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Membership Committee Election 2022: Q+A sessions with the candidates

The Document Foundation is the non-profit home of LibreOffice, and its Membership Committee (MC) administers membership applications and renewals following the criteria defined in the Foundation’s Statutes.

The election process for a new MC is underway, and we’ve had three live Q+A sessions with the candidates! Check them out in this playlist, using the icon in the top-right to switch videos (and we’ll put them on PeerTube very soon):

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Community Member Monday: Jean-Baptiste Faure

Today we’re talking to Jean-Baptiste Faure from the LibreOffice localisation community…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I am Jean-Baptiste, living in a small town near Lyon in France.

I retired in 2021, and until then I was working as a researcher in hydroinformatics in a public research institute. I was developing numerical simulation software for the study of river flows and their dynamics: mainly floods and pollutant transport.

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

Currently my main contribution to LibreOffice is the French localization of the UI. So I am less active in Quality Assurance than previously, but I continue to build several versions of LibreOffice for my own use and QA needs.

Note: it is very easy to build LibreOffice on Linux – do not hesitate to try.

Why did you choose to join the project, and how was the experience?

Well, from my point of view, LibreOffice is the natural continuation of the OpenOffice.org project. I started with StarOffice 5.1 in 1998 because I needed a word processor able to write mathematical equations under Microsoft Windows, and I never liked Latex. 😉

In 2008, I was elected to succeed to Sophie as lead of the French speaking community. I managed the QA tests for the French localized versions of OpenOffice.org.

When LibreOffice was launched, it was clear for me that it was the future. Joining the project was proof.

Let’s not lie to ourselves, the experience is not a smooth one. Current debates about LibreOffice Online are an example, but certainly that will not be the last crisis. But LibreOffice is too central and important to be stopped by such crises. I want to believe that the community is strong enough to overcome theses problems.

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

The Document Foundation, through LibreOffice and its other projects, has the mission to empower the user. Free software should make the user less dependent on software and service providers, and give him back the power over the computers he uses, more or less without realizing it.

More concretely, I think that the development effort of LibreOffice should focus in particular on the elimination of regressions, and on the frugality of the software to reduce its ecological impact.

Many thanks to Jean-Baptiste for all his contributions. All LibreOffice users are welcome to get involved, learn new skills – and make LibreOffice even better for millions of users!

LibreOffice project and community recap: August 2022

Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more…

  • And after announcing the new version, we followed social media, Reddit and other places to see what people were saying. The feedback was very positive! But of course, we’ll continue to maintain the LibreOffice 7.4 branch to fix issues that crop up – see the release plan here.

  • And while we’re on the subject of Mexico, we chatted with Mauricio Baeza who’s developing a library in Python to help program macros more easy.

  • Finally, the election process for a new Membership Committee at TDF is underway, and we’re having live Q&A sessions with the candidates. Two have already taken place, and one more is to come – keep an eye on this blog for video recordings very soon…

Keep in touch – follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Mastodon. Like what we do? Support our community with a donation – or join us and help to make LibreOffice even better!

Community Member Monday: Mauricio Baeza

Today we’re talking to Mauricio Baeza (aka “El Mau”) from the Mexican LibreOffice community…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I live in Mexico City. My hobbies are reading, watching movies and helping other people, and my cats.

What are you working on right now?

I am developing a library in Python to help develop macros more easy. I also update my book in Spanish, which covers developing macros in Basic.

When did you join the LibreOffice community, and how was the experience?

3. Although I have been a member of The Document Foundation for only a few years, I saw the birth of LibreOffice, and have always participated in the community. So joining the LibreOffice project was very natural and satisfying.

What else are you planning to work on, and what does LibreOffice really need?

The future, for me, is only tomorrow, so just keep doing what I do every day. I think LibreOffice should be consolidated as a truly community project, not to depend on the whims of some companies.

Many thanks to Mauricio for all his contributions! All LibreOffice users are welcome to get involved, learn new skills – and make LibreOffice even better for millions of users!

Congratulations to all community members, on the release of LibreOffice 7.4!

Yesterday, The Document Foundation announced LibreOffice 7.4, our latest major release. TDF helped to coordinate the release, but most of the work was done by community volunteers and certified developers in the ecosystem.

We at TDF would like to say a big thanks to everyone who helped out – but don’t just take it from us! Here’s a selection of congratulations and thanks we saw, across social media, Reddit and other places…

Congrats and a big thank you for the new release!

Thank you contributors!

Congrats on the new release

I’ve been using it for 11 years now. Keeps getting better and I’m sure this one will be too. Keep up the good work!

Nice! Congrats to the LibreOffice team! I switched a few months from Word to Writer, and it’s been a fairly pleasant experience.

Gracias al equipo de LibreOffice Por todo el trabajo; yo la uso desde sus inicios y me encanta. En mi taller usamos esta hermosa herramienta ofimática.

thank you, libre is awesome

🙂 I M P R E S S I V E work People.

Great software!

I am already using 7.4. Thanks to all

Excellent, big thanks to the Libreoffice team. I’ve switched from the other office and have really enjoyed the change, keep up the great work!

Best app for documents. Thanks.

Great piece of software!!

Un grand grand merci. Bravo l’équipe de développeurs

Congratulations to the Team @LibreOffice

A big thanks to the team of companies, The Document Foundation, and especially to the voluntary individuals who contribute code to improve the product. Keep it up! 🙂!

Nice !! Thanks all. Great team…

Excellent. Libreoffice I’ve been using on Windows for ages. Always keeps getting better with each updates.

Super robota, dziękuję

Congrats! I use LibreOffice exclusivly and love it. Smooth sailing!

#opensource thanks @LibreOffice

Congratulations

Great work ! Thanks you !

Cheers 😊

LibreOffice 7.4 Community, a benchmark for interoperability

Development is now focused on interoperability with Microsoft’s proprietary file formats, and many new features are targeted at users migrating from MS Office

Berlin, August 18, 2022 – LibreOffice 7.4 Community, the new major release of the volunteer-supported free office suite for desktop productivity, is immediately available from https://www.libreoffice.org/download for Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel processors), and Linux.

Most Significant New Features

GENERAL

  • Support for WebP images and EMZ/WMZ files
  • Help pages for the ScriptForge scripting library
  • Search field for the Extension Manager
  • Performance and compatibility improvements

WRITER

  • Better change tracking in the footnote area
  • Edited lists show original numbers in change tracking
  • New typographic settings for hyphenation

CALC

  • Support for 16,384 columns in spreadsheets
  • Extra functions in drop-down AutoSum widget
  • New menu item to search for sheet names

IMPRESS

  • New support for document themes

A video summarizing the top new features in LibreOffice 7.4 Community is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC8M4UzqpqE and PeerTube: https://peertube.opencloud.lu/w/myZUTCytN28kuxDa5VXNgh. A description of all new features is available in the Release Notes [1]

Interoperability

Based on the distinctive features of the LibreOffice Technology platform for personal productivity on desktop, mobile and cloud, LibreOffice 7.4 provides a large number of improvements and new features targeted at users sharing documents with MS Office or migrating from MS Office. These users should check new releases of LibreOffice on a regular basis, as the progress is so fast, that each new version improves dramatically over the previous one.

LibreOffice offers the highest level of compatibility in the office suite market segment, with native support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) – beating proprietary formats for security and robustness – to superior support for MS Office files, to filters for a large number of legacy document formats, to return ownership and control to users.

Microsoft files are still based on the proprietary format deprecated by ISO in 2008, and not on the ISO approved standard, so they hide a large amount of artificial complexity. This causes handling issues with LibreOffice, which defaults to a true open standard format (the OpenDocument Format).

Contributors to LibreOffice 7.4 Community

LibreOffice 7.4 Community’s new features have been developed by 147 contributors: 72% of code commits are from the 52 developers employed by three companies sitting in TDF’s Advisory Board – Collabora, Red Hat and allotropia – or other organizations (including The Document Foundation), and 28% are from 95 individual volunteers.

In addition, 528 volunteers have provided localizations in 158 languages. LibreOffice 7.4 Community is released in 120 different language versions, more than any other free or proprietary software, and as such can be used in the native language (L1) by over 5.4 billion people worldwide. In addition, over 2.3 billion people speak one of those 120 languages as their second language (L2).

LibreOffice for Enterprises

For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners – for desktop, mobile and cloud – with a large number of dedicated value-added features and other benefits such as SLA (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.

Despite this recommendation, an increasing number of enterprises are using the version supported by volunteers, instead of the version optimized for their needs and supported by the different ecosystem companies.

Over time, this represents a problem for the sustainability of the LibreOffice project, because it slows down its evolution. In fact, every line of code developed by ecosystem companies for their enterprise customers is shared with the community on the master code repository, and improves the LibreOffice Technology platform.

Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS), for mobile platforms (Android and iOS), and for the cloud. Slowing down the development of the platform is hurting users, and the LibreOffice project may fall short of its expectations and possibilities.

Migrations to LibreOffice

The Document Foundation has developed a Migration Protocol to support enterprises moving from proprietary office suites to LibreOffice, which is based on the deployment of an LTS version from the LibreOffice Enterprise family, plus migration consultancy and training sourced from certified professionals who offer value-added solutions in line with proprietary offerings. Reference: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/.

In fact, LibreOffice – thanks to its mature codebase, rich feature set, strong support for open standards, excellent compatibility and LTS options from certified partners – is the ideal solution for businesses that want to regain control of their data and free themselves from vendor lock-in.

Availability of LibreOffice 7.4 Community

LibreOffice 7.4 Community is available from: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.12. LibreOffice Technology-based products for Android and iOS are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/.

For users who don’t need the very latest features, and prefer a release that has undergone more testing and bug fixing, The Document Foundation maintains the LibreOffice 7.3 family, which includes some months of back-ported fixes. The current version is LibreOffice 7.3.5.

The Document Foundation does not provide technical support for users, although they can get it from volunteers on user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: https://ask.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

LibreOffice 7.4 is built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org

[1] Release Notes: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/7.4

Press Kit

Download link: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/6i79yxpLYjsaGZB

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