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Behind the scenes at TDF: Localization and Native-Language Projects

Sophie Gautier has been a member of the OpenOffice.org project since its beginning, and then a founding member of The Document Foundation and LibreOffice. She is extremely active in the Francophone and international community, and is a staff member of The Document Foundation. She takes care of the French translation of LibreOffice (interface and help), is a member of LibreOffice certification committee and is a leading member of the quality assurance project.

2015 is more than ever a year packed with exciting projects and ideas around LibreOffice and The Document Foundation, so we want to continue our behind-the-scenes series, to share achievements with our community and our generous donours, to whom we’d like to express our sincerest gratitude and thanks for their incredible and wonderful support and their invaluable contributions!

The localization team has been very busy translating for the 4.4.x version, a lot of dialogues have been modified, so thousands of strings were touched, moved and need to be translated and validated again.

The L10N team had an important discussion on the workflow and the current workload due to changes on the sources, whether they are needed or purely cosmetic, which resulted in several decisions. The first is that the teams willing to work on master will have a new Pootle project reflecting the changes done there. It will be merged once a month and the template will be updated in Pootle accordingly. This allows us to check the strings much earlier and revert eventually unneeded changes. The teams wishing to work at the branch levels will still be able to do so.

To be able to reach out to developers more quickly and get a better communication between the teams, I attend and report the L10N activities and needs to the Engineering Steering Committee, by attending the weekly calls. For example, the request to have a mechanism that handles the localization of the templates will be provided for 4.5 and strings will be uploaded on Pootle.

The migration to the new Pootle version is going on. We are closely working with the Pootle team to get this done smoothly and to have the whole set of features the L10N team needs. The Deckard addendum will be the next step.

A cross work between the documentation and translation projects has been brought up by Milos Sramek from the Slovak community. They have developed a whole workflow to translate the user guides and to maintain them. After some tests in different languages, we have decided to use it for the whole project and document it on the wiki. This is handled via the OmegaT Project feature and we use the LibreOffice GitHub repository to manage revisions in the .ODT file, which turned out to be really time saving and reducing errors – even if the first work is important, it allows afterwards to only handle modifications needed by new LibreOffice versions. If you are willing to use this workflow for your own translation projects, even if it’s another LibreOffice writing, don’t hesitate to contact us either on the documentation or the L10N list.

Some new languages added to Pootle during the first quarter are: Guarani, Nahualt, Tigrinya, Pashto and a new contributor who will work on Tatar, which was stalled for the moment. Welcome to all of them, keep up the good work, guys!

It is a bit early, but let’s already talk about what L10N and NLPs wanted to discuss during the LibreOffice Conference. I am very happy to see that we will have a large group representing the teams this year! 🙂 If you are active in the L10N or NLPs groups and wish to attend, don’t hesitate to come back to me via e-mail and have a look also at the conference website. We will have workshops, discussions and presentations sharing our experiences, difficulties, tips & tricks, but the most importan,t we will be altogether in the same room 🙂 If you can’t attend, don’t feel sad, we will try to organize a hangout and an IRC chat as well.

TDF has also been a supporter of the Document Freedom Day, an event that will be followed by several groups all over the world. I’ll report about it next quarter. The Brazilian team has launched the 15th edition of its magazine. The Japanese team is, as always, organizing several events, trainings and mentoring during this quarter. Don’t forget to have a look at our calendar to follow the activities and perhaps meet a team exhibiting near your place.

TDF Internship Opening (#201505-01) – Marketing & PR

The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks a

Marketing & PR Intern

to start work as soon as possible.

The role, which is scheduled for 10 hours a week and an internship time of 3 months, includes amongst other items:

Public Relations Responsibilities

  • Assist with building and maintaining media lists for different geographies
  • Assist with developing, drafting, writing and distributing press releases and other PR materials such as backgrounders and newsletters
  • Assist with media relations, including pitching, researching and scheduling interviews if needed
  • Assist with collection of pictures of project members, free software events, hackfests, and conferences
  • Assist with building and maintaining relationships with relevant media
  • Assist with following-up with members of the media to ensure publication
  • Assist with tracking of press coverage, and creating monthly clipping reports
  • Assist with proofing written materials for style, grammar, etc.

Social Media Responsibilities

  • Assist with drafting and posting tweets and posts on social media
  • Assist with writing and editing blog posts and website articles

Marketing Responsibilities

  • Assist with updating a global calendar of events
  • Assist with researching industry trends and updating marketing data
  • Assist with the development of infographics and other marketing visuals

The role requires the following skills:

Essential

  • Excellent communication skills, written, verbal and interpersonal
  • Good understanding of the free software environment and culture
  • Creativity, and ability to work on your own and meet deadlines
  • Good research and internet skills, good teamwork
  • Fluent in spoken and written English (fluency in other languages is desirable but not mandatory)

Desirable

  • Previous marketing, fundraising or communication experience
  • Experience of updating web pages using an open source CMS
  • Knowledge of graphic and desktop publishing software
  • Knowledge of international environments, willingness to travel

TDF looks for a bright and enthusiastic individual seeking to gain an insight into marketing of open source software through one of the leading international free software foundations. You will provide valuable support to a small and dynamic team and will be comfortable carrying out different tasks – according to your seniority – as part of a team. As a confident communicator, you will be happy to liaise with supporters and individuals, and will use your creativity to help with marketing activities.

The work time during the day is flexible, apart from some fixed times when availability is required (e.g. during meetings, which usually take place between 1400 and 1600 UTC once per week). Applicants are also expected to be available at least two days per week.

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

The internship offered is time-limited, with no immediate plans to a mid- or long-term employment or contractual relationship. Work happens from the applicant’s home office, which can be located anywhere in the world.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, including curriculum vitae, your financial expectations, and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at floeff@documentfoundation.org no later than June 22nd, 2015. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

If you haven’t received feedback by July 20th, 2015 your application could not be considered.

LibreOffice 4.4.3 is ready

Berlin, May 7, 2015 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.4.3, the third minor release of the LibreOffice 4.4 “fresh” family, with over 80 fixes over LibreOffice 4.4.2. New features introduced by LibreOffice 4.4 are listed on this wiki page: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/4.4.

The Document Foundation suggests to deploy LibreOffice in enterprises and large organizations with the backing of professional support by certified people (a list is available at: http://www.documentfoundation.org/certification/).
People interested in technical details about the release can access the change log here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.4.3/RC1 (fixed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.4.3/RC2 (fixed in RC2).

Get involved: LibreOffice 5.0 and LibreOffice Conference

The LibreOffice community is actively working at next major release, LibreOffice 5.0, expected in late July 2015. The first bug hunting session on the beta release is scheduled from May 22 to May 24, according to the details provided in this wiki page: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugHunting_Session_5.0.0.0.

Also, the Call for Paper for LibreOffice Conference 2015, which will be hosted by the Danish city of Aarhus from September 23 to September 25, is open until July 15, with further details on the website: http://conference.libreoffice.org/2015/call-for-papers/.

The LibreOffice community is growing, and these are exceptional opportunities to join the fun together with over 900 developers who have contributed to the code and over 3,000 volunteers who have localized the suite, chased the bugs, written the manuals, spoken at conferences, and advocated LibreOffice both at global and local levels.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.4.3 is immediately available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/, where more conservative users can find the more tested LibreOffice 4.3.7. All users are suggested to update their installation to one of these two LibreOffice releases, for security reasons.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org.

LibreOffice Conference Call for Papers

Berlin, May 4, 2015 – LibreOffice Conference will be held in Aarhus, Denmark, on September 23-25, 2015, at the Urban Media Space and is hosted by the Aarhus Municipality. The Document Foundation invites members and volunteers to submit proposals for papers.

Proposals should be filed by July 15, 2015, in order to guarantee that they will be considered for inclusion in the conference program.

a) Development, APIs, Extensions, Future Technology
b) Quality Assurance
c) Localization, Documentation and Native Language Projects
d) Appealing Libreoffice: Ease of Use, Design and Accessibility
e) Enterprise Deployments and Migrations, Certifications and Best Practices
f) Open Document Format, Document Liberation and Interoperability
g) Building a successful business around LibreOffice.

The Call for Paper page is available at the following address: http://conference.libreoffice.org/2015/call-for-papers/.

Proposals, including a short bio of the speaker (max 500 characters) as well as a short abstract of the contents (max 1,000 characters), should be sent to the program committee address: conference@libreoffice.org.

Presentations, case studies, workshops and technical talks will discuss a subject in depth, and will last 60 minutes (including Q&A). Lightning talks will cover a specific topic and will last 20 minutes (including Q&A). Sessions will be streamed live and recorded for download.

Whether you are a seasoned presenter, or have never stood up in public before, if you have something interesting to share about LibreOffice we definitely want to hear from you!

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.3.7

Berlin, April 25, 2015 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.3.7 “Still”, the seventh minor release of the LibreOffice 4.3 family, which is now the suggested version of the software for large deployments in the enterprise and for conservative users. LibreOffice 4.3.7 contains over 100 bug fixes.

LibreOffice 4.3.7 and LibreOffice 4.4.2, announced in early April, include a security patch for CVE-2015-1774: OpenOffice HWP Filter Remote Execution and DoS Vulnerability, where an issue in OpenOffice’s Hangul Word Processor (HWP) filter allows attackers to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and application crash) or possibly the execution of arbitrary code by preparing specially crafted documents in the HWP document format in versions from 1997 or older.

Users are invited to update their version of LibreOffice to 4.3.7 “Still” or 4.4.2 “Fresh”, in order to protect their system from the potential effects of this vulnerability.

The Document Foundation suggests to deploy LibreOffice 4.3.7 in enterprises and large organizations when backed by professional support by certified individuals (a list is available at http://www.documentfoundation.org/certification/) capable of providing value added support.

People interested in technical details can find change logs for LibreOffice 4.3.7 here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.3.7/RC1 (fixed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.3.7/RC2 (fixed in RC2).

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.4.2 “Fresh” and LibreOffice 4.3.7 “Still” are available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org.

First bug hunting session for LibreOffice 5.0

Berlin, April 17, 2015 – The LibreOffice community is getting ready for the next major release – planned for the end of July – with a bug hunting session focused on new features and fixes for bugs and regressions. The session will last 3 full days, from May 22 to May 24, 2015, and check the first beta of LibreOffice 5.0.

On those dates, mentors will be available from 08AM UTC to 10PM UTC to help less experienced volunteers to triage bugs, on the QA IRC channel and via email on the QA mailing list.

Those who cannot join during the bug hunting session are always welcome to help chasing bugs and regressions when they have time. There will be another bug hunting session in June, to test LibreOffice 5.0 Release Candidate 1.
Builds of LibreOffice 5.0 Beta 1 will be available until early June from this link: http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/pre-releases/.

Further information are available here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugHunting_Session_5.0.0.0.

The decision to change the naming/numbering scheme of the next LibreOffice major release from LibreOffice 4.5 to LibreOffice 5.0 is based on the following rationale:

  1. The next major release of LibreOffice will be the first available for Windows 64bit, and – during the life of the 5.0 family – on mobile and cloud;
  2. The next major release of LibreOffice will integrate another significant batch of visual and usability improvements, which will complete the activity started with LibreOffice 4.4;
  3. The difference in numbering will make it easier to communicate the gap in features with the previous generation, and convince an increasing number of users to switch to LibreOffice;
  4. Last, but not least, 2015 is the 5th anniversary of the announcement of The Document Foundation and LibreOffice.

Press Releases

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