[LiboCon 2023] LibreOffice's current status and community in South Korea

LibreOffice's current status and
community in South Korea
DaeHyun Sung( 성대현 )
sungdh86+git at gmail dot com
2023-09-23 | Saturday, September 23, 2023 | 2023 년 9 월 23 일 일요일
LibreOffice Conference 2023, Bucharest, Romania

Who am I?
 DaeHyun Sung
( 성대현 , 成大鉉 , ソン･デヒョン )
 One of Korean Open Source Contributors
 GNOME Foundation Member
 Founder member of LibreOffice Korean
Team(2017-)
 Member of The Document Foundation
(2019-)

Who am I?
 Free/Libre Open Source Enthusiast in Korea
 Activities: Korean Community
management & QA, improve some Korean
features on LibreOffice
 Father of a child & husband of a family
 Now, I joined Korea startup company
“Lablup”, DevOps Engineer since 2022

Where am I from?
Korea (UTC+9)
Romania (UTC+3)

Where am I from?
Now, Live in
안양 ( 安養 )
Anyang
Hometown
경상북도 ( 慶尙北道 )
North Gyeongsang Province
Studied and lived
서울 Seoul

North Korea
Seoul
Suwon
Incheon
South Korea
Kaesŏng/
Gaeseong
Anyang

LibreOffice Conference 2023
 This is my first time visiting Europe
 My first offline Conference in Europe
 As I knew Romania & Romanian Language
 Dracula
 Meme song, O-Zone’s “Dragostea Din Tei”

Ageda
ODF & LibreOffice status in Korea

LibreOffice status in Korea
■ In South Korea, LibreOffice users have few
■ I report almost Korean bugs…(Community has not been activated)
■ In the Office market, MS Office 70% : HWP: 30%
■ Hancom( 한글과 컴퓨터 )'s HWP has an exclusive position in the
public sector’s office market.
■ The reason is that under Korea law, Public sectors have to purchase
only Korean company's software unless there is anything special

Document Formats in Korea

HWP – Hangul Word Processor (published by Hancom 한글과컴퓨터 ,
brand name: ᄒᆞᆫ글 )

In South Korea, Both OWPML and ODF are a Document format standard
as a public sector.

The Republic of Korea government adopted OpenDocument as a part of
Korean Industrial Standards KS X ISO/IEC 26300 in 2007

KS X 6101(OWPML) – ROK government guided xml based document
specification → Hancom made hwpml and HWPX formats, based on
government proposals

However, Hancom’s Binary File format(HWP) broadly use in Korea

Document Formats in Korea
 KS X ISO/IEC 26300 – set 2007, Global Standard, ODF Korean
translation version
 https://www.standard.go.kr/KSCI/standardIntro/getStandardSearchView.do
?menuId=919&topMenuId=502&upperMenuId=503&ksNo=KSXISOIEC26300&
tmprKsNo=KSXISOIEC26300&reformNo=03&displayBlock=none&displayBloc
k2=block
 KS X 6101(OWPML) – set 2011 – only Korean Standard
 https://www.standard.go.kr/KSCI/standardIntro/getStandardSearchView.do
?menuId=503&topMenuId=502&ksNo=KSX6101&tmprKsNo=KSX6101&refor
mNo=01

HWP Issues
 Almost of Many of Korea’s public sector use HWP format +
added HWPX format

HWP 2022
 Recommend using HWPX format instead of HWP
 Hancom notices for recommending the use of hwpx since 2021.04.15
https://www.hancom.com/board/noticeView.do?board_seq=3&artcl_seq=10924&pag
eInfo.page=&search_text

HWP Formats
 HWP formats
 HWPML(.hml) ← Hancom’s 1st
xml-based document spec, released in 1997
 HWP v3.0(.hwp) ← Supported by LibreOffice (Old binary format)
 HWP v5.0(.hwp) ← Currently Popular Use in Korea, released in July 2010
 OWPML (.owpml)← based HWPML, government guided xml based document
specification, released in 2010 [registered KS X 6101 in 2011]
 HWPX(.hwpx) ← re-generated xml-based document spec by Hancom
Recommend to use HWP program since 2021.04.15

https://www.hancom.com/board/noticeView.do?board_seq=3&artcl_seq=6453&pageIn
fo.page&search_text

HWP Formats
 ClamAV 0.99.1: Hangul Word Processor (HWP) Document Support
 https://blog.clamav.net/2016/03/clamav-0991-hangul-word-pro
cessor-hwp.html

HWP vs MS Word vs LibreOffice
 HWP – Binary contents, Not easy read file format, non-
interoperatability, proprietary format
 MS Word(docx), LibreOffice(odt), hwpx – text format, Easily
Readable format (XML-based)
 docx
 odt
 hwpx

HWP Issues for Expat in Korea
 KDE aKademy 2018 Keynote: Mapping Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea with
FOSS https://conf.kde.org/en/akademy2018/public/events/78.html
 Youtube: https://youtu.be/ITzFXeg4UGU?t=1590
 He describes his North Korea human rights NGO( 전환기 정의 워킹 그룹 /Transitional
Justice Working Group) working and using free and open source software and
data(FOSSD)
 He added that using FOSS in Korea in a challenge for foreigners
 Korean Input, fonts, banking & online transactions
 In addition, Hangul Word processor / .HWP files

HWP Issues for Expat in Korea
 Search HWP on Google & MS Bing

South Korea Gov’s OS Adoption
 Gooroom OS: https://gooroom.kr/
 Debian based Linux distribution, led by 국가보안연구소 (NSR, National
Security Research Institute) and 한글과컴퓨터 (Hancom)
 Gooroom( 구름 ) literally means ‘Cloud’ in Korean
 공공기관 60 만대 노트북 전면 교체 ... 구름 OS 탑재 ‘온북’으로
https://m.etnews.com/20220920000215
 Translation: South Korea government replace 600,000 laptops, named
‘On Book( 온북 )’, with pre-loaded with Gooroom OS

●
Gooroom Linux screenshot

 Gooroom OS-based Linux distributions release from various
vendors
 Hancom: Hancom Gooroom OS
 https://www.hancom.com/product/productGooroomMain.do
 Tmax: TmaxGooroom OS

https://www.tmax.co.kr/tmaxgooroom

 Hancom’s Gooroom Linux screenshot

 Critical issue of Hancom’s Gooroom Linux
 Only support HWP Office Viewer
 It’s not FLOSS software
 Typical Proprietary software

Barriers to ODF Use in Korea Law
 Use hwp, gul, doc, xls, etc
 However, There is no indication
to use ODT file format
https://www.law.go.kr/%ED%96%89%EC%A0%95%
EA%B7%9C%EC%B9%99/%EC%A0%84%EC%9E
%90%EB%AC%B8%EC%84%9C%EC%A0%9C%E
C%B6%9C%ED%8C%8C%EC%9D%BC%EC%9D
%98%ED%98%95%EC%8B%9D%EB%B0%8F%E
C%9E%AC%EC%A0%84%EC%9E%90%ED%99%
94%EC%97%90%EA%B4%80%ED%95%9C%EA%
B3%A0%EC%8B%9C/(2022-20,20220901)

Barriers to ODF Use in Korea Law
 South Korea Intellectual
Property Office’s notice
 However, There is no indication
to use ODT file format
https://www.law.go.kr/행정규칙/전자문서
제출파일의형식및재전자화에관한고시/(2020-
7,20200330)/제6조

Try to adapt ODF formats on Some South Korea
public sectors

Example of MSIT (2021)
 과학기술정보통신부 ( 科學技術情報通信部 ,Ministry of Science and ICT in
Korea) adopted ODF format(Since 2020)
 Media news] ZDNet Korea - 어떤 워드프로세서로든 열리는 'ODT'…" 국민
문서 활용도↑ " (‘ODT’ opened with any word processor, “Document
Utilization↑”)
 https://zdnet.co.kr/view/?no=20201116094217

 과학기술정보통신부 ( 科學技術情報通信部 ,Ministry of Science and ICT in
Korea) adopted ODF format(Since 2020) – Press Releases( 보도자료 )

 과학기술정보통신부 ( 科學技術情報
通信部 ,Ministry of Science and
ICT in Korea) – Press Releases(
보도자료 ) in 2023
 Added hwp, hwpx viewer & viewer
link button
(made by Synapsoft)

 However, Only can download ODT on “Press Releases” link
 If you want to edit and submit documents, you must use a proprietary
software “HWP” that allows to open hwp, hwpx formats

Migration failed history
 Gyeonggi-do Province( 경기도 , 京畿道 ) in Korea
 Tried to Migration HWP to ODF → failed
 2020: 경기도 , 공문서 'HWP' 로 안 쓴다 ..." 웹 표준화 추진 " (official
document don’t use hwp, use odt,pdf instead hwp)
https://zdnet.co.kr/view/?no=20201012101741
 2021: 경기도 , 탈 HWP 선언하고 한컴 'HWPX' 쓰기로… " 방역 DB 관리 "
(don’t use hwp, use HWPX)
https://www.ajunews.com/view/20210521080522864

Hancom’s changed policy
 Last year(2022) Hancom site don’t sell “downloaded HWP
software”
 Need to registraion, forced payments, vendor lock-in
 Link: 한컴닷컴 구매 서비스 종료 안내 (2022.09.27)
Hancom software purchase service termination
https://www.hancom.com/board/noticeView.do?artcl_seq=115
98

Hancom’s EULA
 Hancom release Office program & hwp viewer
 Hancom Office: proprietary license, buy it
 Hancom hwp viewer: proprietary license
 Personal use is free, corporate use is violated
 If enterprise want to use viewer,
it must be contracted
 Not released Linux viewer version

Hancom’s iOS viewer
 Hancom’s Hancom Office iOS viewer app includes advertisements

Hancom’s Android viewer
 Hancom’s Hancom Office Android viewer app includes
advertisements

South Korea’s HWP alternative
 South Korea government knows the problem of monopolizing
hwp proprietary software for public sectors
 Alternative to people who don’t buy or use hwp software
 Hancom released “ 공공한글”
 Site: https://www.hancom.com/cs_center/pubhwp.do
 It can view and edit hwp file
 However, as the software EULA, it can only personal purposed
 It’s only working windows OS (only runs x86_64, not working arm64)

 Example of Hancom’s public hwp( 공공한글 ) screenshot

 South Korea government knows the problem of monopolizing
hwp proprietary software for public sectors
 Alternative to people who don’t buy or use hwp software
 Synapsoft’s office viewer
 https://www.synapsoft.co.kr/viewer/
 Public sector adopted office viewer solution for web service
 It is only viewer, don’t edit document files
 Also, It is not FLOSS software

 HWP alternative office software
 Synapsoft’s Synap Office https://www.synapsoft.co.kr/office/
 Web-based office(for enterprise), proprietary software
 Polaris Office https://www.polarisoffice.com/
 Web-based office(subscription or for enterprise), Windows, Mac, iOS app
 Many South Korea companies can read & write hwp file format
 However, These only release it as proprietary software
 In my opinion, open source ecosystem has not activated yet in Korea

PyCon KR 2023
 Day2 Sponsor program
 Subject: Taming Llama
 Main panel: Lablup’s CEO Jeongkyu Shin( 신정규 ) and staff, Upstage CEO &
HKUST Prof. Sung Hun Kim( 김성훈 )
 LLM(Large Language Model) and collecting Korean data
 One person said to “How to analysis hwp format file data? In Korea, Many C-level
use and write hwp format”
 Checked the dement for hwp, hwpx file format analysis

PyCon KR 2023
 Day 2 Session: make hwp pypi package https://2023.pycon.kr/session/38
 To generate HWP documents for office automation, you need to use
the win32com API
 It requires proprietary software both Windows and Hancom’s HWP
 However, Hancom plans to discontinue OCX control maintanence after
December 31, 2023

OCX 컨트롤 지원 종료 고지 (23/12/31~) | OCX Control Support End Notice
https://forum.developer.hancom.com/t/ocx-23-12-31/765

More Interoperability in Korea
 Need to generate more Interoperable documents for Mac, Linux
users & foreigners in Korea

Reference: Italo vignoli https://www.libreoffice.org/assets/Conference/LATAM-Conf/Estandares.pdf

Section Conclusion
 South Korea public sectors need to use ODF as a document
standard, they want to replace the HWP format to ODF format
(maybe cost-efficient and interoperability)
 Some local companies can make views and editors that support
doc, docx, hwp, hwpx, ODF formats, they only sell software as
proprietary software and don’t contribute to open source project
 Because, open-source ecosystem is rarely activated in Korea

Section Conclusion
 Also, public sectors oppose migrating hwp to other software &
formats
 As a result, Korea government requested a machine-readable file
format instead of hwp format(binary based format), Hancom
adapted hwpx file fomat(xml+zip based format) to current hwp
software (Since 2021)

My goal on LibreOffice
 Make FLOSS ecosystem & culture in Korea
 More Korean document translations, bug fixes needed
 Need to work on increasing open source developers who can
handle ODF
 My life goal is Implement hwp viewing & editing and task
automation function in LibreOffice

Workings
 Attended Conference
 Ubucon Asia 2022 – promote LibreOffice
 LibreOffice Kaigi 2023 Keynote speaker
 UbuCon Korea 2023 – promote LibreOffice
 Long Term Plan
 Meetups
 Fix bugs and Improve Korean features on LibreOffice

Ubucon Asia 2022
 Site: https://2022.ubucon.asia/
 Date: November 26th ~ 27th, 2022
 The first offline conference for LibreOffice Korean Team since the
COVID-19 pandemic
 I joined with Ubucon 2022 support
 https://2022.ubucon.asia/sponsors/
 Participates as a session speaker

Ubucon Asia 2022
 https://twitter.com/UbuConAsia/status/1596816903724765184

LibreOffice Kaigi 2023
 LibreOffice Japanese Team’s annual meetup
 I became a Keynote speaker
 Link: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/JA/Events/LibOKaigi/2023
 Japanese link: https://libojapan.connpass.com/event/286688/
 Title: My FLOSS contribution activities in Korean and CJK areas
韓国語とCJK分野での私のFLOSS貢献活動
한국어와 CJK 분야에서저의 FLOSS 기여활동

UbuCon Korea 2023
 Promote LibreOffice on Ubucon Korea 2023 at Microsoft Korea head office in Seoul, Korea
 Photo link:
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubucon-korea-2023-was-a-huge-success-with-151-check-ins/3851
1

Try to contribute Korean and CJK Issues on
LibreOffice

Fix default Korean font size
 Change default Korean font size: 10.5pt to 10pt
 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155947
 https://git.libreoffice.org/core/+/4ffa5f2d741368bcc70ec3fd5d5ca124
9cfc1e37%5E%21
 In Korean law, It shows “The font size is 10pt, with the exception “( )”
should be 9pt, with the following exception”

 Example of Korean law, the enforcement rules of "Regulations on
Administrative Efficiency and Collaboration Promotion" [Korean name:
" 행정효율과협업촉진에관한규정시행규칙 ") since 2011
 https://law.go.kr/%EB%B2%95%EB%A0%B9%EB%B3%84%ED%91%9C%EC
%84%9C%EC%8B%9D/(%ED%96%89%EC%A0%95%20%ED%9A%A8%EC%
9C%A8%EA%B3%BC%20%ED%98%91%EC%97%85%20%EC%B4%89%EC
%A7%84%EC%97%90%20%EA%B4%80%ED%95%9C%20%EA%B7%9C%EC
%A0%95%20%EC%8B%9C%ED%96%89%EA%B7%9C%EC%B9%99,202109
07,%EB%B3%84%ED%91%9C4)

 Why does Japan use default font size as 10.5pt?
 pTEX and Japanese Typesetting - Haruhiko Okumura 奥村晴彦
http://ajt.ktug.org/2008/0201okumura.pdf
 For Japanese and Latin characters to mingle coordinately, the height plus depth of the
Latin font (i.e., 1 em) should be somewhat larger than that of the Japanese font (1 zw). The
10-point js document classes use 10 pt (about 3.5146 mm; 1 pt = 1/72.27 in for TEX and
pTEX) Latin font with 13 Q (13 quarter-millimeter = 3.25 mm) Japanese font. The choice is
partly derived from the fact that many Japanese books are typeset with 13 Q fonts. The
original choice by the pTEX developers was 9.62216 pt (about 3.3818 mm) Japanese for 10
pt Latin. As a comparison, the default font size of Microsoft Word in the Japanese
environment is 10.5 pt (1 pt = 1/72 in) for both Japanese and Latin characters.

Improve Unicode IVS code

I found that Unicode IVS code block only use CJK Unified Ideographs and
its Extension Block A, B.

Submit bug and source code

Bugzilla: isCJKIVSCharacter needs to support CJK Unified Ideographs Extension Block
C to H for Unicode15
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155820

Code: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/152995

Reviewer found that the code block is redundancy code and refectored it

Code: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/q/topic:isCJKIVSCharacter

CJK Issues
 Characters in CJK
Chinese Japanese Korean
phonetic characters
hiragana ひらがな
katakana カタカナ
Hangul jamo(consonants &
vowels) 한글자모
Hangul syllable 한글음절
ideogram characters
hànzì
漢字 (Traditional)
字
汉 (Simplified)
kanji
漢字かんじ
Hanja
한자 漢字

CJK Issues
 Korean & Japanese adapted, use Chinese characters[Ideographs]
 However, Both Korean & Japanese grammar structures are different from
Chinese that
 Chinese : S + V + O (subject-verb-object word order)
 Korean & Japanese: S + O + V (subject-object-verb word order)
 Korean & Japanese use postpositionparticle(a word that is attached to the
backof another word to indicate the word’s grammatical role or to add special
meaning)

Korean: josa 조사 ( 助詞 ), Japanese: joshi 助詞

CJK Issues

English: I ate a meal – I (Subject) ate(Verb) a meal(Object)

Chinese: 我吃了飯/ 我吃了饭 wǒ chīle fàn
 我 (I–Subject) 吃了 (ate–Verb) 飯/ 饭 (meal-Object)

Korean: 나는 밥을 먹었어 na-neun bab-eul meog-eoss-eo
 나 (I) 는 (postposition particle) 밥 (meal - Object) 을 (postposition particle)
먹었어 (ate - Verb)

Japanese: 私はご飯を食べた watashiwa gohan o tabeta
 私(I)は(postpositionparticle)ご飯(meal-Object)を(postposition
particle)食べた(ate-Verb)

CJK Issues
 Subject, Verb, Object, Postposition particle
 English: I love you.
 German: Ich liebe dich.
 Chinese: 我愛你.(traditional) 我爱你 .(simplified)
 Korean: 나는 너를 사랑한다 .
 Japanese: 私はあなたを愛してる。
 Mongolian: Би чамд хайртай | bi chamd khairtai
S + O + V
S + V + O

CJK Issues
 京 (meaning: Capital)
Chinese Korean Japanese
Sound
音
Meaning
뜻 / 훈 ( 訓 )
Sound
소리 / 음 ( 音 )
Meaning
訓み
読
Sound
音み
読
jīng 서울
Seoul
경
gyeong
みやこ
miyako
音
呉 : キョウ (kyou)
漢音 : ケイ (kei)
唐音 : キン (kin)
Ref. South Korea
https://hanja.dict.naver.com/#/entry/ccko/ef212ae49efc4c39af1e8b44bd13fc5d
Ref. North Korea
https://mirror.adversec.com/dprk/dprk-34c4/DPRK-34C3-PDFs/Education/Secondary/1/
chinese_ideograph.pdf

CJK Issues
 京 (meaning: Capital)
 Korean: Almost use reading “sound part”
 Except. Korean-made Hanja 乭 돌 (meaning: stone), number 五 (meaing
5, 다섯 ‘ da-seot’, sound: 오 ‘ o’ )
 Alphago against go-player name Lee se-dol 이세돌 ( 李世乭 )
 Japanese: sometimes reading “meaning parts” or “Sound parts”

Korean Numbering Texts
Number Korean Counting Korean Legal Korean Digital Korea Digital2
1 일 하나 일 一
2 이 둘 이 二
3 삼 셋 삼 三
4 사 넷 사 四
5 오 다섯 오 五
6 육 여섯 육 六
7 칠 일곱 칠 七
8 팔 여덟 팔 八
9 구 아홉 구 九
10 십 열 일영 一零
11 십일 열하나 일일 一一
20 이십 스물 이영 二零
30 삼십 서른 삼영 三零
99 구십구 아흔아홉 구구 九九

Google IO Keynote 2023
 Why Google’s Bard choose both Korean and Japanese as it Priority Service
Language?
https://www.youtube.com/live/cNfINi5CNbY?si=eettGWMm53y-Qn0f&t=1658
 Both languages have similar grammatical structures: S + O + V
 Complexed & Unique character systems
 Korean: Hangul syllable 한글 음절 , Hangul jamo 한글 자모 , Hanja 漢字
 Japanese: Hiragana ひらがな , Katakana カタカナ , Kanji 漢字
 Google is not exclusive to both countries in the search engine market
 Korea: Naver, Japan: Yahoo Japan

Google IO Keynote
●
https://www.youtube.com/live/cNfINi5CNbY?si=eettGWMm53y-Q
n0f&t=1658

Long term Plans – Meetups
 Plan to make LibreOffice Korean Team Meetups

Long term Plans – etc
 Fix LibreOffice Korean bugs
 Vertical writing
 Make some features
 Korean Hanja dictionary, Korean Hanja dictionary for Buddhism, etc
 Document Templates for Korean
 ‘hwpx’ file format support

Vertical Writing
 In East Asian regions(CJK), Many East Asian(CJK) scripts can be
written in the horizontal or vertical manner
 Example of CJK Vertical Writing
1. From top to bottom
2. Ordered from right to left
①
②

Vertical Writing
 Example of Vertical Writing in Korean

Vertical Writing
 Example of HWP’s Vertical Writing template

Vertical Writing
 국립국어원 ( 國立國語院 National Institute of the Korean Language)’s Korean
vertical writing manual
http://kornorms.korean.go.kr/regltn/popup/regltnNtfcView.do?regltn_code=0001&ntfc
_no=6&ntfc_hist_no=1001
 W3C Requirements for Hangul Text Layout and Typography : 한국어 텍스트
레이아웃 및 타이포그래피를 위한 요구사항 https://www.w3.org/TR/klreq/
 W3C Styling vertical Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Mongolian text
https://www.w3.org/International/articles/vertical-text/
 Unicode - Vertical Text Layout https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr50/

Vertical Writing
 Bug 132926 - Change Punctuations(comma & period) for Korean
vertical writting text layout
 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=132926

Korean Dictionaries
 HWP 2022’s dictionaries
 Korean Hanja Dictionary
 Korean-English, English-Korean Dictionary, etc

Korean Dictionaries
 Korean Hanja dictionary for Buddhism
 Example1) 金剛般若波羅蜜經
 Korean Hanja Sound: 금강반약파라밀경 (geum gang ban yak pa ra mil gyeong)
 Korean Buddhism Sound:
금강반야바라밀경 (geum gang ban ya ba ra mil gyoeng)
 Example2) 阿耨多羅三藐三菩提
 Korean Hanja Sound: 아누다라삼막삼보제 (a nu da ra sam mak sam bo je)
 Korean Buddhism Sound:
아뇩다라삼먁삼보리 (a nyok da ra sam myak sam bo ri)

Korean Dictionaries
 Currently Korean Hanja dictionary

Document Templates in Korea
 Example of Document Templates for Korea

Long term Plans
 HWP’s Document Templates List
 Plan: Add Korean Document Templates as LibreOffice
Extension or …

[LiboCon 2023] LibreOffice's current status and community in South Korea

[LiboCon 2023] LibreOffice's current status and community in South Korea

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