Ten Years: OpenOffice.org

All, a belated happy birthday!

Ten years ago, on 13 October 2000, Sun released the source code to =
StarOffice under open-source licenses. Formidable in size and complexity =
and positioned against a seemingly overwhelmingly dominant competitor, =
OpenOffice.org was seen as at best, foolish, at worse, boring, fit only =
for office drones. Browsers, it was said, have more fun.

But we, the OpenOffice.org project community, showed these skeptics to =
be wrong. We showed the world that a free office productivity suite =
using open standards, especially what later came to be known as the =
OpenDocument Format (ODF), is more desirable, more powerful, and more =
transformative than any browser could be. We, the OpenOffice.org project =
community, gave the world a set of tools that allows all to participate =
as equals in the fields of commerce, science, education, government, to =
name but a few.

We have given the world the tools to do things and to work together. =
With OpenOffice.org, people produce - and their productions are theirs =
to keep and do with as they will. That is real freedom.

It is a freedom that today perhaps 100 million people enjoy. In some =
regions, our product's usage is greater than 20 percent of the office =
suite userbase. How have we done this? And without spending the expected =
billions on advertising and other marketing efforts? To a great extent, =
OpenOffice.org, the application made by us, the community, sells itself, =
and its good news is spread through word of mouth, not via billboards =
and the like. Its professional quality and performance is tremendously =
persuasive. OpenOffice.org works on all platforms and in over a hundred =
languages, and perhaps most important, it also works well with other =
suites: our code and our use of the ODF means there is no vendor =
lock-in. Users, from those in government offices to individuals at home, =
are free to choose what is best for them without the anxiety they'll be =
stuck with something they do not much like but costs a lot.

They have chosen OpenOffice.org, and we are sure they will continue to =
do so in even greater numbers over the next ten years. They choose it =
today it not simply because it costs them nothing to download from our =
site, but because of its professional quality and flexibility - as well =
as its reassuring consistency. Over the last ten years, we have =
regularly released small and large versions incorporating new features, =
functionality, and design, all tested and qualified for any user =
environment. This fall, we are releasing OpenOffice.org 3.3, and the =
beta is available for community testing. Expect more releases-and also a =
lot more extensions.

With extensions, there is virtually no limit to what the application can =
do, and every day the community makes more available under a variety of =
licenses. These address individual, as well as enterprise, needs. =
Support, services, and training, offered by Oracle and other large and =
small companies, is globally available in a host of languages; these all =
complement the free community support and constitute a portion of the =
large and growing OpenOffice.org ecosystem.

And our momentum is building, as the size and complexity of the =
community contributing to the project grows and as more see in =
OpenOffice.org a future they want to be part of. It's a future of =
freedom that we commit to, as a community that includes Oracle as well =
other enterprises, and countless thousands of independent contributors.

Our first ten years have proven the strength of our vision and =
technology against every imaginable challenge; the next - well, who can =
say? Only this: we commit to making the tools of productivity,  growing =
the community, and improving the product - open to all to inspect, use, =
improve, distribute, and we invite the world to join us in our =
commitment.

Happy Birthday, OpenOffice.org!

On behalf of the OpenOffice.org Project,

Louis Suarez-Potts
Community Development Manager
OpenOffice.org