Prepare for Document Freedom Day on March 28
Document Freedom Day is planned for March 28, 2018. If you are organizing an event to celebrate it, please remember to register it on the website.
LibreOffice Certification @ FSF LibrePlanet
Berlin, March 14, 2018 – The Document Foundation will present LibreOffice Certification to Free Software Foundation Members and free software advocates attending LibrePlanet in Boston. Lothar Becker, co-chair of the Certification Committee, will talk about migration projects and training activities related to LibreOffice, with the objective of helping enterprises to achieve the freedom associated with free software and open document formats.
Lothar Becker will present LibreOffice Certification on Saturday, March 24, during LibrePlanet, and will host a certification focused workshop on Monday, March 26, from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM.
LibreOffice Certification has been extended to FSF Members in 2017, based on the same professional pre-requisites of TDF Members. The workshop will offer a thorough overview of the skills requested and a summary of TDF’s migration and training protocols. Participation is free but must be booked in advance by sending an email to certification@libreoffice.org.
In addition, on Sunday, March 25, there will be an international certification review session for applicants for migration and training based in South America and Spain. Reviewers and applicants will join Lothar Becker, chairing the session, using a video conference system based entirely on free software from end to end.
For additional information, please write to certification@libreoffice.org.
LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2018 – get involved!
Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a yearly programme in which Google funds university students to work on free and open source software projects. LibreOffice has benefited from this – last year 10 students were accepted into GSoC to do various programming jobs, helping to improve the software.
GSoC students are assisted by experienced “mentors” in the LibreOffice community, as 2016 student Jaskaran Veer Singh explains:
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For 2018, LibreOffice is again an organisation in the GSoC programme, so if you’re a university student and want to get experience working on a well-known free software project, while also being paid for your efforts, get involved! But don’t delay: the application period runs until March 27, so it’s not far off.
To get started, check out some ideas for projects you can work on. Each project describes what’s involved, the skills required, and the mentor you can contact to get help. If you see something you’d like to work on, contact the mentor as soon as possible! Then you can discuss how to proceed.
After that, read the general GSoC 2018 page on our wiki, which provides more information on the GSoC programme and tells you how to apply. So, check out the ideas, talk to the mentors, and good luck with your projects!
Happy Women’s Day
Our inclusive global community celebrates March 8, International Women’s Day, with a tribute to LibreLadies, the group of female volunteers who contribute to the LibreOffice project in different areas. The picture was shot In Rome during the LibreOffice Conference. Marina Latini, first right, has been recently confirmed as TDF Chairwoman (and as such is the longest running BoD Chair since the birth of The Document Foundation in February 2012). Katharina “Bubli” Behrens, first left, is a leading developer. Sophie Gautier, middle (grey hoodie), is a key member of TDF Team, and one of the oldest members of the community. Together with them, a large group of young Albanians who will be involved in the organization of the next LibreOffice Conference in Tirana, and other volunteers from other European countries.
We would like to see more women involved in the LibreOffice and the Document Liberation projects, following the leading example of the Albanian community, where over 50% of volunteers involved in free open source software – including technical roles – are female.
How LibreOffice and TDF are helping other open source projects
Free and open source software (FOSS) is all about sharing and working together. And while LibreOffice focuses on being the best open source office suite, our community also helps out with other related FOSS projects (just like many other projects help us!). We’ve made an infographic showing “upstream” contributions from LibreOffice developers and The Document Foundation – click to see a bigger version…
Your donations have helped us to achieve much of this – so a big thank you to everyone who has donated to our project and community!
LibOCon 2019 Call for Location
Once a year, the LibreOffice Community hosts its annual, global community event, the LibreOffice Conference. After a successful Paris event in October 2011, in Berlin in October 2012, in Milano in September 2013, in Bern in September 2014, in Aarhus in September 2015, in Brno in September 2016, and in Rome in October 2017, the venue for the upcoming year 2018 will be in Tirana.
To ease organization, The Document Foundation’s Board of Directors (BoD) has decided to open the call for location for 2019 in advance, so that organizers of the 2019 conference have the opportunity to attend the Tirana event, in order to get acquainted with the conference details.
Traditionally, the LibreOffice Conference takes place between September and November, with a preference for September. The LibreOffice Conference in Tirana is scheduled at the end of the month of September, from Wednesday 26 to Friday 28, on the very day of the 8th anniversary of the LibreOffice project. Community meetings will be organized on Tuesday, September 25.
All the elements which have to be included in the proposal are described with plenty of details on this page: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Events/2019/LibreOffice_Annual_Conference/Call_for_Location. The deadline for sending the proposal is June 30, 2018.
After receiving the applications, TDF BoD and Team will evaluate the proposals to check if all preconditions are fulfilled, and give applicants a chance to clarify all details. A decision will be taken during the month of July.