LibreOffice is the default office suite in almost every desktop Linux distribution, and the Linux community has done a lot to help support, develop and promote LibreOffice over the years. So we like to meet up with Linux users and free software enthusiasts face-to-face – and on April 21 we were at the 17. Augsburger Linux-Infotag in southern Germany. This yearly event has been running since 2001, and is described as being “one of the oldest and biggest Linux-related events in the area”, with around 350 visitors. Christian Lohmeier and Mike Saunders from the LibreOffice community set up a booth which had a screen showing a video of LibreOffice 6.0, along with stickers and (most importantly) flyers encouraging people to get involved with the project: Virtually every Linux user has heard of LibreOffice, so we didn’t have to explain what the software does. But we talked about what the community is doing, some things we’re working on, and how people can help. One especially hot topic was LibreOffice Online – so we demonstrated the latest version, showing its collaborative editing features. Many other Linux and free software-related communities were present, and there were talks on security, programming, networks and containers
Berlin, March 1st, 2018 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces LibreOffice 6.0.2, the second minor release of the recently announced LibreOffice 6 family in just over a month, with around 50 bug and regression fixes. All LibreOffice users are invited to update either to LibreOffice 6.0.2 or to LibreOffice 5.4.5 to solve potential security-related issues. TDF suggests to conservative users and enterprises to deploy LibreOffice with the backing of certified developers, migrators and trainers (an updated list is available at: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/). This is extremely important for the growth of the LibreOffice ecosystem. Technical details about LibreOffice 6.0.2 bug and regression fixes are available in the change log: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.0.2/RC1 (fixed in RC1). Download LibreOffice LibreOffice 6.0.2 is immediately available for download at the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/. LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/. Donations help TDF to maintain its infrastructure, share knowledge, and fund the activities of local communities, such as the event in Surabaya, Indonesia, on March 23/25 (http://libreoffice.id) or the hackfest in Hamburg, Germany, on April 6/8 (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Hackfest/Hamburg2018). Several companies sitting in TDF’s Advisory Board (https://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/advisory-board/) provide either value-added LTS versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migrations
On Friday, we have announced LibreOffice 5.4.5 and LibreOffice 6.0.1. In both cases, it has been an earlier than scheduled – and expected – release, to solve a couple of issues which were considered significant enough to change the usually predictable release schedule. The first issue was related to security, and we decided to release a patched version to reduce the risk for LibreOffice users (details are available on dedicated channels). The second issue was related to the increase of crashes on Windows of the just announced LibreOffice 6.0. The chart on the left shows the increase of crashes after January 31 announcement and the subsequent decrease after February 9 announcement (right-clicking on the image will allow opening the original image, which is easier to read). It is important to underline the fact that the chart is generated by our test system, which is stressing the software, and does not reflect the actual number of crashes experienced by end users. On the other hand, we received several reports of unexpected crashes, which confirmed data provided by the test system. Although both issues were reported while a large number of developers and other community members were in Brussels for FOSDEM and
LibreOffice has turned seven on September 28, 2017. When we launched our first press release on September 28, 2010, our entire mailing list was quite small: 200 recipients gathered from different sources with journalists and media contacts from all over the world. During these seven years, my main task has been media relations. One of the most important objectives has been the improvement of the mailing lists, both in terms of quantity and quality. Today, after seven years, the size of the database has changed dramatically, as we have almost 19,000 email address in our mailing lists, which are targeted based on country, platform (desktop, iOS, Android, mobile, cloud) and focus (security and reviews). In 2017, we have started to target industry analysts, but this list is far from being complete. Based on geography, we have 6 global lists (journalists, analysts, teams), 70 lists for Europe, 30 lists for the Americas, 5 lists for Pacific, 21 lists for Africa, 18 lists for Asia Middle East, 17 lists for Asia, and 24 lists for Asia Far East. In addition, around 5,000 records are updated and 2,500 are added each year. Lists are global by country, plus each country – when possible
Following the recent decision by Munich’s City Council to step back to closed source and proprietary software, at a large cost to taxpayers, a group of free and open source software (FOSS) supporters have created a website explaining the importance of FOSS in public administrations. The German website, called München bleibt frei (Munich stays free), lists numerous benefits of FOSS, including: Independence from a single software vendor Boost to local industry (because anyone can improve FOSS) Sustainability Security and data protection The Document Foundation supports this position. Our previous statement on the situation in Munich can be found here.
The Document Foundation joins FSFE campaign 31 organisations ask to improve public procurement of software Digital services offered and used by public administrations are the critical infrastructure of 21st-century democratic nations. To establish trustworthy systems, government agencies must ensure they have full control over systems at the core of our digital infrastructure. This is rarely the case today due to restrictive software licences. Today, 31 organisations are publishing an open letter in which they call for lawmakers to advance legislation requiring publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made available under a Free and Open Source Software licence. The initial signatories include CCC, EDRi, Free Software Foundation Europe, KDE, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, openSUSE, Open Source Business Alliance, Open Source Initiative, The Document Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland, as well as several others; they ask individuals and other organisation to sign the open letter. The open letter will be sent to candidates for the German Parliament election and, during the coming months, until the 2019 EU parliament elections, to other representatives of the EU and EU member states. “Because the source code of proprietary software is often a business secret, it radically increases the difficulty of discovering both accidental
