Kategorie: Allgemein

Really Shocked!

I’m doing volunteers work in different roles and areas of the project for about sixteen years yet. I spent a lot and for some longer periods nearly my whole spare time on the project. I suffered from a public accusation  of a destructive communication style. This harmed me very intense. I though this could be a singular ‚event‘. But I was tought today that this seemed to be the new behavior of members of the leading body.

I created and maintained the LibreOffice extensions and template website for more than seven years yet. I read today on a public maiing list that the work I had done during my spare time for this period was not even werth to talk to me (even by email). Instead I felt my work devaluated in public. I felt like being in the pillory. I though the methods of the Middle Ages were not such popular anymore. But I had to confess that I was at fault.

This is behavior and communication style is not appropriate for a project, where I want to spent my spare time and do volunteer work. Because the behavior is not a single ‚event‘ I stop my work for and within the LibreOffice project as from now.

I’m open for intensive and also critical discussions but not for a behavior and communication style that I wouldn’t accept in the office during my paid work.

Communication Is Always An Interesting Topic

You could always learn a lot about the body of an organization, if you start a communication about transparency and in this context the publishing of numbers. I asked for such numbers about the current financial situation of the organization and got the answer that they will not be published monthly but only quarterly, because the publication process is very time consuming for the staff. I had again a look onto the wiki site today, where this data were published and ‚trara‘ the latest monthly data for July 2017 were published one day after the email conversation. And if I remember correctly the third quarter of a year doesn’t end with the month July. But maybe that’s my fault 😉

View From Outside An Inner Circle

The perception of an organization most often differs between people who are members of the inner circle and the public (public area of the organization). As a member of the inner circle oneself may have a belief about this view from 10 thousend feet hight, but that’s often only an idea. So am I.

If you are inside the inner circle you get a lot of messages, take place in discussions and had to decide on some topics. You share the impression that the leading body of your organization is always busy and take action for the organizations good.

I left the inner circle (due to no further candidacy) some month ago and got a different view now. I got  – like others in the (organization) public – only little or no information about the work of the bodies of the organization (not even about the next meeting time etc. of the leading body).  This opens my eyes and I’m able to comphrehend the view of other project members much better now. Thus I’m very happy that I took the decision to not stand for a candidacy again. It’s always good to change your view, thus you could understand the other position (view).

 

Presentation About Non-Code Extension At The Open Rhein Ruhr

I gave a presentation about the creation of LibreOffice non-code extensions at the Open Rhein Ruhr in Oberhausen, a local open source event in Germany. The LibreOffice project attended the event with a booth too.

I added a first template for a non-code LibreOffice extension on Github. I’ll add some more during the next weeks. You’ll find them in a subfolder of my repository for the extensionbook:
https://github.com/andreasma/extensionbook/tree/master/extensiontemplates

Working A Bit Further On German Foundation Law

I got the chance to work a bit further on my script / documentation about German foundation law and added some bits to the text, cleaned some typos etc.  during my vacation. There are some missing sections and I hope to find some time to add Thema soon. But that depends on the daily workload after my vacation.

Further Work With Theming

I worked a bit further on the WordPress theme for a local organisation and got some nice pictures for the header of the site. I cropped them a bit with Gimp and combined them together with the logo in a new banner. We have some great places in Duisburg, like the ‚Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord‘ (an former ironwork with a great light show) (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landschaftspark_Duisburg-Nord), Tiger and Turtle (a Magic Moutan / a walkable sculpture on top of a hill) (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_and_Turtle_%E2%80%93_Magic_Mountain) and the ‚Innenhafen‘ (a former part of the inner harbor) (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innenhafen_Duisburg).

It’s always easy and fun to work with free software tools on nice pictures 😉

Gerechtigkeit im digitalen Bürgerdialog

An vielen Orten wird seit einiger Zeit der Dialog mit dem Bürger auch auf digitalem Kanal für wichtig gehalten und es wird über Open Government und (digitale) Partizipation gesprochen. Es werden Daten aus der öffentlichen Verwaltung bzw. aus dem Besitz der öffentlichen Verwaltung unter einer speziellen Lizenz (Datenlizenz Deutschland 2.0) zur freien Nutzung zur Verfügung gestellt.

Schaut man allerdings auf einige der zur Verfügung gestellten Datensätze, dann werden diese nicht in einem offenen standardisierten Datenformat angeboten, sondern nur in einem proprietären binären oder in einem nicht von der ISO zertifizierten Format, wie beispielsweise in den Formaten xls, xlsx oder doc.

Bei solchen Dateiformaten ist nicht sicher gestellt, dass sie mit lizenzkostenfreier Software vollständig korrekt dargestellt werden können, wenn dies auch häufig gelingt. Durch das Verwenden dieser nicht offenen und / oder nicht zertifizierten Datenformate wird also potentiell ein Teil der Bevölkerung an der Partizipation gehindert, nämlich die weniger bemittelten Bürger, die sich nicht in regelmäßigen Abständen einen neuen leistungsfähigeren PC sowie kostenintensiv lizensierte Betriebssysteme und Bürosoftware leisten können. Auch  diese Bürger müssen sich einbezogen (inkludiert) erleben, als gleichwertiger Teil der Bürgerschaft.

Nur mit dem Setzen auf offene und standardisierte Datenformate für Office-Dateien, wie das ODT-Format, ist es auch einkommensschwächeren Bürgern gut möglich, sich die im Rahmen von Open Government bereit gestellten Datensätze und Dokumente anzuschauen und im Bürgerdialog mit der öffentlichen Verwaltung und den Institutionen komplett dabei zu sein. Es ist daher eine Frage der sozialen und bürgerschaftlichen Gerechtigkeit, im Rahmen von Open Data wie auch sonst in der Kommunikation zwischen Bürgern und Verwaltung im digitalen Zeitalter allein auf offene standardisierte Formate zu setzen.