Opening Day of the LibreOffice Open Source Conference in Luxembourg

Board Discuss
#1

In less than a week, after the final closing of the Call for Papers, organizers will start working on the agenda of the upcoming LibreOffice Open Source Conference in Luxembourg.

Because of the wider scope - LibreOffice and Open Source, instead of just LibreOffice as in the past years - we have a larger than average number of talk proposals which are not related to LibreOffice but just to Open Source, and this may create a problem of balance for the opening day.

Of course, when you put together the agenda for the opening day of a global conference you have some talks which may be considered as “compulsory”, such as the opening and closing address by TDF Chairwoman, the welcome address and some other talks by local authorities, and sponsor keynotes (this year not all main sponsors will be related to LibreOffice).

Keeping in mind these constraints, which would be the right balance between LibreOffice related talks and Open Source related talks during the opening day of the LibreOffice Open Source Conference in Luxembourg?

To simplify the task, I am suggesting seven different alternatives based on percentages of time allocated:

  1. 12.5% LibreOffice (1 hour) vs 87.5% Open Source (7 hours)
  2. 25% LibreOffice (2 hours) vs 75% Open Source (6 hours)
  3. 37.5% LibreOffice (3 hours) vs 62.5% Open Source (5 hours)
  4. 50% LibreOffice (4 hours) vs 50% Open Source (4 hours)
  5. 62.5% LibreOffice (5 hours) vs 37.5% Open Source (3 hours)
  6. 75% LibreOffice (6 hours) vs 25% Open Source (2 hours)
  7. 87.5% LibreOffice (7 hours) vs 12.5% Open Source (1 hour)

Please give your opinion, based on the above alternatives, or on a completely opposite point of view if you think the approach should be different. In this case, please explain your reasons.

What I think we can all agree about, is that all the “compulsory” talks should be during the opening day: TDF as the main sponsor (paying at least 50% of the entire event, and possibly more), authorities for “political” reasons, and sponsors because they contribute financially to the event.

I am sure that the organizers of the LibreOffice Open Source Conference Luxembourg will give due consideration to the opinion expressed by members of the LibreOffice community regarding the agenda of the opening day of the conference.

Looking forward to your comments. Thanks, Italo
(the post is based on personal opinions and considerations, and is part of my volunteer activities as a member of the Board of Directors)

#2

Hi Italo,

to me, the LibreOffice Conference is our main conference, our annual “family gathering”, where we meet, discuss the success of the last 365 days and plan the next year ahead.

However, neither as an organisation, nor as a software, we stand isolated. We are in the wider ecosystem of nonprofits and open source projects and one wish that many expressed was the we work together much more with other organisations, projects, governments and commercial companies. This is reflected by cooperations we enter, by our own membership in other advisory boards, and by our very own advisory board.

On the other hand, the character of the conference always should be LibreOffice, TDF and related projects, this is what it makes distinctive. We should not be “yet another generic open source conference”, that would dilute our own profile too much.

For me it’s not trivial to make an educated guess based on the pure “talk time”, and I could assume it’s similarly non-trivial for our community. As a member of the team, I am mostly involved in administrative bits regarding the conference - I did not work on the schedule, so I am probably in a similar situation as other members of the community.

I can imagine several corner case examples that are not exactly LibreOffice, but still quite relevant and important to us, so they are not generic Open Source either (e.g. someone integrating DLP in their totally unrelated open source project).

As you rightfully say, we have a few key elements for each conference and especially the opening session that should be there and that give the distinctive character of the event, which is and should be a LibreOffice conference. So maybe it’s a good start to address it from there, and see how much time is left after all key elements (on which I think you and me would easily agree) are considered?

Happy to help working on the program when help is needed, of course.

Florian

#3

I have still not understood the meaning of this widened scope. If there are additional organizing entities, they should let us (through you) know which themes and subjects they are interested in highlighting and which kinds of sessions and speakers they intend to produce. Without that information, I don’t believe we can answer your question other than “all LibreOffice with a nod to other things”.

#4

Hi Eyal, the last sentence is already a good answer to my question.

#5

Hi Italo,
I lack insight in the (possible) variety and nature of the general/other open source contributions.
However, since we are open and welcoming, I would say 50-50, unless OS-gen is pretty small: then 30 gen, 70 LO.
HTH,
Cor

#6

Hi Italo,

Because of the wider scope - LibreOffice and Open Source, instead of
just LibreOffice as in the past years - we have a larger than average
number of talk proposals which are not related to LibreOffice but just
to Open Source

Interesting.

Keeping in mind these constraints, which would be the right balance
between LibreOffice related talks and Open Source related talks during
the opening day of the LibreOffice Open Source Conference in Luxembourg?
…> 5. 62.5% LibreOffice (5 hours) vs 37.5% Open Source (3 hours)
6. 75% LibreOffice (6 hours) vs 25% Open Source (2 hours)
7. 87.5% LibreOffice (7 hours) vs 12.5% Open Source (1 hour)

Please give your opinion, based on the above alternatives, or on a
completely opposite point of view if you think the approach should be
different. In this case, please explain your reasons.

So - I don't know the %ages; but I was surprised (and intrigued) to see

that we co-locate with another open-source conference - did that
conference exist before - and how many attendees did it get etc. ? or
are we as TDF seeding it ?

What I think we can all agree about, is that all the “compulsory” talks
should be during the opening day: TDF as the main sponsor (paying at
least 50% of the entire event, and possibly more), authorities for
“political” reasons, and sponsors because they contribute financially to
the event.

I'd hope so; my expectation would be that there should be balance in

this; I guess the ratio of support / sponsorship of the conference
between TDF & ecosystem - and open-source others might be an interesting
yard-stick; are there details on that ?

Anything less than 50% would be rather surprising to me at least.

I am sure that the organizers of the LibreOffice Open Source Conference
Luxembourg will give due consideration to the opinion expressed by
members of the LibreOffice community regarding the agenda of the opening
day of the conference.

Who is on the papers & schedule committee out of interest ? in the deep

past I recall helping with the scheduling for GUADEC and LibOCon.

Regards,

	Michael.
#7

Hi @EyalRozenberg,

it is true that the question lacks a bit of context that could be only partially understood from the conference page. I guess that the holiday season interfered with the promotion of a comprehensive explanation of what the organising team has agreed to do for this year’s conference.

I’ve tried to provide some background information in this interview:

or on PeerTube if you don’t like trackers:

Let me know if it clarifies your doubts.

Ciao

Paolo

1 Like
#8

No, it isn’t. I am now looking at the “Agenda” page of the conference - and now I have the opposite view. It seems like this isn’t a LibreOffice conference; it now looks like a FOSS conference which merely includes a LibreOffice track. If that is actually the case, than why is it even our decision to make, what fraction of the content on the first day is LO-only? Shouldn’t it be all organizer organizations deciding together? And - how can LO be more than, oh, 25%, when the conference seems to cover:

  • The Eclipse IDE and ecosystem
  • A Linux distribution for use in schools
  • FOSS at the International Red Cross
  • Cybersecurity in Luxembourg
  • FOSS in service of nationalism (“digital sovereignty”):
    • Germany
  • FOSS in service of government institutions:
    • France
    • Luxembourg
    • The European Commission
  • The Mercator web-app
  • Free Software in Europe
  • The passbolt password management app

That’s a whole lot of stuff. I wonder - will it actually contain the typical set of sessions for an LOCon, among all the rest?

#9

Hi Paolo, hi Italo, hi all,

This information is quite new for the board, too, and I believe, it’s only a preliminary schedule, because of the extension of the deadline for the Call of Papers.

Can we (at least, the board) get an update, please?

In the meantime, answers to the questions asked here are also welcome.

Best regards,
László

#10

Hi Italo,

my 2 cents, given the information that I have (which is scarce - echoing @nemeth 's request for additional details):

  • I’d agree with you that a few talks on the opening day should be “compulsory”, i.e. single-track such that everyone can attend. I would indeed go with the list you’ve provided, as a starter
  • beyond that, given the (apparent) wide scope of the conference, is this really a zero-sum game? If there’s indeed 19 different topical areas, as shown on the agenda page currently - there could be 19 parallel sub-conferences, that every organisation then can fill as they have content?

Of course, if beyond the single-track opening sessions, there’s additional limits on e.g. rooms available, and there is more than the usual competition for talk slots (such that good content has to be rejected, and/or significantly shortened in session length) - that would be disappointing then, for everyone from the LibreOffice community travelling to Luxembourg & expecting the usual annual gathering.

Cheers, Thorsten

#11

Hi Italo,

please keep the not LibreOffice related talks at a minimum. I want a
LibreOffice Conference. If I were interested in Open Source in general,
I would visit FOSDEM.

Kind regards,
Regina

#12

Hi Eyal,

I think it’s important to note how central and important LibreOffice is in many of the topics/areas that you listed. If we (in our community) were working on, say, some kind of Nethack-like game, then having other tracks around FOSS wouldn’t make much sense.

But as I see it, where FOSS and Linux is deployed on desktops, LibreOffice is almost always involved. And promotion of FOSS (especially in the desktop space and among EU institutions) is a win for LibreOffice, as it’s pretty much the de-facto office suite in the FOSS world thesedays.

Mike

#13

Hi all,

I would like to shed some positiveness to the conference organization. The members of the organization committee, who are Paolo, Eliane, Italo, Mike and me worked all together since several months already, each of us on different areas, overlapping sometimes.

Paolo, on the local side, has done a tremendous work to bring awareness about LibreOffice to several institutions and organizations. Having them meeting together at our conference is a great opportunity to let them see the quality and the dynamism of our project.

We are also part of several organizations, for example we are part of the group working on cybersecurity standards leaded by the Eclipse Foundation. So having Eclipse representative giving an update on the Cyber Resilience Act, but also on other Acts is great to my point of view.

But yes! this is the LibreOffice conference and we will have the usual gathering and the usual tracks we had by the past where all the LibreOffice competencies can be demonstrated and shared. We will have our community diner, we will have the opportunity of lot of time together through talks and workshops. From Wednesday to Saturday we will be all together on this campus in Luxembourg :slight_smile:

Let’s look forward to meeting up soon and discussing our favorite project!

Sophie

#14

Hi,

How many people will be attending or invited?

Regards,

#15

Sure - that does not exclude asking questions and having an opinion, I would say :wink:

Looking at this page Agenda » LibreOffice Conference it looks as if the program will be filled with non LibreOffice content. Who decided that, when was it discussed openly and transparent with others?
Thanks,

#16

As it says on the page, “we are finalising the agenda”, so that’s a very premature statement Cor. The LibreOffice talks proposals are being evaluated and integrated.

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