Category: Meetings

Daniel Rodriguez and Celia Palacios write…

The ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlán dawns on an autumn Thursday in November, which could well be just another one and, probably for many people, it will be. But there are different threads of a great plot brewing from the roads that converge there. People come from different parts of the world, in addition to those who travel from different parts of the country to meet in this annual regional event.

It is nothing more and nothing less than the IV Latin American Congress of LibreOffice 2023, which this year was organized in close collaboration with the Division of Electrical Engineering (DIE) of the Faculty of Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the non-profit organizations Cuates.net, Fundación Dedica and the National University of Alto Uruguay, as well as the companies OSS Integral Institute, Collabora Online and allotropia.

There is an atmosphere of joy for the reunion; accents from different latitudes of our America and Europe can be heard, in the cases of those who try to speak in the language that unites us as a region. But also dialogues in English when the words did not flow in our language; the spirits were high and generous for this unprecedented event in the north of the American continent.

The opening took place in the “Sotero Prieto” auditorium of the Engineering Annex, where a group of volunteers from the university were waiting at their posts, whom we identified throughout the event for their willingness to provide directions and general information and, above all, to make each attendee feel welcome.

It seems to me that the event was more successful than I thought it would be, being very close to the end of the semester. However, the students were very interested in the workshops. I think these events are important for the community to learn about free software, particularly LibreOffice, and to break these stereotypes about free software. It is not difficult, it is so open that you decide what you want to do with it.

Dr. Rocío Aldeco – Head of the Computer Science Department

We see familiar faces, greetings, badges with hurried letters and others, written in more detail, group photos; but the murmur diminishes when the opening ceremony begins with the words of Dr. Rocio Aldeco on behalf of our host UNAM, of the living legend of free software, Federico Mena, and finally, as representative of The Document Foundation, of Celia Palacios. They all take the stage to open the meeting with words of thanks to UNAM, to TDF, as well as to the members and volunteers, encouraging them to continue with the enormous work they do every day.

After the first morning, the paths temporarily bifurcate: there are those who choose to remain in the auditorium to listen to the keynote talks and those who head to the laboratory to participate more actively. In both spaces, a wide range of topics are addressed, ranging from the path taken to adopt the OpenDocument Format in Taiwan, to quality control or development with Python and LibreOffice.

I’m pretty impressed. First, by people there – friendly people, full of passion. I met many community members for the first time, and they all gave me a friendly welcome. Second, the conference itself is well organized, thanks to the amazing team. (Though I couldn’t understand what they are talking about, but the whole flow ran well, and some interim schedule changes didn’t cause problems.) Third, by the city – I could see the celebration of Día de Muertos everywhere. Very interesting. Some Aztec ruins, the pyramids, and in the evening people singing and dancing on the street of Mexico City.

One of my missions this time is to introduce LibreOffice Asian community members. I do hope that there are stronger connections between the Latin American and Asian communities, and we can do something together.

Franklin Weng – President of BoD, Software Liberty Association Taiwan

But the conversation does not end in the formal spaces of the agenda: groups are formed to debate, share information, exchange contacts and form networks to continue thinking and building. The story would not be complete without mentioning that in addition to the technical exchange, there were social and cultural moments.

At the end of Friday, the farewells arrived, but they are only a goodbye, even though a place to meet again for 2024 has not yet been defined.

The success of the event can be explained in many ways, but we choose this one: the hard work of the great organizing team.

Thank you, Mexico City; thank you, UNAM; thank you, Hispanic LibreOffice community!

Event organisers sent us this report:

The LibreOffice Conf. Asia 2023 took place on 7 – 8 October 2023 in Surakarta, Indonesia. This event was held simultaneously and collaboratively with UbuCon Asia 2023 at the same place, with the official name “LibreOffice Conf. Asia & UbuCon Asia 2003” (LOUCA23). The following is a report and summary of the activities, which were attended by 500+ participants from many countries in the Asia region.

The main theme of this event was “Embracing Diversity – Forging Unity Together in Open Source”. Collaboratively organizing it together with UbuCon Asia was a concrete form of the theme promoted by the organizers. Similarly, you can also see celebrations of diversity at this event from the various backgrounds of the speakers who attended; there were 22 speakers at the LibreOffice Conf. Asia, from a total of 45 speakers who came from various countries: Indonesia (of course), Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Timor Leste, Korea and Germany. The diversity of ages is also interesting, considering that in LOUCA23 the youngest presenter was only 15 years old!

Several LibreOffice colleagues sent a special greeting video to the organizers. This is a great gift and encouragement for the LibreOffice community in the Asia region. Also special thanks to “Uncle” Italo who took the time to make a video presentation about LibreOffice – we really appreciate it!

LibreOffice Conf. Asia was held for 2 days on 7 and 8 October 2023. Andik Nur Ahmad was the keynote speaker on the first day, with the topic “Calc – to Explore the Data of a Popular MOBA Game”, followed by Lothar K. Becker and Franklin Weng with the topic “The Document Foundation’s Community and Membership: How Do They Work, and How to Get in” on the second day. Details about the topics that were presented some time ago at the event can be found on this page.

After busy activities from morning to afternoon, in the evening the organizers invited speakers, local committee members and event volunteers to special dinner. This was a relaxed moment to chit-chat, have casual discussions and laugh together. For the volunteers who were very busy during the event, of course this was also a very valuable moment, because on this occasion they could interact with the great speakers more freely and relaxedly.

However, the LibreOffice Conf. Asia 2023 could not have been held successfully without the active contribution of local communities who are members of the volunteer team. Several communities that actively contributed to this event include; Gimpscape ID (FOSS design community), OpenInfra ID, Paguyuban Linux Surakarta (Surakarta Linux Community), Kelompok Linux Arek Surabaya (Surabaya Linux Community, one of the oldest Linux Communities in Indonesia), and Linux Nurul Fikri (Nurul Fikri High School Linux Community).

The total number of volunteers for this activity was 45 people – and special thanks to all of them, who helped to organise and run activities from mornings to evenings. As a form of appreciation, at the end of the event, the LibreOffice Indonesia community gave special prizes to these ‘MVP’ volunteers.

But the excitement of the LibreOffice Conf. Asia didn’t stop after the main activities were finished. On October 9, we invited speakers to enjoy several interesting destinations in Surakarta. Unfortunately, some speakers were unable to take part due to flight schedules and the like. Apart from that, the organizers also provided a special page for all participants to share their stories about LibreOffice Conf. Asia 2023 on this page.

The community version of the documentation photos can be accessed via the shared album. In the future, speaker slides and video documentation from each session will be published on the the LibreOffice ID YouTube channel.

Finally, thanks to The Document Foundation which was a platinum sponsor, and thank you to the organizers (special thanks to Rania Amina and Ahmad Haris). See you at the LibreOffice Conf. Asia 2024!

Update on 26 October: click here for more photos and facts from the organisers!