Connecting…

The news of the giant earthquake, tsunami and of the situation at several nuclear powerplants near the epicenter of the quake must have reached pretty much everyone on the Web. I have just read that a new earthquake of magnitude 7 is expected to happen anytime between tonight and the two days to come. I hope no one will be killed and that the containment vaults of the nuclear powerplants will stand the quake.

I am thinking about the victims of this catastrophy, and I would like to express my deep sorrow. I hope that the rescue teams will be able to take out all the victims who are still alive under the ruins. We had some good news from Japan: It seems that the Japanese team of LibreOffice is safe -I am not sure if everyone is though, but I really hope so. Also, my good friend and longtime contributor to the OpenOffice  project Hirano Kazunari is reported to be alive and safe with his family. I had real concerns about him as I know he lives in the norther part of the Honshu island (the main island of Japan).

The issue is that our world is not just being torn apart by natural catastrophies; man also kills man. I would just like to express my solidarity and support to our users and volunteers of the Arabic world; people from Egypt, Tunisia, perhaps even Lybia, Yemen and elsewhere. Some of them have to fight for their rights, or sometimes for their own survival.

In these situation, the Document Foundation cannot do much, of course. But we are all humans, and we are a community, the Document Foundation’s community. We hope you and your relatives are well, wherever you are, and we hope to work with you in the future and for a very long time.Take good care of yourself and your relatives.

(If you live in Japan and you’re susbscribed to any of the TDF lists, please, say hi. We’d love to hear from you. Also if you live in Lybia, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrein, Yemen… please ping us as well.)