Thoughts on the End of the Year

Dear friends, dear colleagues, dear fellows,

I really missed to fill my blog with interesting and exciting content this year - but, be assured, not due to a lack of interest, but rather due to a lack of time. Now that the days get more silent and Christmas is approaching with huge steps, I would like to take a chance on sharing my very personal thoughts about this year 2011 with all of you.

For me, this year was a very exciting one, in each and every aspect. As announced already in 2010, I had to step back from some activities due to personal reasons, for planning my own future. Especially missing many events that normally were part of my schedule, like FOSDEM, CeBIT and LinuxTag, was not so easy to deal with. On one hand, it gave me lots of important time for myself, on the other hand, I therefore could not meet many friends, colleagues and fellows, and I honestly miss that.

However, being addicted to free software, I attended some local events in southern Germany, and enjoyed these even more: Like the Augsburg Linux-Infotag, my beloved Open Source Meetings in Munich, which are in their third year now, or the LinuxDay Dornbirn in Austria. All of them are right in front of my doorstep, and I enjoyed being there a lot. With the Munich IT-Brunch, a completely new event made it onto my calendar - after being invited as speaker there in July, I began to regularly attend as guest. Another noteworthy event, that made me especially proud, was the fruitful cooperation with the Free Software Foundation Europe for the Munich Document Freedom Day in March.

Together with good friends, I also enjoyed organizing three delicious Open Source Cookings this year: One in Essen Unperfekthaus, and two in Munich Café Netzwerk. With regularly 25-30 geeks and nerds attending, it is fair to assume the event has been established and is received very well - and so we plan even further! Admittedly, our recent idea sounds rather weird, but as the border between genius and madness is very thin, we currently plan to host an event in a running train: "Geeks on rails", so to say. We also plan for an Open Source Sauna, and an event best described as "Mountain hacking", where we want to host a hacking weekend in a lodge. And let's not forget about our Open Source Cooking roadshow, where we want to create delicious food in various European cities with our geek gourmet friends around the globe. A bit less crazy, but not less interesting, are the planned Creative Commons movie night, and the planned Munich Open Source Workshops.

So much on schedules and appointments. "What about LibreOffice?", you may wonder. To start straight away: I am proud, so very proud of our community, proud of all those contributing to LibreOffice and The Document Foundation, proud of what we have achieved standing together, speaking with one united voice, following our goals. It's unbelievable that all of this has been existing for 15 months already, as sometimes it feels as if it started just yesterday. At the same time, it feels as if it has never been different, as it feels so right, as it feels so good, as our work is motivating, creative, as we drive things forward with a vital, vivid and active community. So many people invest so much time into LibreOffice, and every minute is so very well spent, paid back by a real good time in a truly wonderful community. And the future will be even brighter: As announced in Paris, the porting efforts to Android, iOS and a browser-based version are moving forward with great progress.

Our community is like a big family, with many familiar faces and true friends around the world, with whom I not only share the excitement about free software, but also a deep personal friendship. Events like our Hackfest - which, by the way, will be repeated 2012 in Hamburg and Munich -, the QA weekend in Essen Linuxhotel, the project weekend in Hof, and on top of all this, the LibreOffice Conference are true highlights of the year and show the unity and the strenght of this so large part of the community who founded The Document Foundation. Talking about the LibreOffice Conference, what really left me speechless is that the presentation about TDF infrastructure I held in Paris was downloaded 10.000 times in just 48 hours.

The current numbers are indeed truly amazing: 40 core developers, 20 of them volunteers, 16.000 mailing list subscribers in total, 136 TDF members, 275 active developers (amongst them 230 new ones), 280 localizers, a strong and balanced Advisory Board and a software that is being used by 25 million users in 109 languages worldwide - there's no better kudos we can get. For me personally, the biggest present of this year, and truly an honour, was to be elected into the TDF Board of Directors and having the honour to serve as its Chairman, a role that I am really looking forward to, and that I will fill together with my colleague Thorsten Behrens.

Writing those lines, and remembering all that has happened within the past 12 months, I begin to realize in what a short glimpse of time this year has passend, and how much has happened in these 365 days - and I am sure that many of you share similar feelings and experiences. Now the time comes, where we all deserve some peaceful and silent days, without technology woes, without being always online and without being reachable for everyone. I will do the same, gathering powers for the upcoming year, for all the surprises, excitements, changes, good and bad times it will carry.

For me personally, the upcoming year will demand me to cut down my engagement even more. With the switch from studies to starting into a job coming closer and closer, I can be assured that not only in terms of time, the next year will demand a lot from me.

Even so, I truly hope that all my friends, colleagues and fellows that have been by my side for many years, will also be with me in the upcoming year. You are those who I appreciate the most, whom I am most thankful. Despite all the technology our lifes are filled with, it's always friends and human beings who shape our online and offline times, and fill them with life, making them worthwhile.

I wish you and your beloved ones by heart a silent, peaceful and joyful Christmas, many relaxed and happy days with those close to you, and a successful, healthy and blessed new year!

Thank you for all your support, for the good cooperation, for the great talks - and I am very much looking forward to exciting times with you in 2012!