Dear community,
as announced during LibOCon, and subsequently discussed in the ESC,
here's the formal adoption proposal for the "WollMux" template / form
letter / mail merge engine / Java extension, from the City of Munich.
For reference, I attach the full proposal (so the initial version gets
archived). For interacting with it, please use this direct edit link
on Nextcloud though:
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/ftrSdx3A5dgmNR8
Reply-To: board-discuss please, unless there's technical questions to
discuss (for those, I copy the developer list).
Plan is to give this 1-2 weeks for discussion. Depending on the
feedback, the hope is, the proposal can then be referred to the board
for a final decision.
Looking forward to your feedback, all the best,
-- Thorsten
# WollMux adoption proposal for The Document Foundation
## Summary
The [city of Munich](https://muenchen.digital/it-at-m/) (with the help
of [allotropia software GmbH](https://allotropia.de/)) offers TDF to
adopt the WollMux template and mail merge system, in production use at
the city and elsewhere since 2007. The project has been migrated from
OpenOffice to LibreOffice alongside the city-wide adoption of
LibreOffice in 2013. It provides professional, battle-tested
functionality for complex template, form letter and mail merge needs,
as one frequently finds in public sector and corporate office
workflows.
## History
- 2004: Munich announces LiMux, based on OpenOffice
- 2005: work on WollMux development starts
- 2012: Major upgrade & rework, migration to LibreOffice (from OOo)
- 2013: Completion of MailMerge work for LibreOffice
- since Release 13.10 (target was LibreOffice 3.6)
- 2014: work on update to LibreOffice 4.1
- since release 14.04
- 2016: work on update to LibreOffice 5.2
- since release 16.10
- 2017: Munich announces plan to return to Microsoft
- 2019: work on update to LibreOffice 6.1
- supported since release 18.1
- move from ant to maven in the build system
- 2020/21: Update to LibreOffice 6.4 (since Release 18.2)
- migration from Java Swing to native LibreOffice GUI
- support for sidebar added
- 2023: scheduled end of migration to Microsoft
## Architecture
- written in Java, and deployed as a single, full-featured LibreOffice extension
- using LibreOffice's Java UNO API
- and much of Writer's advanced features, like RDF annotations,
bookmarks, and text visibility
- the WollMux gui was reworked, and now resides in dedicated sidebar
decks, using native LibreOffice gui elements
- core code uses UNOHelper classes
- UNOHelper is a wrapper for frequently used API calls
- to make Java programmer's life easier & code more readable
- UNOHelper is available as a separate git project, and likely a
useful productivity boost for all LibreOffice java integrators
- this could be the next ScriptForge-alike project, but for Java
- configuration
- contains template fragments, datasources, and more …
- as well as a plugin system
- can be maintained locally, or remote (nice for large-scale deployments)
## Key project features
- project mission: have a single, integrated application for letterheads, form
templates, and mail merge, deeply intergrated with LibreOffice
- there were only disjoint, proprietary solutions before
- in 2004 - no software available that met all requirements
- extends LibreOffice mail merge for business needs - 1000s of
recipients possible, in decent time (1-2 mins for 1000 copies)
- integrates deeply with LibreOffice, and nicely embeds within its GUI
- OpenSource – licensed under European Union Public License (EUPL)
## Key benefits for TDF
- this is a show-case extension project - for putting on display what is
possible with LibreOffice
- professionally developed since 2008
- a success story & a production-ready, powerful template management &
programming environment
- commitment to further cleanup, improve & maintain
- existing user base, thus adopting it serves TDF's mission of
providing FLOSS office productivity for everyone
- and in addition, it's an excellent QA project tool, for integration-testing
Java and UNO
API functions - aka "if WollMux works, every Writer java extension
will work"
## Adoption proposal
- the ESC has looked at the project, discussed the matter, and
[approves of the
migration](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-qa/2022-October/011302.html)
- after discussion & acceptance, the following steps would be taken:
- move the existing, public git repositories into the libreoffice
organisation at github:
- <https://github.com/orgs/WollMux/repositories>
- don't migrate the 'public archive' ones (or move them straight
into the TDF attic, if the project sees value in retaining them on
our infra)
- the code is available under the EUPL-1.1 (weak copyleft),
documentation is under CC-BY-SA-4.0 - as such, this appears
compa
