LibreOffice Conference 2015

“On Monday after the conference we will all miss each other,” my colleague Leif said to me, who was one of this year’s LibreOffice Conference organizers. Seems he was right.

LibreOffice Conference 2015 is over, and it was an amazing and incredible event. With approximately 150 participants from more than 30 countries, we not only had a conference, but a true family meeting. It was so exciting catching up with colleagues whom we haven’t seen for months, meeting new friends, and sharing good times and joyful moments in beautiful Aarhus in Denmark, in an exciting venue called Dokk1, which supported our creative gathering with its fresh, inspiring and open architecture – a perfect match for the LibreOffice community.

A fantastic LibreOffice Conference

“As every year, we intend this conference to be the best ever”, Leif said during his opening speech, and he didn’t promise too much. Contributors and users from around the globe gathered for one week to catch up with the latest developments on LibreOffice, the OpenDocument format and free software in general. TDF staff spent a day together to discuss upcoming projects, the Board of Directors met to discuss strategic milestones, and our native-language community exchanged thoughts and ideas on the translation process and various other aspects of their work. What makes me particularly proud is that many of them took a long travel from other continents, most of them for the first time, to meet with us in person.

The conference was surrounded by several events, like a community dinner, a conference meeting, a hackfest and a party, organized by the volunteers from the Danish community.

Birthday celebrations

As a lucky coincidence, the conference took place around a very special day: the fifth anniversary of LibreOffice, which was born on September 28, 2010. The conference crowd took the opportunity and celebrated this milestone with a big cake, looking back at all the amazing things we have achieved in such a short glimpse of time, and looking forward with pleasure to all the exciting projects that are yet to come.

During this week, while I met fantastic new friends, experienced Denmark’s beauty and had an exciting time, I have to admit that I did not learn that much of the Danish language. There’s one word, however, that I did learn, and I can’t say it often enough to those who have given us this amazing event, a present we won’t forget – and this word is called: Tak.

Tak! (Thank you)

Tak (thank you), to all the organizers, tak to all the speakers, tak to all the contributors, tak to all the enthusiastic supporters, tak to a wonderful and amazing community, and – last but not least – tak to all the sponsors who made this event an unforgettable week. It’s incredible to be a part of this wonderful family, having friends around the world, working together jointly on our goals, and achieving something everyone can benefit from.

In the closing session of this year’s event, we could announce that the next LibreOffice Conference will take place in September 2016 in Brno, Czech Republic, and I for sure already count the days until we will all meet again.

Tak!