Category: Interviews

Today we’re talking to Pulkit Krishna, who’s a new member of The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice. He’s also active in our documentation community…

Hi Krishna! Tell us a bit about yourself…

I am from Bihar, India. I am a teacher by profession, and technical writing is my hobby.

Why did you decide to become a member of TDF?

In my country, very few people know that there are other office suites than Microsoft Office. They do not know that there is a suite that’s free and open source software. I am not talking about everyone – but the majority of people.

By becoming a member, I think I can help to spread the word, that there is a very good free office suite, LibreOffice. Also, almost everybody in my country thinks that to become a part of a software community, you have to be a developer. I want to remove this stereotype. I am not a developer and yet I am a member of TDF.

What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now?

Currently, I am working on updating the Base Guide to version 6.4. The base guide 6.2 was translated from German, but for version 6.4 we are updating it from 6.2. It is going to be a quick update, because Base has not changed much.

Anything else you plan to do in the future? What does LibreOffice really need right now?

As the Base Guide 6.2 was translated from German, its English could be improved. Also, there are some translation mistakes. I plan to rewrite the whole guide for 7.0. The screenshots in the guide are old – they need to be updated. I am going to use the format suggested by Dan Lewis.

In the future, I would also like to spread the word about LibreOffice in my country. Although the government has declared that free and open source software should be promoted, very few people in my country even know that such a thing exists.

Thanks, Krishna! Indeed, our marketing community is reaching out and spreading the word – everyone is welcome to join and give us a hand!

Today we’re talking to Sandra Louvezo, who is helping to spread the word about LibreOffice and FOSS in Congo. Also, she recently became a Member of The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice…

To start with, tell us a bit about yourself!

I was born on August 31, 1984 in Pointe-Noire, the economic capital of Congo-Brazzaville. I achieved a BAC+3 in Human Resources Attaché at the Magrebin Institute of Science and Technology in Tunis, Tunisia (IMSET) in 2008.

Then I returned to Congo in 2009, where I worked for five years in local companies as an Accounting Assistant – Claims Writer – Head of Life and Health Insurance services at the Huet de Baroquer group, under the H branch in B Congo Insurance. Then I was Director of Human Resources in a service subsidiary and provision of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) staff for two years.

For the past two years, until now, I have started my own business as a motivational and personal development coach, as well as a nutritional coach and caterer.

What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now?

In Pointe-Noire I belong to a community called “Librists”. Our goal is to help people discover the world of open source software here in Congo – which very few people know about. I am responsible for training people to use the LibreOffice suite, and we have named the training “SPRINT”, which lasts 60 days per component starting from Writer, Calc, Impress etc.

The aim of this sprint is to help users learn the applications, and get their comments, to then bring back to the LibreOffice Francophone community, to which I also belong. Then we can continue to improve LibreOffice.

Why did you decide to become a member of TDF?

I decided to become a member in order to raise awareness, mobilize people, and bring LibreOffice to my country and Africa in general. Discovering LibreOffice and open source was a delight for me, and I want to teach others this life lesson: contribute back to open source, and help make the world a better place.

Anything else you plan to do in the future?

I am training to prepare the next SPRINT, which will start from the end of July to the beginning of August 2020 in several African countries such as: Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo, Senegal and Benign. For 60 days, users will learn to use and discover LibreOffice Writer in the form of exercises, and the answers will be returned at the end of ech day.

The goal is to be present, so that each African country discovers LibreOffice and builds a mini community around it, before we start to offer the application to the different companies that have everything to gain from using it.

Thanks to Sandra for all her contributions! Our native language communities are always open for more help – so if you want LibreOffice and its website localised in your language, give us a hand!

Today we’re talking to Khairul Aizat Kamarudzzaman from our Malaysian community. He’s a long-time fan of free and open source software, and is helping with LibreOffice advocacy and marketing…

To start off, tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I started exploring and using FOSS way back in 2004 (Debian, Red Hat, the BSD family and sticking with Ubuntu till today) when I was studying at the university. From there I started exploring and contributing to Ubuntu, which you can find here, and I was accepted to be an Ubuntu Member, Kubuntu Membes (merits as Ubuntu contributor). Finally I was appointed to be part of the Asia Oceania Membership Board.

A a FOSS community member, I work in a few IT companies in Malaysia and was one of the engineers working at Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC) under Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU). Now I own my own IT company, namely Informology Sdn Bhd. Not stopping there, I continue actively being a FOSS enthusiast in Malaysia. When the cloud computing era came, I was involved by leading Malaysia OpenStack User Group, and I’ve recently been exploring and leading the Endless OS user group for Malaysia.

What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now?

I started the LibreOffice Malaysia Group on Facebook, and I’m planning with the group to finish the LibreOffice Malay translation as soon as possible, with guidance from the Indonesian LibreOffice translation team – so that we can have Malay language support in LibreOffice and Collabora Office.

Why did you decide to become a member of The Document Foundation?

It’s in line with what I’ve done since I started using FOSS: open source advocacy targeted at students, teachers, government staff and the open Source community members in Malaysia. I especially focused on Linux, and office automation like LibreOffice and Collabora Office as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Then, last year in 2019, I managed to participate in the Gnome Asia Summit 2019 in Surabaya, Indonesia where I met a lot of FOSS enthusiasts who are advocating and spreading open source in Indonesia, along with a few awesome TDF members (Ahmad Haris), TDF Board member (Franklin Weng) and GNOME Foundation Staff.

So I asked myself… since I already pitching the Open Document Format (ODF) since I was in OSCC, why not start contributing more to LibreOffice by doing translations? So I challenged myself by applying to become a TDF member, with advice from Ahmad Haris and Franklin Weng.

Anything else you plan to do in the future?

Keep spreading and marketing LibreOffice in Malaysia – especially in the government and educational sectors. Give these sectors LibreOffice as an alternative, by not using piracy and a cracked version of Microsoft Office.

Maybe the LibreOffice Malaysia group can suggest to TDF to host the LibreOffice Conference in Malaysia one day in the future!

Thanks Khairul! And indeed to everyone in the Malaysian LibreOffice community. Your work is essential to help spread awareness of LibreOffice across the globe.

Join the LibreOffice community today! Have fun and build up your skillset…

Today we’re talking to Jwtiyar Ali, who is helping to localise LibreOffice into Kurdish…

To start with, tell us a bit about yourself!

Hey! I live in the Kurdistan region, in the north of Iraq – the city of Sulaymaniyah. I have an MSc in Physics, but I love computer science too. Currently I am working in the Cement Quality Control Department at a cement factory, as a physicist.

I do translations for many open source projects such as Ubuntu, Gimp, Firefox etc., leading these translation projects. My hobbies are following new open source projects and seeing how they can be more competitive. I also like football, walking, and reading Python programming courses in my free time.

What are the opportunities and challenges for promoting/using free software and LibreOffice in your region?

In my country, promoting open source apps and systems is a very big challenge because most people – maybe 90% – use proprietary apps, because they don’t hear about or know about open source alternatives.

So we in the team at www.chawg.org decided to make a website to introduce many open source projects. We created a wiki platform and a forum for that reason – and now we have Facebook groups and pages.

In my opinion, an opportunity is to provide users with more guides, and make a comparison between LibreOffice with other apps. Show users what LibreOffice can do that others apps can’t. Also, show people that LibreOffice can do the same things – or even more – with their daily work, and send them articles to educate them about the software.

What are you doing in the LibreOffice project right now?

I am translating LibreOffice. I hope to see LibreOffice in my language – that would be perfect. Also, it would help users to interact with LibreOffice more often than before.

How did you get involved in LibreOffice, and what was the experience like?

My love for open source projects made me engage with LibreOffice and the big community behind it. Being in the community made me feel that I wasn’t working in a specific part of the world – but people around the world can benefit from what I do.

The experience was amazing, because I didn’t know beforehand that we have a great app like LibreOffice.

Anything else you want to add?

I want to thank everyone who helped me to join this great community. My passion for LibreOffice has no borders, and I hope to see other open source projects grow faster than ever. The best part of the community is that we all trust in open source and teamwork.

Thesedays, I am promoting LibreOffice to my colleagues and friends. Also, I help them to fix any problems that they may face it during installing or when using the suite.

Thanks to Jwtiyar for all his contributions! Our native language communities are always open for more help – so if you want LibreOffice and its website localised in your language, give us a hand!

To start with, tell us a bit about yourself!

Hi! I live in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and work remotely on PT Sakti Kinerja Kolaborasindo (the office is in Bogor, West Java) as UI and Graphic Designer. Aside from being an active member of the Indonesian LibreOffice community, I am also one of the founders of the Gimpscape ID community (a design community focused on open source applications). Regarding hobbies – hmm, I have an interest in ancient manuscripts (Malay manuscripts), Kamen Rider, and really always enjoy detective, mystery, adventure, and comedy-themed drama films.

You can find me on Instagram, Twitter and Telegram.

Why did you decide to become a member of The Document Foundation?

The first reason is, because Ahmad Haris (he’s my boss in the office) “sudo’d” me to apply for membership 🙂 But to be honest, I was indeed very interested in becoming a member since the LibreOffice Conference Indonesia in Surabaya about two years ago.

By becoming a member, I think I can do things related to contributing to LibreOffice better than before. Being a member is a responsibility, in my opinion. Because it means I have to do my best from time to time for the LibreOffice community, both in Indonesia and outside. LibreOffice will get better if the community ecosystem is also good. Well, one of the tasks of members (in my mind) is to ensure that these communities can actively give feedback to LibreOffice, so that they can grow and develop better.

What are you working on right now?

At the moment I am still improving the LibreOffice Theme Changer extension (which I presented some time ago at FOSDEM), occasionally helping with translations, QA, managing Indonesian LibreOffice social media (Instagram, Twitter, and the blog), and inviting community members to learn how to be active contributors. For example, I invited two female members to work on two sets of icons named that we named Srikandi and LibreKids. Making these two icons is a form of learning to contribute to LibreOffice in terms of design.

When there isn’t too much work (both at office or at the university), I usually take time to create a video tutorial related to LibreOffice or other FOSS that I upload on my YouTube channel.

In addition, I and many other Asians (Haris, Frank, Shinji, Naruhiko, DaeHyun, and others) are currently spreading the spirit of Open Document format in the Asian region, through the LibreOffice Asia League.

Anything else you plan to do in the future? What does LibreOffice really need?

I really wanted to realize the LibreOffice for Kids task with Marina Latini – I heard she was one of the people who was also working on this topic. One of the reasons why LibreOffice is still less popular in Indonesia, compared to similar applications, is this: since elementary school, children have already been introduced to proprietary office applications.

I know that change cannot happen overnight, but if it does not start from now it will not happen for a thousand years. Therefore, with the presence of LibreOffice for Kids, I personally hope that this will be the first step to make next generation more familiar with LibreOffice.

One more thing, and with all respect and thanks to all LibreOffice developers: I think LibreOffice needs a team of marketing volunteers who can compare LibreOffice in order to compete with others. LibreOffice has great features that are very powerful, but it will be useless if not many people know about it. Short infographics or interesting videos about features, or working on a task with LibreOffice, will help a lot.

However, it should be underlined, that to be able to do this community support is needed, because it is the community that makes LibreOffice really what it is.

Indeed, as Rania says, everyone is welcome to join our community and help to make LibreOffice even stronger. See what you can do for LibreOffice – we look forward to meeting you!