Document Foundation Formed

[DrewJensen]

The following was sent out via the OpenOffice.org announcement channel this morning

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 major change in the project’s structure. After ten years’ successful 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 market. From now on, the OpenOffice.org community will be known as "The Document Foundation".

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

The Document Foundation is the result of a collective effort by leading independent members of the OpenOffice.org community, including several project leads and key members of the Community Council. It will be led initially by a Steering Committee of developers and national language projects managers. 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.libreoffice.org. Developers are invited to join the project and contribute to the code in the new friendly and open environment, to shape the future of office productivity suites alongside contributors who translate, test, document, support, and promote the software.

Speaking for the group of volunteers, Sophie Gautier - a veteran of the community and the former maintainer of the French speaking language project - has declared: "We believe that the Foundation is a key step for the evolution of the free office suite, as it liberates the development of the code and the evolution of the project from the constraints represented by the commercial interests of a single company. Free software advocates around the world have the extraordinary opportunity of joining the group of founding members 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 Document 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 to 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 Schulz, member of the Community Council and lead of the Native Language Confederation. "The Document Foundation brings to the table the point of view of developers, supporters and users, and this might accelerate the adoption process 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 encouraging further development of open source office suites. Having a level playing 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 Novell. "We look forward to working with the Document Foundation to help develop 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 over the world, users, companies and governments are moving to innovative technology solutions based on Open Standards. Red Hat is proud to join this effort".

Mark Shuttleworth, founder and major shareholder of Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, has declared: "Office productivity software is a critical component 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 developers an effective forum for collaboration around the code that makes Ubuntu an effective solution for the desktop in office environments".

"The Open Source Initiative has observed a trend back towards open collaborative communities for open source software", said Simon Phipps, a Director of the Open Source Initiative. "We welcome The Document Foundation initiative 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 best of open source software".

"We welcome the LibreOffice project to the free software community as we believe there is a great opportunity for them to enrich the free desktop experience." says Stormy Peters, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation. "Over the years the GNOME community has been supportive of OpenOffice together with applications in the GNOME Office suite, such as Gnumeric, GnuCash and Abiword. As LibreOffice joins the free software community, we believe that 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, independent 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 to continue bringing excellent features from LibreOffice to the Mac platform. In the future I also hope to extend our web based collaboration tools to support LibreOffice users on all platforms".

Chris Halls, UK Managing Director of Credativ, an independent consulting and services company specialising in the development, implementation and support 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 office 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 easily into the project".

"The creation of The Document Foundation is in line with the vision BrOffice.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.”, says Claudio Filho, Chairman of the BrOffice.org NGO of Brazil.

The Norwegian foundation "Åpne kontorprogram på norsk" ("Open Office Suites In Norwegian") is responsible for the Norwegian translation of OpenOffice.org, and for promoting OpenOffice.org in Norway. So far the Norwegian project has been administered and financed mainly by counties and municipalities, but recently the foundation has started a process for getting commercial companies more actively involved. We realise the need for a more substantial commercial participation to establish a long-term sustainable project. 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 Document Foundation. We believe this is the right way forward also for Norway. A cooperation with The Document Foundation will make it easier to create more innovative and user-friendly solutions integrated with the LibreOffice suite. Eliminating license barriers and obtaining easy access to source code and standards will facilitate further development of related and integrated surrounding products.

Additional information, including the mission, are available on the web site 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 development of the code: http://www.documentfoundation.org/contribution/

The Document Foundation has a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/docufoundation 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 discuss+subscribe@documentfoundation.org
The IRC channel is #documentfoundation at irc.freenode.net

The Document Foundation

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

Media Contacts

Florian Effenberger (Germany)
Phone: +49 8341 99660880
Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff
E-mail: floeff@documentfoundation.org

Olivier Hallot (Brazil)
Mobile: +55 21 88228812
E-mail: olivier.hallot@documentfoundation.org

Charles H. Schulz (France)
Mobile: +33 6 98655424
E-mail: charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org

Italo Vignoli (Italy)
Mobile: +39 348 5653829
E-mail: italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org

[henke54]

"LibreOffice: OpenOffice.org Liberated" : http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/142247/index.html

[lyn]

I also received this email.

does this mean that OpenOffice.org will no longer be available?
can it still be downloaded by people who want it?
does Oracle plan on charging for OpenOffice.org?
or will they just get rid of it altogether?
will LibreOffice replace it and can it be downloaded?
will this forum change?
will it become a LibreOffice forum instead?

sorry this has come as quite a surprise to me and I don't know what to think.

how much information do others on this forum have that they can share with the rest of us?

lyn

[keme]

Since Oracle's takeover of Sun Microsystems, the Community has been under "notice to quit" from our previous Collabnet infrastructure.

I interpret this to meaning that our current forums have to move to new infrastructure.

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

So the rename to "LibreOffice" may be a temporary state, waiting for the name owner to transfer the name "OpenOffice.org" to the foundation.

Is that a correct assessment of the current situation?

[Hagar Delest]

sorry this has come as quite a surprise to me and I don't know what to think.

+1. A lot of reading for this evening...
I think we have to wait and see how Oracle adjusts to this (were they aware of what was ongoing???).

I just saw keme's comment: since the forum is part of the whole infrastructure, I guess it will be handled the same as extensions, wikis, ...

[DrewJensen]

I don't have all the details but what I do know:

TTBOMK, Yes - Oracle was notified and was and is, invited to be part of the foundation.

[DrewJensen]

Since Oracle's takeover of Sun Microsystems, the Community has been under "notice to quit" from our previous Collabnet infrastructure.

I interpret this to meaning that our current forums have to move to new infrastructure.

No - the forums here run on a server located in the Oracle Hamburg, DE offices, not on the Collabnet systems. If the forums move it will be, IMO, by decision of the volunteer group only.

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

So the rename to "LibreOffice" may be a temporary state, waiting for the name owner to transfer the name "OpenOffice.org" to the foundation.

Is that a correct assessment of the current situation?

I believe that is the gist of the situation today, yes.

[lyn]

I just went to the LibreOffice website to have a look around.
the downloads for the office suite is in Beta only.
they have some mailing lists to join to receive announcements and information.
lyn

[henke54]

Groklaw Update : Media reports begin to arrive almost immediately: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 6233817372

[floris v]

Why LibreOffice? MyOffice would have been so much better as a name.

[DrewJensen]

OpenOffice.org would be a great name also - Oracle has been asked to release the name and the branding items to the foundation - for me this simply means, to give to the community what the community built...hopefully they will do so.

[lyn]

Why LibreOffice? MyOffice would have been so much better as a name.

according to the FAQ on their website it means Free Office.
lyn

[floris v]

OpenOffice.org would be a great name also - Oracle has been asked to release the name and the branding items to the foundation - for me this simply means, to give to the community what the community built...hopefully they will do so.

+1

according to the FAQ on their website it means Free Office.

I know, it's just that the name doesn't appeal to me.

[vasa1]

I think this is good news. And the name isn't bad either. Free seems more appropriate than the possessive (no pun) my.

[Hagar Delest]

Sounds good indeed for the future of the software according to the few articles I've read.

Libre (free as in speech) is quite good because there is no mix possible with free 'as in beer', nor with the vague term of 'open'. Libre is for something that doesn't restrain your liberties (as a user but also as a developer).

[henke54]

This means that over time, OpenOffice - sorry, LibreOffice - will become a patchwork of copyrights, just like the Linux kernel. The advantage is that no one will have control of the new project; the disadvantage is that major changes to licensing are very hard to effect (which is why Linux will probably never shift from using GNU GPLv2.) The main licence for the new code modules will be dual LGPLv3+ / MPL.

[TerryE]

I always thought that OpenOffice.org was a bit tacky. The challenge is to find a name that has the appropriate meaning, yet is free from prior trademark and copyright restrictions / ownership -- as was the case with the bare OpenOffice. LibreOffice is OK as far as I am concerned.

What is still unclear to me is the issue of whether this is a fork from OOo or an amicable divorce from Oracle with Oracle's blessing. Perhaps Clayton can clarify when he himself knows. One thing that we shouldn't forget is that the a lot (if not the majority) of the development and product support effort comes from Oracle employees and this does cast a shadow over Oracle's continued funding of their work.

[DrewJensen]

Hi,

well...so far the Oracle crowd has been completely moot - with a few exceptions, meaning that here and there I have seen Oracle employees in Hamburg doing things that look like personal support, but NOT in a real big public way...can't blame them for being a little hesitant.

So fare everything I have heard from others, including members of the foundaition steering committee is that the desired outcome is for Oracle to join and be an active member of the foundation. If we go forward with or without Oracle is up to Oracle.

[franx]

LibreOffice3.3_desktop.png (15.96 KiB) Viewed 23331 times

"Announcements
For receiving news and press releases on The Document Foundation and its products, please subscribe to our announcement mailing list by sending an empty e-mail to announce+subscribe@documentfoundation.org .
Discussions
To discuss our ideas, goals and visions, feel free to join our discussion mailing list by sending an empty e-mail to discuss+subscribe@documentfoundation.org ."
.

[acknak]

I support the community direction--it's not a good idea to extend a dependent relationship indefinitely. The child should leave the nest, but at the right time, when it has enough resources and strength to survive on it's own.

As I see it, the community project is likely to have a tough time. My guess is that neither Oracle, nor (by extension) Hamburg, are going to support this. What do they have to gain?

The project needs money for developers and infrastructure, and it needs some real product development leadership who can make tough decisions and make them stick. Frankly, I don't see where the community project will provide those. Maybe it does and I'm not seeing it, or maybe it will soon; I certainly hope I'm wrong about this.

I would like to support the community project--I was never particularly comfortable with Sun's position, and even less so with Oracle--but I need to see that the foundation can bring more than good intentions and a website to the table. Otherwise, it will only dilute the limited resources we have now.

And, I guess, as long as we're discussing the forum's future, I guess I should say that I'm not particularly happy with the forum as it is now. I don't think it meets the design goals as well as it should.

[RoryOF]

In what way would you wish the Forum to change or be changed?

[acknak]

Sorry, let's leave that discussion for some other time/place. I probably shouldn't have brought that up here anyway.

Things are working very well as they are; I was just thinking that, if this leads to a clean slate, we might consider a different approach. There's little sense in discussing what that might look like until it becomes a possibility.

For one example of a different approach, take a look at the Mozilla support site: http://support.mozilla.com

[henke54]

I always thought that OpenOffice.org was a bit tacky. The challenge is to find a name that has the appropriate meaning, yet is free from prior trademark and copyright restrictions / ownership -- as was the case with the bare OpenOffice. LibreOffice is OK as far as I am concerned.

Wasn't it because a Dutch company registered the name "OpenOffice" before Sun did ?
Here is a Google translate of the Dutch OpenOffice.org site with some 'explanation' : http://tinyurl.com/2g27cqw

[floris v]

That "translation" is horrible. Yes, www.openoffice.nl is the website of the Dutch company Open Office, which was started before Sun renamed StarOffice to OpenOffice. They only found out that OpenOffice had already been claimed when it was up and running and it was too late to do something about it.

[JohnV]

FWIW, the installation of LibreOffice 3.3 Beta on my Windows machine removed OOO 3.2.1. soffice.exe now runs LO 3.3.

[Hagar Delest]

That's a bit rude!
Since they have merged the go-oo changes, I hope it won't suffer stability problems.

[pz1]

I sincerely hope they will concentrate on bug fixes, as for instance the irritating table formatting bug Issue mentioned in my signature. If an organisation continues to be unable to fix such trivial bugs for years, their products are not worth to survive.

[RoryOF]

FWIW, the installation of LibreOffice 3.3 Beta on my Windows machine removed OOO 3.2.1. soffice.exe now runs LO 3.3.

The installation of LO3.3 Beta on my Win 2K machine left OOo 3.3.1 m9 alone, so I can run either from the appropriate desktop shortcut.

[Hagar Delest]

I sincerely hope they will concentrate on bug fixes

I fear it won't be the case. The first move being to include all the Novell features in th main code (contrary to what was said in their site BTW), I'm rather worried about the direction they are heading.

The foundation seems to be confident in the change of development model from cathedral to bazaar. If they forked this way, it means that they were prepared to face the non commitment of Oracle. Here we are. We now have OOo and LO in parallel since first hints show that Oracle will keep working on OOo.

The question is now: what about OOo (any policy change from Oracle?) and what about the resources available to improve the quality of LO?
Even if having a really "libre" suite is nice, I use OOo for real work, not just for the fun. So I'm still wondering which way to go. Had the foundation not included the Novell features, I would have adopted LO right away. It would have meant that they wouldn't have made compromises with stability and quality. As long as there is no muscles (manpower) shown by the foundation (and as long as Oracle doesn't stop OOo), future is still not clear...

The installation of LO3.3 Beta on my Win 2K machine left OOo 3.3.1 m9 alone, so I can run either from the appropriate desktop shortcut.

3.3 is still a beta, not registered as a standard version. Hence the LO installer can't see it I guess.

[keme]

3.3 is still a beta, not registered as a standard version. Hence the LO installer can't see it I guess.

That probably is the case. Still, as you stated in a previous post, it's a bit rude (to say the least) that the installer of a beta version (LO 3.3 is still tagged as "beta 1") will delete a stable version of the same software (OOo 3.2).

Come to think of it, for a beta to remove other installed betas would be logical. Betas removing stable installs is not sensible. If this is any indication of things to come, I know where I'll want to be...
Let's hope the current behaviour is an accident.