rosedu and Tech Lounge. More information on the conference website.

The Document Foundation’s Annual Report 2022

TDF Annual Report 2022

The Annual Report of The Document Foundation describes the foundation’s activities and projects, especially in regards to LibreOffice and the Document Liberation Project.

We’ve been posting sections of the 2022 report here on the blog, and now the full version is available in PDF format on TDF’s Nextcloud server in two different versions: low resolution (8.2MB) and high resolution (57.4MB). The Annual Report is based on the German version presented to the authorities.

The document has been entirely created with free open source software: written contents have obviously been developed with LibreOffice Writer (desktop) and collaboratively modified with LibreOffice Writer (online), charts have been created with LibreOffice Calc and prepared for publishing with LibreOffice Draw, drawings and tables have been developed or modified (from legacy PDF originals) with LibreOffice Draw, images have been prepared for publishing with GIMP, and the layout has been created with Scribus based on the existing templates.

We at The Document Foundation are very grateful to all contributors to our projects and communities in 2022 – none of this would be possible without you!

TDF’s Membership Committee announces a new membership management system: Proteus

The Membership Committee (MC) at The Document Foundation is responsible for managing membership applications and renewals. The primary objective of their task is to carefully evaluate applications from individuals who want to become members of TDF. Also the members’ contributions to the LibreOffice project are verified, in order to ensure a transparent, fair, and efficient membership process.

To do it, a script created by the early MC members has been used for many years. With the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the drive for improved internal processes, the MC decided to develop a new open source management system that meets the legal requirements for members’ and applicants’ data governance.

During 2022, an open source tool called Proteus was developed. Proteus will be used for renewals and applications starting in the second half of 2023. All TDF members with renewals due in this quarter are called upon to submit their information through the new system, which will utilize Single Sign-On and can be accessed on this page. If you have questions, please contact the MC.

Learn more about becoming a member of TDF

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TDF Team Meeting in Munich, June 2023

Team members standing on a patio

LibreOffice is made by a worldwide community, comprised of volunteers, certified developers, ecosystem companies and many other people. Coordinating the project is The Document Foundation, a small non-profit entity registered in Berlin, which has a team of 16 people (thanks to generous donations).

We mostly work online, but in June, most team members met in-person in Munich! We are (alphabetically by first name):

  • Christian Lohmaier – Release Engineer
  • Florian Effenberger – Executive Director
  • Guilhem Moulin – Infrastructure & Services
  • Heiko Tietze – UX Architect
  • Hossein Nourikhah – Developer Community Architect
  • Ilmari Laukahangas – Development Marketing
  • Italo Vignoli – Marketing & PR
  • Juan José González – Web Technology Engineer
  • Khaled Hosny – Developer, prioritising complex text-layout tasks
  • Michael Weghorn – Developer, prioritising accessibility tasks
  • Mike Saunders – Marketing and Community Coordinator
  • Olivier Hallot – Documentation Coordinator
  • Sophie Gautier – Foundation Coordinator
  • Stephan – Administrative Assistant
  • Stéphane Guillou – QA Analyst
  • Xisco Fauli – QA Engineer

Over four days, we discussed many topics, including: how we can grow the LibreOffice community; marketing the software; improving documentation; planning for Quality Assurance activities; localisation and liaisons; and updating the LibreOffice and TDF websites. We shared many ideas, came up with concrete action items, and are now working to get them done.

Of course, we’re just one part of the wider LibreOffice community. We always appreciate getting feedback and suggestions from other members of the project, so let us know what you’d like us to work on! And many thanks to everyone in the community for all your contributions and support 😊

Join the LibreOffice community here

Welcome Michael Weghorn, new Developer at TDF

Michael Weghorn

The Document Foundation (TDF) is the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice, providing infrastructure and support for the community that makes the suite. Recently, TDF decided to expand its small team with two new Developers – the first (Khaled Hosny) focusing on “complex” text layout languages. Today, we welcome our second Developer, Michael Weghorn, who will initially focus on accessibility improvements. Let’s hear from him…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I am from Germany, and have been living in Munich since moving here for my studies in computer science about 12 years ago.

I am a free and open source software enthusiast.

Before coming to TDF, I was working for the City (administration) of Munich, first being part of their Linux client team – and since 2018 with the main focus on LibreOffice development. I am also a member of the LibreOffice Engineering Steering Committee (ESC).

Besides my involvement in LibreOffice, I have also contributed a few changes to other open source projects – mostly fixes for issues that I ran into myself as a user. The possibility to do this is certainly one of the many benefits of open source software.

Besides being an open source software developer, I’m involved in a Christian church and like meeting friends, sports and reading.

You’ve been in the LibreOffice project for a while – what have you been working on so far?

I have been involved in the LibreOffice project since 2014, mostly in QA (Quality Assurance) and development.

The first code change I was working on had to do with the selection of the Java runtime on LibreOffice startup, and I was also translating German comments in the source code back then.

Since then, I have mostly been working on fixing bugs in different areas of LibreOffice. The main areas that I have been focusing on are Qt/KDE integration, the Android version and accessibility.

What’s your new role at TDF, and what will you be working on?

I’m joining TDF as a LibreOffice Developer, focusing on accessibility.

Accessibility is quite a broad topic, ranging from the accessibility of LibreOffice’s user interface to the accessibility of the documents that the program creates.

From what I have seen so far, LibreOffice has a good basis regarding accessibility. It’s also great to see recent contributions by others to further improve accessibility (eg improvements for document accessibility and PDF/UA export, the accessibility checker and accessibility on macOS), but there are certainly also areas that will benefit from getting some more attention.

My initial focus will probably be fixing problems encountered in the user interface when using LibreOffice with a screen reader.

From my experience so far, this often not only involves making changes to LibreOffice itself, but also to the corresponding screen reader or elsewhere in the accessibility software stack. Therefore, cooperation with other projects is also essential.

How can all users of LibreOffice help out?

There are different ways to get involved – for example:

  • Join the LibreOffice accessibility mailing list
  • Report accessibility issues in the Bugzilla issue tracker and set the “accessibility” keyword for accessibility-related bugs, so developers become aware and can fix them
  • Confirm already existing bug reports and add more helpful information to them
  • Test development versions of LibreOffice with assistive technology (and report bugs), so issues can be fixed before a new version is released
  • If you’re a developer: help with fixing reported bugs

There’s also an accessibility page in the wiki, which contains some more information and will be further updated in the future.

Great to have Michael on board! 😊 Follow this blog and our Mastodon and Twitter accounts for updates on his work – plus more news from the LibreOffice community.

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