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Time was, OpenOffice.org was the centerpiece of Sun Microsystems’ push into the consumer space. Personally speaking, I owe my college degree to the free, open source productivity suite and Microsoft Office competitor.
Matthew Weinberger
October 4, 2010
2 Min Read
LibreOffice
Time was, OpenOffice.org was the centerpiece of Sun Microsystems’ push into the consumer space. Personally speaking, I owe my college degree to the free, open source productivity suite and Microsoft Office competitor. But now the leadership of the OpenOffice.org project has announced that 10 years and an Oracle acquisition later, it’s time to move on and form their own foundation — The Document Foundation. Here’s the scoop.According to the newly-minted The Document Foundation’s press release, OpenOffice.org and its leaders underwent this organizational change to better promote its agenda of developing and publishing a truly independent, truly community-driven alternative to proprietary productivity products.
Interestingly, Oracle, which now owns the OpenOffice.org name and other organizational assets after the Sun acquisition, has been invited to donate the name back to The Document Foundation and join as a full member — but for the indefinite future, the suite’s been renamed to “LibreOffice.”
The VAR Guy has to question the timing: while nothing about the formation of The Document Foundation or the name change to LibreOffice seems especially odd, the fact that Oracle’s previously come under fire for “perverting the open source spirit” makes us wonder if this move was spawned from sour grapes.
All the same, just as The VAR Guy keeps an eye on cloud alternatives to Microsoft’s products, it’s worth watching The Document Foundation and LibreOffice closely, so stay tuned. And we’ll also be watching to see if Oracle’s emerging Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) will somehow incorporate either Open Office or LibreOffice.
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