OpenOffice developers have decided to abandon the project in favour of a new version of the open source software suite, LibreOffice.
The move was made after Oracle bought Sun Microsystems earlier this year, acquiring the OpenOffice brand in the process. Developers, concerned that Oracle would not have the same commitment to open source software as Sun, decided to set up a new, independent organisation — The Document Foundation.
“After ten years’ successful growth with Sun Microsystems as founding and principal sponsor, the project launches an independent foundation called The Document Foundation to fulfil the promise of independence written in the original charter,” the group said in a statement.
Sophie Gautier, a leading developer says that the new project is an “extraordinary” opportunity.
“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.”
The Document Foundation has released beta versions of the LibreOffice for OS X, Windows and Linux, comprising word processing, presentation, spreadsheet, drawing and database applications.
The software is arguably the best known of the free alternatives to Microsoft Office, and is shipped with a number of the more popular Linux distributions. Several of these have already backed the new suite, while Google has also signalled its wish to be involved in future development.
Microsoft has just begun shipping Office 2011 for Mac to volume licensees, ahead of the full release of the new suite on 26 October.
