OpenOffice.org Community announces The Document Foundation

OpenOffice.org Community announces The Document Foundation

The community of volunteers developing and promoting OpenOffice.org sets up=
 an independent Foundation to drive the further growth of the project

The Internet, September 28, 2010 - The community of volunteers who develop =
and promote OpenOffice.org, the leading free office software, announce a ma=
jor change in the project=E2=80=99s structure. After ten years=E2=80=99 suc=
cessful growth with Sun Microsystems as founding and principle sponsor, the=
 project launches an independent foundation called "The Document Foundation=
", to fulfil the promise of independence written in the original charter.

The Foundation will be the cornerstone of a new ecosystem where individuals=
 and organisations can contribute to and benefit from the availability of a=
 truly free office suite. It will generate increased competition and choice=
 for the benefit of  customers and drive innovation in the office suite mar=
ket. From now on, the OpenOffice.org community will be known as "The Docume=
nt Foundation".

Oracle, who acquired OpenOffice.org assets as a result of its acquisition o=
f Sun Microsystems, has been invited to become a member of the new Foundati=
on, and donate the brand the community has grown during the past ten years.=
 Pending this decision, the brand "LibreOffice" has been chosen for the sof=
tware going forward.

The Document Foundation is the result of a collective effort by leading ind=
ependent members of the OpenOffice.org community, including several project=
 leads and key members of the Community Council. It will be led initially b=
y a Steering Committee of developers and national language projects manager=
s. The Foundation aims to lower the barrier of adoption for both users and =
developers, to make LibreOffice the most accessible office suite ever.

The Foundation will coordinate and oversee the development of LibreOffice, =
which is available in beta version at the placeholder site: http://www.libr=
eoffice.org. Developers are invited to join the project and contribute to t=
he code in the new friendly and open environment, to shape the future of of=
fice productivity suites alongside contributors who translate, test, docume=
nt, support, and promote the software.

Speaking for the group of volunteers, Sophie Gautier - a veteran of the com=
munity and the former maintainer of the French speaking language project - =
has declared: "We believe that the Foundation is a key step for the evoluti=
on of the free office suite, as it liberates the development of the code an=
d the evolution of the project from the constraints represented by the comm=
ercial interests of a single company. Free software advocates around the wo=
rld have the extraordinary opportunity of joining the group of founding mem=
bers today, to write a completely new chapter in the history of FLOSS".

FSF President Richard Stallman welcomed LibreOffice release and it's stated=
 policy of only recommending free software. "I'm very pleased that the Docu=
ment Foundation will not recommend nonfree add-ons, since they are the main=
 freedom problem of the current OpenOffice.org. I hope that the LibreOffice=
 developers and the Oracle-employed developers of OpenOffice will be able t=
o cooperate on development of the body of the code".

"The Document Foundation supports the Open Document Format, and is keen to =
work at OASIS to the next evolution of the ISO standard", says Charles Schu=
lz, member of the Community Council and lead of the Native Language Confede=
ration. "The Document Foundation brings to the table the point of view of d=
evelopers, supporters and users, and this might accelerate the adoption pro=
cess of ODF at government and enterprise level".

Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google, Inc., has commented: =
"The creation of The Document Foundation is a great step forward in encoura=
ging further development of open source office suites. Having a level playi=
ng field for all contributors is fundamental in creating a broad and active=
 community around an open source software project. Google is proud to be a =
supporter of The Document Foundation and participate in the project".

"Viva la LibreOffice", said Guy Lunardi, product management Director at Nov=
ell. "We look forward to working with the Document Foundation to help devel=
op a solid open source document software offering. Ultimately, we envision =
LibreOffice do for the office productivity market what Mozilla Firefox has =
done for browsers".

Jan Wildeboer, EMEA Open Source Affairs at Red Hat, has commented: "All ove=
r the world, users, companies and governments are moving to innovative tech=
nology solutions based on Open Standards.  Red Hat is proud to join this ef=
fort".

Mark Shuttleworth, founder and major shareholder of Canonical, the makers o=
f Ubuntu, has declared: "Office productivity software is a critical compone=
nt of the free software desktop, and the Ubuntu Project will be pleased to =
ship LibreOffice from The Document Foundation in future releases of Ubuntu.=
 The Document Foundation's stewardship of LibreOffice provides Ubuntu devel=
opers an effective forum for collaboration around the code that makes Ubunt=
u an effective solution for the desktop in office environments".

"The Open Source Initiative has observed a trend back towards open collabor=
ative communities for open source software", said Simon Phipps, a Director =
of the Open Source Initiative. "We welcome The Document Foundation initiati=
ve and look forward to the innovation it is able to drive with a truly open=
 community gathered around a free software commons, in the spirit of the be=
st of open source software".

"We welcome the LibreOffice project to the free software community as we be=
lieve there is a great opportunity for them to enrich the free desktop expe=
rience." says Stormy Peters, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation.  "=
Over the years the GNOME community has been supportive of OpenOffice togeth=
er with applications in the GNOME Office suite, such as Gnumeric, GnuCash a=
nd Abiword. As LibreOffice joins the free software community, we believe th=
at free desktop users will benefit from a rich set of choices."

Patrick Luby, Chief Engineer of NeoOffice says "I am happy to see a new, in=
dependent LibreOffice foundation to continue creating an office suite with =
enhanced features, pushing OpenOffice.org in new, exciting directions". Ed =
Peterlin, Chief Visionary at NeoOffice says "I am excited we will be able t=
o continue bringing excellent features from LibreOffice to the Mac platform=
=2E In the future I also hope to extend our web based collaboration tools t=
o support LibreOffice users on all platforms".

Chris Halls, UK Managing Director of Credativ, an independent consulting an=
d services company specialising in the development, implementation and supp=
ort of open source solutions: "Welcomes the foundation as an opportunity to=
 provide a new focus for the community contributors and allow them to move =
the project forward together. In our business, we support thousands of offi=
ce desktops in many different environments. It is  vital that the feedback =
and code that we can contribute as part of our day to day work can flow eas=
ily into the project".

"The creation of The Document Foundation is in line with the vision BrOffic=
e.org - Projeto Brasil has for the Brazilian OpenOffice.org community. Our =
country already has a large investment in the Open Document Format and the =
software tools fully suporting it. BrOffice.org and The Document Foundation=
 share the same values and objectives and we are more than happy to be part=
 of it.=E2=80=9D, says Claudio Filho, Chairman of the BrOffice.org NGO of B=
razil.=20

The Norwegian foundation "=C3=85pne kontorprogram p=C3=A5 norsk" ("Open Off=
ice Suites In Norwegian") is responsible for the Norwegian translation of O=
penOffice.org, and for promoting OpenOffice.org in Norway. So far the Norwe=
gian project has been administered and financed mainly by counties and muni=
cipalities, but recently the foundation has started a process for getting c=
ommercial companies more actively involved. We realise the need for a more =
substantial commercial participation to establish a long-term sustainable p=
roject. Our foundation notes that the other Nordic countries, a majority of=
 the European countries, as well as a range of worldwide big companies like=
 Google, Novell, Canonical and Red Hat are now cooperating with The Documen=
t Foundation. We believe this is the right way forward also for Norway. A c=
ooperation with The Document Foundation will make it easier to create more =
innovative and user-friendly solutions integrated with the LibreOffice suit=
e. Eliminating license barriers and obtaining easy access to source code an=
d standards will facilitate further development of related and integrated s=
urrounding products.=20

Additional information, including the mission, are available on the web sit=
e of The Document Foundation: http://www.documentfoundation.org
Biographies and pictures of the founding members of The Document Foundation=
 are available here: http://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/
There is a specific page for people interested in contributing to the devel=
opment of the code: http://www.documentfoundation.org/contribution/

The Document Foundation has a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/docufou=
ndation and an Identi.ca account at http://identi.ca/docufoundation

The announcements mailing list is at announce+subscribe@documentfoundation.=
org
The discussion mailing list is at [email protected]
The IRC channel is #documentfoundation at irc.freenode.net

The Document Foundation

The Document Foundation is an independent self-governing democratic Foundat=
ion created by leading members of the OpenOffice.org Community. It continue=
s to build on the Foundation of ten years' dedicated work by the OpenOffice=
=2Eorg community, and was created in the belief that an independent Foundat=
ion is the best fit to the Community's core values of openness, transparenc=
y, and valuing people for their contribution. It is open to any individual =
who agrees with our core values and contributes to our activities, and welc=
omes corporate participation, e.g. by sponsoring individuals to work as equ=
als alongside other contributors in the community.

Media Contacts

Florian Effenberger (Germany)
Phone: +49 8341 99660880
Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff
E-mail: [email protected]

Olivier Hallot (Brazil)
Mobile: +55 21 88228812
E-mail: [email protected]

Charles H. Schulz (France)
Mobile: +33 6 98655424
E-mail: [email protected]

Italo Vignoli (Italy)
Mobile: +39 348 5653829
E-mail: [email protected]