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LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2023: The results

Google Summer of Code logo

This year, LibreOffice was once again a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC), a global program focused on bringing more developers into free and open source software development. Five projects were finished successfully. Contributors and mentors enjoyed the time, and here we present some of the achievements, which should make their way into LibreOffice 24.2 in early February 2024!

You can experiment with the new features by using daily builds and report any problems in our bug tracker.

Improving OpenPGP encryption experience in LibreOffice by Ahmed Gamal Eltokhy

Mentors: Thorsten Behrens (allotropia), Heiko Tietze (TDF), Hossein Nourikhah (TDF)

LibreOffice can encrypt documents using OpenPGP public key cryptography by making use of external applications such as gpg4win, GPGTools and gnupg. Thanks to Ahmed’s work, it is now easier to manage and search keys and faster to navigate large keyrings.

Learn more about the encryption experience improvements in the final report.

Selecting tests to run on gerrit patches based on machine learning by Baole Fang

Mentors: Thorsten Behrens (allotropia), Stéphane Guillou (TDF), Christian Lohmaier (TDF)

This project was inspired by Mozilla’s work on Firefox’s continuous integration. There is now a system in place that makes predictions on the test failure possibility of submitted code changes and decides the most efficient way to build the changes. As this kind of machinery is very new to everyone, we expect many tweaks to follow.

Learn more about the machine learning project in the final report.

Search Field in Options by Bayram Çiçek

Mentors: Andreas Heinisch, Heiko Tietze (TDF)

Screenshot of search in options

Searching through options is pretty standard in applications these days, so it is about time LibreOffice learned how to do it!

Learn more about the search feature in the final report.

Convert Writer’s Java UNO API Tests to C++ by Dipam Turkar

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora), Xisco Faulí (TDF)

The idea here was to reduce the dependency on Java during the LibreOffice build process. Half of the tests for Writer were converted.

Learn more about the test conversion project in the final report.

Add APNG import/export support by Paris Oplopoios

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora)

APNG is short for Animated Portable Network Graphics. It is not an official extension to PNG, but nevertheless has broad support in web browsers these days. Thanks to Paris’s work, LibreOffice now fully supports this format.

Learn more about the APNG feature in the final report.

Wrapping up

Many thanks to all contributors who spent their summer time improving LibreOffice. You are awesome! And special thanks also to the mentors who always put so much love and energy into these tasks. That’s what makes LibreOffice rock.

Now we are looking forward to next year’s GSoC. If you are interested, why not prepare early? Learn more at out wiki page where some ideas are listed.

Participating in GSoC is a great way to build your skills, and show future employers what you’re capable of!

Projects selected for LibreOffice in the Google Summer of Code 2023

GSoC logo

The LibreOffice Google Summer of Code projects have been selected for 2023.

  • Ahmed Gamal Eltokhy – Improve PGP/GPG encryption support: the project aims to enhance the experimental PGP/GPG encryption support in LibreOffice by addressing several shortcomings, such as the need to select recipients anew for every save and the difficulty in finding the right keys. The project will also focus on developing smart searching, traversing, and filtering capabilities for large keyrings, as well as adding asynchronous querying for improved performance.
  • Dipam Turkar – Convert Writer’s Java UNO API tests to C++: The unit tests for Writer’s UNO API which were forked from OpenOffice.org are still implemented in Java, which in the end test C++ code making it hard to debug them. LibreOffice has had a long term plan to move them to C++. The project will also focus on fixing the unit tests for errors, if any.
  • Baole Fang – Select tests to run on Gerrit patches based on machine learning: the goal is to implement a machine learning based test selection method to select tests to run in the continuous integration chain to reduce testing load.
  • Bayram Çiçek – Search field in Options: LibreOffice has a large and growing number of options and sometimes it is not easy to find the right one by searching them one by one. The goal is to implement a search field/functionality to the “Tools > Options…” dialog, so that we can find the right options easily.
  • Paris Oplopoios – Add APNG import/export support: APNG (Animated PNG) is an animated format backwards compatible with PNG. It is supported by all the major browsers and has benefits over GIF such as partial transparency and support for more colors. The goal of this project is to integrate APNG support in LibreOffice, which had been requested for quite some time.

Good luck to the contributors – we appreciate their work on these important features and improvements! And thanks to our mentors for assisting them: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora); Thorsten Behrens (allotropia); Andreas Heinisch; Heiko Tietze, Xisco Faulí, Stéphane Guillou, Hossein Nourikhah and Christian Lohmaier (The Document Foundation).

Between August 28 and September 4, contributors will submit their code, project summaries, and final evaluations of their mentors. Find out more about the timeline here, and check out more details about the projects on this page.

Open source continues to grow

 

Open source continues to grow, as shown by data provided by reports of analysts (top left & right) and by declarations of users (bottom left & right).

Top Left: In two years, proprietary software is expected to shrink from 45% to 37% while enterprise open source is expected to grow from 29% to 34%. Community based OSS is also expected to grow from 21% to 24%. In total, in two years open source software will reach an estimated enterprise market share of 58%.

Top Right: The same chart, split between geographical areas: APAC (Asia and Pacific), EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), LATAM (Latin America) e US (United States). The difference in percentages between the different areas is really negligible, confirming a global trend.

Bottom Left: Over 76% of IT managers has increased the use of open source software during 2022, while almost 22% has not changed the amount of OSS and less than 2% has reduced the amount of open source software.

Bottom Right: The same chart, split between geographical areas. In this case, the differences between regions is visible, with Middle East, Africa, Asia, North America and Latin America leading in term of global increase with a percentage higher than 75%, followed by UK and Europe with 70% and Asia Pacific with 60%.

LibreOffice Technology being piloted at the European Data Protection Supervisor

LibreOffice Technology diagram

Data protection and privacy is very important to us – and our users – in the LibreOffice project, so we’re happy to see that the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is piloting the use of LibreOffice Technology.

The EDPS is the European Union’s (EU) independent data protection authority, which monitors and ensures the protection of personal data and privacy when EU institutions and bodies process the information of individuals. From their announcement:

In February 2023, the EDPS has started piloting the use of the Open Source Software Nextcloud and Collabora Online (based on LibreOffice technology). Together, they offer the possibility to share files, send messages, make video calls, and allows collaborative drafting, in a secured cloud environment.

This pilot project is part of a wider initiative, looking at alternatives to large-scale service providers to ensure better compliance with EU regulation 2018/1725 (covering the processing of personal data). We look forward to seeing the progress and results.

Click here for the full announcement

LibreOffice and blockchain: What cool things are possible?

Update 18 November: Based on the majority of feedback, we will not continue the discussion or explore this topic any further, as it is rather clear that the LibreOffice community is not interested. Thanks to everyone who let us know what they think.

Archive text:

As you’re no doubt aware, LibreOffice is free and open source software, which means that anyone can delve into the code behind it, study how it works, and adapt it for their needs. And we’ve seen many examples of this, with LibreOffice’s core engine being adapted by the ecosystem to work on mobile devices and in web browsers, for instance.

Meanwhile, blockchain is technology that provides a distributed ledger, made up of growing list of records (blocks), that are securely linked together using cryptography. The most famous (or sometimes infamous!) example of blockchain technology is cryptocurrencies (eg Bitcoin), but it can also be used in many other ways such as in smart contracts, authentication and games.

Blockchain addresses are most commonly thought of as financial accounts, but they can also function as permissionless credentials. Zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs), which provide cryptographic proof that something is true (such as that an account has a certain property or that a user is authorizsd to perform a certain action) without revealing anything else, open up many interesting possibilities like private and decentralised groups, anonymous contributions, and more.

Recently, we had a chat with the Ethereum Foundation about possible ways for people to combine LibreOffice with blockchain technologies. (We’re not talking about putting blockchain into LibreOffice!) We’ve discussed some ideas – but we’d like to hear from you, LibreOffice users! In what ways could people find a combination of LibreOffice Technology and blockchain be useful? Think of document authentication, collaboration and so forth.

LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2022: The results

Google Summer of Code logo

This year, LibreOffice was once again a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC), a global program focused on bringing more student developers into free and open source software development. Two projects were finished successfully. Students and mentors enjoyed the time, and here we present some of the achievements, which should make their way into LibreOffice 7.5 in early February 2023!

You can experiment with the new features by using daily builds and report any problems in our bug tracker.

VBA Macros – Tests and missing APIs by Hannah Meeks

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora), Thorsten Behrens (allotropia)

Hannah worked on an area that is important for power users dealing with Microsoft documents. Her work both improves VBA compatibility in LibreOffice and makes it easier to add missing functionality in the future.

Learn more about the VBA Macros improvements in the final report.

Extend Z compressed graphic format support by Paris Oplopoios

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora)

Paris got off to a flying start with the originally defined goal, which was to add import functionality for Z compressed EMF and WMF graphics and thus to improve compatibility with Microsoft documents. In the end, he also implemented exporting of WMZ, EMZ and SVGZ graphics, replaced homegrown PNG export code with one that uses libpng and added automated tests for PNG export in addition to tests for the Z compressed formats.

Learn more about the graphics improvements in the final report.

Wrapping up

Many thanks to all contributors who spent their summer time improving LibreOffice. You are awesome! And special thanks also to the mentors who always put so much love and energy into these tasks. That’s what makes LibreOffice rock.

Now we are looking forward to next year’s GSoC. If you are interested, why not prepare early? Learn more at out wiki page where some ideas are listed.

Participating in GSoC is a great way to build your skills, and show future employers what you’re capable of!

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