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Wednesday, November 22, 2017

REPORT: LibreOffice mini-conference 2017 Japan (in openSUSE.Asia Summit 2017 Tokyo)



On Oct 22nd, 2017, we hosted an event titled "LibreOffice mini-conference 2017 Japan," as a sub-event of "openSUSE.Asia Summit 2017 Tokyo."
openSUSE.Asia Summit is:
"one of the great events for openSUSE community (i.e., both contributors, and users) in Asia. Those who usually communicate online can get together from all over the world, talk face to face, and have fun. Members of the community will share their most recent knowledge, experiences, and learn FLOSS technologies surrounding openSUSE."
This year hosted this event at the University of Electro-Communications (UEC) in Chofu, Tokyo, and I was honored to be a committee member.
In spite of the bad weather immediately before the hit of the huge typhoon Lan, over 150 participants from nine countries gathered in two days (Oct 21st and 22nd), and we enjoyed various talks and workshops on openSUSE and various open source software (including LibreOffice, of course) and were able to interact with each other.

Thanks to The Document Foundation for helping the travel cost, we could invite 3 speakers from cities far from Tokyo, then we had 6 speakers from 3 countries (Taiwan, Indonesia, and Japan).
Sponsor board and event board.  See "LibreOffice: The Document Foundation" logo!

Talk highlight

Let's see each talk in our mini-conference!

Opening Talk: LibreOffice: The Office Suite with Mixing Bowl Culture, by Naruhiko Ogasawara


My talk :)
Introducing LibreOffice to use the keyword "Mixing bowl," taken from TDF official slide provided as a marketing material.
I love LibreOffice because everyone in the community is kind to anyone who acts to do something.  I aimed to convey a message that anyone can participate LibreOffice project in the same opportunities, and I could do (hope so).

The Interoperability of Documents, by Franklin Weng

Not only the full talk in mini-conference, but he also had a lightning talk on 21st Oct evening. by hisa_x.  Flickr link


Franklin, who leads ODF migration in Taiwan, talked about the importance of creating interoperable documents and how to do it.  "Document interoperability = Working together better" in this talk was a simple and strong, important message.
One of the keys is "document format," so we must choose ODF instead of OOXML to make interoperable documents (and of course LibreOffice is the best office suite to generate ODF ;).
I thought "interoperability" was a keyword of the mini-conference (coincidentally, many talks mentioned that).

State of CJK issues of LibreOffice, by Shinji Enoki

Shinji wearing Rome conference T-shirt. Cool! by hisa_x. Flickr link
https://speakerdeck.com/enoki/state-of-cjk-issues-of-libreoffice-libreoffice-miniconf

Shinji Enoki is a member of LibreOffice Japanese Team (Japanese NLP), same as mine.  He continuously attended LibreOffice Conference for years, and this talk was "replay" of last global conference talk in Rome.
In The Next Decade Manifesto,
WE COMMIT OURSELVES:  to support the preservation of mother tongues by encouraging all peoples to translate, document, support, and promote our office productivity tools in their mother tongue
Then, not only UI/document translations but language-dependent features work well is also important.   But sometimes it is quite hard for developers to understand what is "work well" in language which is not his/her mother tongue.  Especially CJK, RTL for a developer who uses latin language.  So we, Asian users have to improve LibreOffice by ourselves and to help developers to go the right way.
He introduced current status of CJK issues with examples such as IVS problem, and several resources provided by the project:

Introduction to Japanese Darkness "Excel Houganshi," by Rin Nakamura

Rin Nakamura talking about Excel Houganshi. by hisa_x. Flickr link
Hmm... it is quite hard to explain what the talk means because it very tied to Japanese culture... but I'm trying.
"Houganshi (方眼紙)" means "graph paper," paper with pre-printed square grids.  In Japan, it is common to use Excel like as Houganshi, to make all cell width and height exactly same.  You can easily see so many "Excel Houganshi" via google images.
Nakamura-san claimed "You don't do this (to create "Excel Houganshi"), then introduced an example that he was bothered by such Excel Houganshi, and demonstrated the trick to make it a proper document based on it.
His message was "use tools (like office suite) with proper way."   Excel Houganshi has been a good technic in "print to paper" era, but in the digital era, it became "Japanese Darkness" culture.  No one wants to maintain Excel Houganshi document.  So, the talk was strongly related to Franklin's talk;  Excel Houganshi is exchangeable, but NOT interoperable.

Write Your Story with OpenSource, by Umul Sidikoh

Umul talking with demonstrations. by Edwin Zakaria. Flickr link

Umul from Indonesia told us how to write a document using Writer style features, with lots of demonstrations.  Live demo sometimes makes us very frustrated, but she tried well :).
This talk also related to interoperability.  Using style feature makes documents more interoperable.  It is "right way" to use Writer, instead of insert new line, white space or specify font directly, as Franklin mentioned.
I heard that this was her first overseas trip and she seemed to enjoy both the conference and Tokyo.  I believe it was a great step for her to move forward to contributing LibreOffice, and she'll continue to contribute us, with contacting other LibreOffice people.

How to build LibreOffice on your desktop, by Masataka Kondo

(Oops, I couldn't find out his photo... ><)


LibreOffice is open source software.  It means, we could build LibreOffice from source code by ourselves.  Kondo-san, another member of LibreOffice Japanese Team, introduced LibreOffice building-how-to with openSUSE and Linux Mint.
Franklin commented we also could try with Docker (and he let us know the link).  I never tried to use Docker to build LibreOffice, then I would like to try near future.

Lightning Talks

openSUSE.Asia Summit has 2 lightning talk sessions in evening each of day.
In day 1 session, Franklin presented "Become a TDF Member."  It was fantastic!  Everyone was bursting laughing :).

In day 2 (the day of LibreOffice mini-conference) session, two interns from iCraft, the company which provides LibreOffice support in Japan and sponsored openSUSE.Asia Summit, had talks related their home country (Tunisia and Ethiopia) and LibreOffice.  They are also very interested.
TRABELSI Mohamed talking about Tunisia and LibreOffice, by hisa_x, Flickr link
Aschalew Arega Ademe talking about Ethiopian IT / FLOSS includes LibreOffice, by hisa_x, Flickr link

What is a "LibreOffice mini-conference"?  Is this different from LibreOffice Kaigi?

Anyway, I would like to explain that ;)
In my personal opinion, since LibreOffice is a consumer product, it is important that there are events where users can participate it by their mother tongue. That's why there is LibreOffice Kaigi. "Kaigi" is taken from a Japanese word "会議" means "conference," which means that it is the event for Japanese speakers by Japanese speakers. Of course, it is respect for RubyKaigi (the annual conference of the programming language Ruby), too.
Nonetheless, for the community members, of course, international exchange is also very important. We already have an annual event called LibreOffice Conference which is a wonderful opportunity to exchange information and opinions. However, the LibreOffice Conference is held in Europe (I do not want to say that is a bad thing), it is a bit difficult for Asian "neighbors" to gather. We use different mother tongues, but we live in a similar time zone, similar culture, so there should be something we can do together. Therefore, I think that it is better to have an "international, regional" conference. That is a "mini-conference."

Conclusion

I could say that our "mini-conference" this year was a huge success.  Everyone enjoyed lots of interesting talks and spent a great time to talk each other.

Thanks to all attendees, speakers, sponsors (includes The Document Foundation) and excellent volunteer staffs of openSUSE.Asia Summit.  Hope others will host another mini-conference (or any title, means "international, regional") and we will meet there!
Speakers group photo in our booth, by Edwin Zakaria. Flickr link 


Note:

I believe all videos of openSUSE.Asia Summit 2017 will be published soon.  I will inform you here when it's done immediately.


Monday, August 7, 2017

Call for Proposals: LibreOffice mini-conference Tokyo 2017 (as a sub-event of openSUSE.Asia Summit 2017)

Dear Asian LibreOffice folks,

The Call for Proposals of openSUSE.Asia Summit 2017 Tokyo has been opened since several days ago (I'm sorry for later notice here).

In this event, the committee will also have a sub-event named "LibreOffice mini-conference 2017 Tokyo."  This may consist several LibreOffice talks which would be grouped.

So, please consider to submit talks about LibreOffice in that CfP.  Following topics are welcome (just examples, you could add some more):

  • LibreOffice core development
  • LibreOffice extensions development
  • Document templates creation
  • Migrations to LibreOffice
  • Translating of UI / Help / documents / announcements
  • QA (globally or locally)
It is not mandatory that your topic(s) relate to openSUSE, but participants with openSUSE.Asia summit will be pleased if there is a relationship (and the program committee may consider that).

Please pay attention that the summit calls workshop but our mini-conference don't.  Of course, it is welcome that you will propose a LibreOffice-related workshop to openSUSE.Asia summit, it will not a part of the mini-conference, though.



openSUSE offers their own Travel Support Program and you could apply it if you'll have a long talk (or several short talks).  Please refer the URL I linked above.  And Japanese LibreOffice NLP considers supporting your travel cost by ourselves (with thanks of TDF).  Please don't hesitate to submit your talks even you live in far from Tokyo.

If you have any questions, please drop a mail to me (naruoga _at_ gmail.com).  Thanks!

Short trip in Taipei

I spent some day in Taipei now.  It is last night (sadly) of my Taipei trip so I would like to remain some note my Taipei days here.

TL; DR: I love this trip in Taipei.  I promise that I'll visit here again soon.

Sunday: COSCUP

After I've exhibit Open Source Conference 2017 Kyoto on last Friday and Saturday (actually it had been another trip because I live in Tokyo), I had moved to Taipei to participate COSCUP, which is the well-known event as most biggest FLOSS event in Taiwan and I wanted to participate for years.


I could join COSCUP thanks for Mr. Franklin Weng and Mr. ZerngChia.  Then I noticed that there are so many young people and women.  I have been jealous because many Japanese FLOSS events except dev-focused (I mean PyCon JP, RubyKaigi, DroidKaigi) has less young / women participants.  I would like 'steal' the secret how to attract young people :D from COSCUP organizers.
I enjoyed some talks (about Rust, openSUSE, and desktops), although I couldn't completely understand Chinese.  Most interested talk to me was about TALOS project.  I think that saving a language from extinction is one of the most meaningful usages of FLOSS, and it relates the next decade manifesto of The Document Foundation.

Of course, I talked several people who already I met, or new to me.  It was an awesome time.

Monday: sightseeing and community meeting

It was quite a tough day Today, with around 20,000 steps walk (more than 6 times of my usual day), and having 2-hours community meeting without dinner (yes, it's my fault I forgot to bring something to eat).

However, I really enjoyed the whole of Today.

Sightseeing Taipei

It was my first sightseeing in Taipei city (mentioned yesterday on Facebook).  I have walked around Presidential Office Building of R.O.C and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.  I love these beautiful structures.  And history about Chiang Kai-shek is interesting to me as a Japanese.



I also enjoyed a lunch and bubble tea in the Taipei 101 food court, the view of Taipei city from the observatory, and the north gate.  Everything beautiful.



Meeting with Mr. Italo Vignoli and Taiwan LibreOffice people

In the evening, I've joined the meeting with Taiwan LibreOffice people and their awesome guest Italo Vignoli.

Although I couldn't add some valuable comment as a Japanese community member (because lacking both of my experience of migration to LibO and my English skill ;), the time I spent is quite good to me to consider about Japanese NLP's future work deeply.

To be honest, I'm not a political guy as usual Japanese people, but I guess I should do some more "political" things if I love openness like ODF and LibreOffice.

Thanks to Italo for his interesting talk, and Franklin for organizing that night event.  And also many people gathering the evening.

After that, I had the honor to have a dinner with Mark Hung, most active committer to LibreOffice in CJK area.  Thanks to Mark, I had spent a good time to discuss LibO CJK development or else.  It is pity that time was quite limited so we JP and TW communities need to have another opportunity to discuss that :).

I am sorry that I can not express how much I am thankful to all of you who I met while the trip, because of lacking my English skill.  Just say; Thank you so much, I love you!

Thursday, July 6, 2017

openSUSE.Asia Summit 2017 Tokyo will be welcoming LibreOffice people also ;)

The photo above is taken by @ftake, openSUSE.Asia Summit Tokyo project manager

Dear Asian LibreOffice folks,

Finally, the official announcement of openSUSE.Asia Summit 2017 Tokyo has been published! It will take place at the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan on October 21 and 22.

I think it is wonderful that openSUSE people have their own annual event in Asia, and I proud to have an opportunity to help them.

LibreOffice is a quite different from linux distro like openSUSE because it is a consumer product; most users aren't tech people nor computer geeks and they use it with their own languages only (yes, it is one of LibreOffice projects' goal to use it with our mother tongue), however, I believe that we, Asian LibreOffice people, might have something to collaborate even we use different languages.

So, please mark October 21 and 22 on your calendar to come, and prepare to submit nice LibreOffice talks. CfP will be published soon, then I will share here.

See you in Tokyo!

NOTE: Just a copy & paste article from Facebook post.  Sorry!

Saturday, March 18, 2017

LibreOffice Kaigi 2016.12 Videos

Time is passing too fast.  And I'm sorry not to mention here that LibreOffice Japanese community had published presentation videos at LibreOffice Kaigi 2016.12.

You can enjoy Mr. Franklin Weng's awesome keynote "LibreOffice/ODF Migration in Taiwan."

Any other videos in the Kaigi have been published at "LibreOffice Kaigi 2016.12" playlist at YouTube.  This list is provided by LibreOffice Japanese Team (LibreOffice Japanese NLP) official channel.  The channel also provides videos at another event "LibreOffice mini Conference 2016 Osaka/Japan."

Every talks except the keynote has been in Japanese (because Kaigi is a "Japanese-local" event), but I hope you all enjoy the videos.