>> NOTE: this announcement is also available online at http://s.apache.org/XiQ
The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache OpenOffice™ as a Top-Level Project
Award-winning
leading Open Source productivity suite widely used in 228 countries;
over 20 million downloads of latest version since its release in May
2012
Forest Hill, MD – 18 October 2012 – The Apache Software
Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators
of nearly 150 Open Source projects and initiatives, today announced
that Apache Open Office has graduated from the Apache Incubator to
become a Top-Level Project (TLP), signifying that the Project’s
community and products have been well-governed under the ASF's
meritocratic process and principles.
"The graduation of
OpenOffice is testament to The Apache Way successfully scaling from
incubating 'ingredient brands' to a highly-established end-user
product," said ASF Executive Vice President and Apache OpenOffice mentor
Ross Gardler. "The incubation process allowed experienced Apache
contributors to mentor the project, helping both new and established
OpenOffice contributors build an Apache-style community that is both
open and diverse."
"The OpenOffice graduation is the official
recognition that the project is now able to self-manage not only in
technical matters, but also in community issues," said Andrea Pescetti,
Vice President of Apache OpenOffice. "The 'Apache Way' and its methods,
such as taking every decision in public with total transparency, have
allowed the project to attract and successfully engage new volunteers,
and to elect an active and diverse Project Management Committee that
will be able to guarantee a stable future to Apache OpenOffice."
Initially
created by Star Division in the 1990's, the OpenOffice code base was
acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999 and later Oracle Corporation in
2010, before being submitted to The Apache Software Foundation Incubator
in June 2011.
During its development period in the Apache
Incubator, the Apache OpenOffice project transitioned nearly 10 million
lines of code, added numerous enhancements, and fixed dozens of
user-reported bugs in the popular and free productivity suite. In
addition, the software received five industry awards, ranging from
individual component highlights to top download to best Open Source
desktop office productivity application suite.
In May 2012 Apache
OpenOffice v3.4 was released in 20 languages, and downloaded over 20
million times by individual, corporate, educational, and government
users in 228 countries. Since then, the project has been working on new
functionality, innovations, and releases targeted for Q1 and Q4 2013.
"It's
really cool that OpenOffice is now a top-level project at Apache," said
Juergen Schmidt, Apache OpenOffice Release Manager. "We met many
challenges to achieve this milestone: our first Apache OpenOffice 3.4
release required our community to not only transition the code from
Oracle repositories to Apache, but also replace incompatibly-licensed
libraries in order to successfully meet Apache's licensing requirements.
Now our Apache OpenOffice source code is available for the benefit of
other projects and organizations."
"We are extremely proud of
this important milestone and welcome OpenOffice into our stable of world
leading Apache projects," added Gardler.
Availability and Oversight
Apache OpenOffice is available free of charge to any user for any purpose, and may be downloaded
from http://openoffice.org. The product can be downloaded on an unlimited number of PCs for
an
unlimited number of users --completely free of any license fees. The
project has a strong focus on open standards support, from ODF (the
first implementor of ISO/IEC 26300) to future plans for CMIS,
OpenSocial, and OData.
As with all Apache software, Apache
OpenOffice software is released under the Apache License v2.0, and is
overseen by a self-selected team of active contributors to the project. A
Project Management Committee (PMC) guides the Project's day-to-day
operations, including community development and product releases.
Information on Apache OpenOffice source code, documentation, mailing
lists, related resources, and ways to participate are available at http://openoffice.apache.org/.
About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
Established
in 1999, the all-volunteer Foundation oversees nearly one hundred fifty
leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server — the
world's most popular Web server software. Through the ASF's meritocratic
process known as "The Apache Way", more than 400 individual Members and
3,500 Committers successfully collaborate to develop freely available
enterprise-grade software, benefiting millions of users worldwide:
thousands of software solutions are distributed under the Apache
License; and the community actively participates in ASF mailing lists,
mentoring initiatives, and ApacheCon, the Foundation's official user
conference, trainings, and expo. The ASF is a US 501(3)(c)
not-for-profit charity, funded by individual donations and corporate
sponsors including AMD, Basis Technology, Citrix, Cloudera, Facebook, Go
Daddy, Google, HP, Hortonworks, Huawei, IBM, InMotion Hosting, Matt
Mullenweg, Microsoft, PSW Group, SpringSource/VMware,
WANdisco, and Yahoo!. For more information, visit http://www.apache.org/ or follow @TheASF
on Twitter.
"Apache",
"OpenOffice", "Apache OpenOffice", and "ApacheCon" are trademarks of
The Apache Software Foundation. All other brands and trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.
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