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Community Member Monday: Nnamani Ezinne Martina

2022-02-212022-02-21

Today we’re talking to Nnamani Ezinne Martina, who helps out in LibreOffice’s Quality Assurance project and recently became a member of The Document Foundation:

Nice to meet you, Nnamani! Tell us a bit about yourself…

I was born in Awka Anambra state and I grew up there as well. But I am a native of Amagunze, a town in Nkanu-East Local Government in Enugu state. Both are in the eastern part of Nigeria.

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2017 from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra state Nigeria. After my National Service year, I went into the tech space. Years later, I had the opportunity of joining Collabora Productivity and then realized how amazing Open source technology is.

I was intrigued by the strength of community contribution then I began my journey, contributing to open source technology.

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

I’m currently working in Quality Assurance. Here, I work on bug triaging; confirming newly reported bugs, retesting old bugs as well as bisecting the regressions in them. It’s a fun process. I get to tweak here and there and there and here, fishing out even the littlest bugs. It’s like moulding a tender baby to fruition. I see myself grow better every passing night!

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

I have always had a passion to grow better, and expand on that. And so, having contributed to TDF for a while, I realized that being a member would allow me the opportunity to interact with more community members and contribute even more.

Anything else you plan to do in the future?

I would love to have some more community members from across Africa. I plan to put the word out more, and get some more people to contribute to The Document Foundation. Thank you for the work you do.

And thanks to Nnamani for all her contributions! Learn more about LibreOffice’s QA community here.

LibreOffice ecosystem interview: Thorsten Behrens at allotropia

2022-02-112022-02-11

LibreOffice is developed by a worldwide community, made up of volunteers, certified developers and companies in the wider ecosystem. Today we’re talking to Thorsten Behrens, who serves on The Document Foundation’s Board of Directors and works for allotropia…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m Thorsten Behrens, living in Hamburg, Germany. With a great team of LibreOffice experts, I run allotropia software GmbH, which specialises in Open Source and Open Standards consulting and products.

The code and the project itself had me involved from 2001 on (then still called OpenOffice.org).

What does allotropia provide in the LibreOffice ecosystem?

We strive to be a full-service shop for all things LibreOffice. Just to list a few examples, we have helped companies to train their internal development team alongside a LibreOffice migration; we’re regularly developing bug fixes and new features for the office suite, and we’re also maintaining a number of extensions for the benefit of the entire ecosystem (e.g. the LibreOffice Eclipse development plugin, the Edit in LibreOffice Nextcloud plugin, or the LibreOffice Starter Extension).

Additionally, we’re offering LTS (long-time supported) versions of LibreOffice, via our partner CIB software GmbH. In the same vein, we also maintain customer-specific LTS branches, in case a larger organisation has decided to stick with one particular version of the suite.

And not to forget, allotropia also sponsors Michael Stahl, one of the editors of the OpenDocument Format, to keep the ODF standard evolving and keeping up with all the new LibreOffice features that need saving to disk.

What has allotropia been working on in LibreOffice 7.3?

Besides lots of smaller additions for LibreOffice 7.3, one of the highlights we’re currently working on is a port of LibreOffice to directly run in a browser – without any need for a server installation. We’re provisionally calling it LOWA – LibreOffice WebAssembly, since WebAssembly (WASM) is the underlying browser technology this is using.

LibreOffice WebAssembly

Another feature we’re quite proud of, is the rewrite of LibreOffice’s old network file access code. That work was sponsored by The Document Foundation, has landed in 7.3, solved a number of long-standing problems, and at the same time got rid of over 17,000 lines of (pretty old) code.

Looking beyond this release, what else are you planning to do?

There’s just a ton of work still to do, to make the LOWA LibreOffice really usable, so that will keep us pretty busy this year. Beyond that, we’re always eager to help making the overall developer experience for LibreOffice better – that helps us too, in our daily work! Along those lines, there’s another project currently underway, called CoverRest, to bring better and nicer integration with code coverage, static analysis and general code checking into the LibreOffice development process.

Find out more

allotropia website

LibreOffice ecosystem interview: Caolán McNamara at Red Hat

2022-02-072022-02-07

LibreOffice is developed by a worldwide community, made up of volunteers, certified developers and companies in the wider ecosystem. Today we’re talking to Caolán McNamara, a long-time LibreOffice developer who works for Red Hat…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m a Principal Engineer at Red Hat, Inc. on the Desktop Team since 2004! And I live on the west coast of Ireland.

What does Red Hat do in the LibreOffice ecosystem?

We try and do a lot of different things, from integration with the GNOME desktop, Calc and UNO work, and porting to architectures such as aarch64 and ppc64le, but I can highlight some of the efforts we make in detecting flaws close to when they get introduced into LibreOffice.

We maintain the regular crashtesting infrastructure, where we import and export 120,000+ documents and typically fix, or identify the triggering commit, any new import/export failures as they are discovered.

Similarly, we maintain the LibreOffice Coverity instance and work to keep the warnings to an effectively zero level in over six million lines of code, as part of that early detection of code flaw process.

In the same theme, we manage the LibreOffice OSS-Fuzz work and work to maintain the level of import related issues to a minimum, especially as a tool to detect potentially security related regressions before they are released, with over 1000 fixed to date.

We recently released LibreOffice 7.3 – what did you work on in that version?

The last user interface feature I did for 7.3 was a little rework of the calc autofilter dropdown, to add “popup on hover” of the color filter submenus and adding color names and some other tweaks, which itself was just an extension of Samuel Mehrbrodt’s (allotropia) more substantial LibreOffice 7.2 work to support color filtering in the autofilter.

Another feature we worked on that landed in upstream 7.3 was extension of the command line conversion of spreadsheets to comma separated value files to additionally support the optional export of each tab of a spreadsheet to a separate output CSV file.

Looking beyond this release, what else are you planning to do?

I’m working on GTK4 version of LibreOffice. It’s not finished by any means, but it’s mostly functional and making progress.

Follow Caolán’s LibreOffice work on his blog, and check out his FOSDEM talk about the GTK4 port.

Community Member Monday: Baltasar García Perez-Schofield

2022-01-172022-01-17

Today we have a quick chat with Baltasar García Perez-Schofield, who recently became a Member of The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m from Spain, in that north-west corner called Galicia. Professionally I’m a teacher of computer science, and dedicate my spare time to my family, swimming, hiking, and retro computing.

I defended my PhD Thesis in 2002, wrote it entirely in what was then OpenOffice, and later forked to LibreOffice, and more importantly spawned The Document Foundation. I then decided that I should somehow return the favor by collaborating (as far as I could), with the product.

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

I’ve lately dedicated my time to the Basic interpreter, solving simple bugs such as type-persistence through compilation and execution, or the behaviour of certain functions that do not adhere to the specification.

Why did you decide to become a member of TDF?

I think that the open standards for document formats are vital for any computer user, and therefore defend the TDF’s existence. In that sense, becoming a member was an honor for me, and I also perceived it as a recognition for the work I did.

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

I plan to continue collaborating with LibreOffice, at least in my free time gaps. Regarding the needs of LibreOffice, I think it probably needs marketing and compatibility (right now it is a must) with MS Office. The objective would be to let computer users realize that they have the possibility to use a free product as capable (or even more so!) as the private one.

Thanks to Baltasar for all his contributions! All LibreOffice users can join him in helping to improve the software, and find out what they can do for LibreOffice. 👍

Community Member Monday: Ravi Dwivedi

2021-12-132021-12-13

Today we’re chatting with Ravi Dwivedi, a free software supporter who recently joined our marketing community…

To start, tell us a bit about yourself!

I am from India, and I recently received my masters degree (M.Math) in mathematics from the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata. I am looking forward to doing a PhD in mathematics. My hobbies include listening to music, reading novels, playing chess, and meeting new people.

I campaign that software must respect users’ freedom. We call such a software free software, where ‘free’ refers to freedom and not price. In Indian languages, we call it “swatantra/mukt software” to remove the confusion. Free Software gives users the freedom to run, study, modify, share and improve the software. If the software lacks any of these freedoms, it is called non-free/proprietary software.

In my computing, I use only free software, except for some blobs in my phone. I volunteer for the Free Software Community for India. (FSCI). FSCI is not a registered organization, but a community of free software activists. It is also a non-hierarichal group. I raise awareness on why free software is important and the dangers of non-free/proprietary software.

I also raise awareness about the importance of digital privacy, and try my best to avoid privacy-invading technologies – and this means I usually have an amount of inconvenience for my freedom and privacy. Although I work on the issues of free software, I do care about other issues in society and actively look for opportunities to meet people who care about these issues. I believe in the power of collaboration.

I am an associate member of Indian Pirates, a group of people who would like to be a political party some day, with the goal of protecting the human rights of citizens. Within the groups FSCI and Indian Pirates, there is no leader, boss or hierarchy. I embrace the nonhierarchial structure of these groups, otherwise groups become(or, are liable to become) dictatorship of a few people.

What are you doing to spread the word about Free Software in India?

I hangout in FSCI chat groups. FSCI is very active in promoting free software, guiding people to switch to free software, providing technical support as well.

I am personally a part of the following activities by FSCI:

Convincing educational institutes to use Free Software and providing technical support to help them switch (see this page). Open letter to Kerala teachers is a part of this campaign. This is a hard and lifelong change that we are trying to bring and therefore, we need more volunteers. Snehal, who is from our group, could switch his department to fully free software for teaching.

Organizing Software Freedom Camp Diversity Edition 2021: We are trying to reach people from underrepresented (in the free software community) or underprivileged backgrounds. The main goal is to teach people about ethical issues in technology, and integrate them in our community. In the camp, people meet other like-minded people and interact with them. The learners participate in many activities in the camp and this makes it fun place. They also contribute to free software via technical (like programming) or non-technical means (like translations or organizing events).

FSCI Jitsi Meet Crowdfunding campaign: Check fund.fsci.in

Crowdfunding for fixing a problem with XMPP-matrix bridge: Matrix-XMPP bridge has a limitation that XMPP users miss messages posted in the groups hosted on matrix when they were offline. Sunday Nkwuda and Olatunji Ajayi, with help from team formed by Pirate Praveen, including me, are planning to fix the problem. Please help us to raise funds, so that we can fix the limitation. Check the fundraiser here.

With free software, users can fix the bugs themselves and share the modification with others, so that everyone benefits. With non-free software, we would have to beg the developer to fix the bridge. We need to actively think in terms of fixing things ourselves and building this attitude.

Privacy Yathra campaign: Promotes and raises awareness about privacy in India. The website is not up yet, but should be up this month. The website is here.

FSCI does a lot of other activities which I am not a part of. We run many services: poddery.com and diasp.in are our Matrix, XMPP, Diaspora service, Gitlab instance, Jitsi Meet, https://fund.fsci.in etc.

What are the challenges you face in convincing people?

There are many challenges. A lot of people do not get convinced about switching to free software or protecting their privacy.

I meet people on streets, trains, buses and wherever I find the opportunity – and I talk about the issue of free software and privacy. Usually, I try to understand what issues other people care about, and then relate digital privacy and free software with their issue.

For example, once a bookseller told me how people have stopped buying from physical bookstores, especially in COVID times, and instead buy books online from Amazon. I understood their issues and I told them that I never bought from Amazon even once (after June 2020) because ordering from Amazon puts me under surveillance. This way, I related the issues of privacy and free software with the ones they already care about. This is one good way to explain people.

Even when people don’t care, I tell them about these issues because it might be their first trigger, and they might need several triggers to consider the idea. I hope to raise some questions in people’s minds rather than convincing them. Also, I need to remind myself time and again that we cannot convince everyone that they should care for privacy. Apparently, it is a hard change to bring in today’s world and therefore, even small changes (like convincing and installing a few free software apps in their device) requires a lot of hard work.

You recently joined the LibreOffice community. How/why did you decide to join, and how’s your experience been so far?

I personally use LibreOffice as my office suite for all the work, as I am a devotee of free software. I also promote LibreOffice when I guide people to switch to free software. Further, I make my slides for talks in LibreOffice Impress, and tell the audience that the slides are made using LibreOffice which respects user’s freedom.

I think the LibreOffice community is doing very good work, and therefore I wanted to share some LibreOffice flyers with some college group, on my Mastodon and my website. Before doing that, I wanted to remove the term ‘open source’ with ‘freedom-respecting’ because personally, I don’t promote the term ‘open source’. Then I contacted Mike Saunders. We had some email exchanges and Mike gave me the idea of joining the LibreOffice Marketing team.

I found the LibreOffice community inclusive and welcoming, so I feel at home. Promoting LibreOffice also serves my broader goal of spreading free software. Therefore, I decided to help LibreOffice in marketing. Thanks a lot!

What else are you planning to do?

As of now, FSCI is planning to announce public meetings which help people switch to Free Software. It is similar to GNU/Linux installfests. We haven’t done this yet. We are planning to have our first session soon. I personally believe that even if people understand the dangers of non-free software and realize that they should switch to free software, they have some inertia. This type of meetings are aimed at breaking that inertia.

Currently, the adoption and awareness of free software is concentrated highly in a few Indian states, like Kerala. I am also planning to reach people in other areas of India too.

How can others help with Free Software adoption / spreading the word in India?

The most important part for free software adoption is to replace as much proprietary software you can with free software in your own computing. Then convince others to switch to free software.

Please visit fsci.in, and join our chat groups mentioned at the bottom of the page. Feel free to join and discuss. Help us with maintaining the services and other activities that we already do. You can start your own initiatives. One important aspect of community is that if you do the activism alone, you can easily get demotivated. Meeting like-minded people acts as a psychological boost. This is one reason I am able to boycott non-free software successfully.

Further, our goal (as FSCI) is not only creating more free software users but creating functional free software communities which are inclusive, welcoming and respectful.

I believe, we also need to have more free software businesses like libretech.shop, which sells free software powered laptops and mobiles.

Thanks for your time, Ravi! Finally, how can we reach you?

The contact page of my personal website lists the ways you can get in touch with me. You can also send me an email via ravi at ravidwivedi.in. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Community Member Monday: Bayram Çiçek

2021-11-222021-12-09

Today we’re talking to Bayram Çiçek, who’s helping to implement new features in LibreOffice as part of the Google Summer of Code…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I live in Çanakkale, Turkey. I’ve just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University.

When I was a student, professors and instructors always told us about the importance and benefits of contributing to free and open source projects like LibreOffice. Since I was a LibreOffice user for years, the idea of not just being a user – but developing it, to go beyond being a user – has always been exciting to me. Therefore I decided to contribute to LibreOffice.

In November 2020, Hacettepe University organized an event called “ACM Hacettepe Lectures”. I attended the course “Contributing to Open Source Projects with C++” by Muhammet Kara. We sent our first patches to LibreOffice and Collabora Online together with other attendees, and this is how my journey began.

Then, I decided to apply to Google Summer of Code 2021, and I was lucky enough to get selected as a student under the mentorship of Muhammet Kara and Heiko Tietze, in the past summer. I worked on the most-annoying bugs, and tried to fix as many bugs as I could during GSoC.

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

Currently, I’m working on Tables in Writer, and hoping to add a diagonal-borders feature to it. After gaining some more experience, I’ll be working on some bugs that related to my GSoC project, as I mentioned in my GSoC final report.

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

I think contributing to LibreOffice is both fun and sometimes challenging. When ‘fun’ and ‘challenge’ come together, it creates a great community, as LibreOffice does; and being a part of this community makes you more passionate and stronger. And that’s why I wanted to become a TDF member.

Anything else you plan to do in the future?

I will work on most-annoying bugs and I’ll be fixing as many bugs as I can in the future. Also, I want to actively contribute to Collabora Online.

On the other hand, I’ll continue to contributing to Turkish translation of LibreOffice and I want to be an active member of Turkish Community to spread the open source usage and LibreOffice.

Many thanks to Bayram for all his contributions, and enthusiasm in our community! And to everyone reading this: Find out what you can do for LibreOffice – have fun, build up your skills, and do awesome things 😊