Volunteers meeting in Barcelona 29th August

If you live near Barcelona and you are interested in making the OOoCon2007 the best OOoCon ever, we are holding a community meeting to talk about the organization of the conference on Wednesday the 29th of August. We are looking for people who can help us with at the reception desk and also people who know how to use a camera.

We can't do this without you!

Meeting: 29th August,19.30 h (local time)
Place: The Shamrock (Barcelona, Carrer Tallers, 72)

Registration is now open!

You can now register to the OOoCon2007 in Barcelona. Go to the attendees page and follow the Registration Form link. The conference registration is optional, but I will really help us with the organization so please, register now if you plan to attend!

OOoCon 2007 news in other languages

This is the official OOoCon 2007 Conference blog, but you can also follow the OOoCon 2007 news in Spanish in this blog set up by members of the Spainsh NLC Project. It is possible to get some news in Catalan too, reading Planeta Softcatalà.

Would you like to present at OOoCon?

The OOoCon 2007 is now accepting proposals from speakers.

The organisers welcome papers from the broad OpenOffice.org community on topics ranging from developing OpenOffice.org to marketing it; from the global politics of the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement to the technical challenges of localization. OOoCon is a forum for technical as well as general examinations of OpenOffice.org's place in the expanding world of FOSS.

If you would like to present a paper at OOoCon2007, please study the Call for Papers and prepare the following information. Note that items marked (P) will be published in the Programme.

• Title of your paper (P)
• Session description (P)
• Target Audience (P)
• Proposed Track (P) (see the list in the Call for Papers)
• Preferred Session Type (P) (see the list in the Call for Papers)
• Your Full Name (P)
• Short Biography (P) optional
• URL of your home page / blog etc (P) optional
• Job Title / Position in the Community (P) optional
• Company / OpenOffice.org Project Name (P) optional
• Email Address
• Postal Address
• Contact Telephone Number (Mobile / cell phone preferred for use at OOoCon) optional
• Request for travel subsidy (amount and reason) optional

More info and the online form here.

Final dates for the OOoCon 2007

The final dates for the OOoCon 2007 will be the 19th - 21st September 2007 in the Universitat de Barcelona. Please mark those days in your calendar!

In addition to these public events, Tuesday 18th will be the Projects Day, this day facilities will be provided for individual projects to hold events for their members. If you are a member of the Native Language Confederation, don't miss this year's meeting!

Also if you are looking for cheap flights to Barcelona, don't forget to visit the travel section of the official conference web page. We will keep the information on that page up to date.

OOoCon 2007 Call for Papers

The 2007 OpenOffice.org International Conference will be
held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain on 19th-21st September.
See the Conference website:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007

The OpenOffice.org Community invites potential speakers to
submit proposals for papers. Whether you are a seasoned
presenter, or have never stood up in public before, if you
have something interesting to share about OpenOffice.org -
we want to hear from you.

Your proposal should be submitted before 1 June 2007 in
order to guarantee that it will be considered for inclusion
in the Conference.

We are soliciting papers from the broad OpenOffice.org
community on topics ranging from developing OpenOffice.org
to marketing it; from the global politics of the free and
open-source software (FOSS) movement to the technical
challenges of localization. This conference is meant to be
a forum for technical as well as general examinations of
OpenOffice.org's place in the expanding world of FOSS.

Covered topics

The conference will be organized into the following
streams:

General
* OpenOffice.org 3.0
* Commercializing, integrating, and supporting
OpenOffice.org
* Migration methodology
* Marketing
* Branding and artwork
* Funding the project, defining the product, and extending
it
* Attracting people (programmers, documentation writers,
linguists, support, marketing...)
* The OpenOffice.org Community: Past, Present and Future

Native-Languages
* More than translation: building local language
communities
* Tools and techniques for localisations
* The OpenOffice.org Release Process

Public Administration
* Case studies of OpenOffice.org in Government, Local,
National, supra-national...
* Government support of OpenOffice.org (and FOSS in general)
* Collaboration of PA in developing, deploying and using
OpenOffice.org

Enterprises
* Case studies of OpenOffice.org in private sector
(SME - Small to Medium-sized Enterprise)
* Building a successful business around OpenOffice.org
(training, migration, support, development of extensions,
technical authors...)
* System integration with OpenOffice.org (ODF, UNO, API,
extensions)

Development
* The source and how to work with it
* The Roadmap
* Tools for development
* Integration and localization
* UNO and what it can do
* QA, user interface, and development processes
* Macros and installers
* Extensions
* Filters and other topics....

XML & OASIS OpenDocument Format
* OASIS OpenDocument XML format
* Introduction to XML
* Examples of XML technology
* XML: bridge between OpenOffice.org and other tools

How to submit a Proposal

Note. As the OpenOffice.org community consists of members
from countries all over the world the talk must be in
English.

Please limit your presentation to 50 minutes, including
questions.

Submissions must be made via the link on the Conference
website. The link will be available on Monday 2nd April
and your proposal (abstract) must be submitted before 1st
June in order to be considered for inclusion in the
Conference.

Types of Session

A presentation is a general discussion of some topic,
including (but not limited to) the software, the
community, relationships with other software or
communities, and political or philosophical issues.

A case study is a specific type of presentation that
tells what you did to achieve some result; this is
usually a success story, but could include a discussion
of what mistakes you made and how you overcame them.

A workshop is a "how-to" session, in which the presenter
gives step-by-step instructions for doing some task such
as writing macros, setting up a database, or developing a
complex spreadsheet. Workshops usually include some
audience activities.

A BoF (Birds of a Feather meeting) is an informal
gathering of people in a particular group, or interested
in a specific topic. Examples include the members of a
native-language group, the marketing project,
documentation writers, or Macintosh coders.

A panel discussion involves a group of people (usually 3
or 4) led by a moderator. The participants make opening
and closing statements on the topic, may discuss the
topic among themselves, and may answer questions from
the audience (usually submitted in advance).

A lightning talk is a brief presentation on any topic
relevant to the conference. It could be an interesting
format to give many people the chance to make their point
in a series of exactly 5 minute slots.

Travel Subsidy

The template for paper submission includes a section for
requesting a travel subsidy. At this point we are not in a
position to offer funding for all speakers, and those
speakers who do get a subsidy are unlikely to have their
full expenses covered. Each request will be considered on
the basis of both merit and need, so if you are requesting
a subsidy, please give as much information as possible to
help us evaluate your request. Please note that someone
presenting only a lightning talk is unlikely to receive
assistance.

Presentation Materials

An OpenOffice.org Impress template recommended for use for
the conference presentations will be published around 1
June 2007. All speakers are required to file a copy of
their presentations with the Conference organisers. These
presentations will be filed on the Conference website.

Please note that your session may be streamed as a live
broadcast and may be recorded and made available for
download from the Conference website.

... and keep a watch on
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/
for more information ...

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Meeting in Barcelona this Thursday

If you live near Barcelona and you are interested in making the OOoCon2007 the best OOoCon ever, we are holding a community meeting to talk about the organization of the conference this Thursday, 22th March at 19:30h.

So if you want to collaborate somehow, sponsor the event, or just meet the people who are behind the organization, we are waiting for you :)

Meeting: 22th March, 19:30 h (local time)
Place: The Shamrock (Barcelona, Carrer Tallers, 72)
Click here to see the map

OOoCon in the news

DesktopLinux has published an article about the OpenOffice.org Conference in Barcelona:

"Organizers of OpenOffice.org's annual conference, "OOoCon," have voted to stage this year's event in Barcelona, Spain, in September. Exact dates are expected to be announced soon. Barcelona won out with 297 votes over Dehradun, India (224), and Beijing, China (82)."

Read the article

Do you want to help us?

Barcelona, Gran Via Street at night. Near the University of Barcelona.

The organization of such a big event as an OpenOffice.org Conference isn't an easy task. We need as many hands as possible, but keep in mind that all these hands need to be coordinated too so they work in the same direction. Please try to avoid to contact the organizers directly and use the OOoCon2007 mailing list to share your projects and ideas with everyone involved in the organization.

If you want to help us, you can do it in many different ways:

• People in the area of Barcelona can help as voluntaries in the proposed dates. Please, write your name in the Team Members section in the wiki page with your e-mail address. You can also a short description of your skills and the kind of help that you could provide.


• Large local OpenOffice.org deployments are very important for user keynotes and success stories. Please, add your name to Proposals for talks or keynotes section in the wiki page and wait for the Call For Papers announcement.


• Local OpenOffice.org developers. If you are an individual, organization or company doing a development based on Openoffice.org add yourself to the Names of local OpenOffice.org developers section in the wiki page. We are very interested in hearing from you! (Note: If you are a student consider also the Summer of Code)


• Local OpenOffice.org companies or institutions can help OpenOffice.org becoming potential sponsors. Are you a company or institution and you want to help sponsoring the conference, please, subscribe to the ooocon2007_discuss list (see the contact section for details) and explain what your company or institution does and how it can contribute to the conference.

OpenOffice.org talks at FOSDEM

Here there are some pics of the OpenOffice.org talks at FOSDEM:



Michael Meeks talked about the OpenXML integration in OpenOffice.org.




Eric Bachard gave a lighting talk (15 minutes) about:

• what is Mac port inside the project
• people: who / where
• communication between developers, tools
• how works the project : schedule, QA, issues, development management
• development problems : marry fully OpenSource project with non-open source platform is not so easy, find resources

More pics about this event here.

Barcelona will hold the Openoffice.org Conference 2007

Barcelona has been selected by the Openoffice.org community as host city for the Openoffice.org Conference 2007. The results of the voting have been:

• Barcelona, Spain - 297 votes
• Dehradun, India - 224 votes
• Beijing, China - 82 votes

Just a few weeks back some people from the voluntary driven Catalan Native Language Project and Softcatalà put together the Barcelona candidacy to host the OpenOffice.org Conference 2007. We are very thankful to everyone that has helped to make it possible.

Why did the OpenOffice.org community select Barcelona? (from the original proposal)

• Airports (Barcelona, Reus, Girona) with easy access to international flights and with regular low cost flights.
• Nice Mediterranean weather and excellent food
• Strong localization community (based fully on voluntary work)
• Interest from the local government in free software
• More than 100 local companies working on free software services and products
• Lots of cultural activities: museums, modernist buildings
• Terrific night life

Altogether, the Catalan, Spanish, Basque and Galician communities will work hard to make Barcelona the best place to hold an OpenOffice.org Conference. We hope to hear as many languages as possible here, especially the voices of all those small teams of translators that are the true treasure of the OpenOffice.org Community.

We already opened this blog for the event where we expect to keep people update about the progress of the event. We'll talk about the conference, the city and any other topic of interest for the OpenOffice.org Community. Many thanks to Michael Meeks for adding us to Planet OpenOffice.org.

NOTE: This weekend I'll be attending the FOSDEM in Brussels. If you are attending too and want to meet me, just send me a message.