khiranoの日記： OOO4周年Louis版

“OpenOffice.org is the most important open source project in the world.” These words, spoken by Mono creator Miguel de Icaza on the occasion of our first anniversary, are more true now than ever before. Today, four years after Sun Microsystems released the source code of its popular StarOffice to the open-source community, OpenOffice.org is widely seen as the future of open source and the key to its future. Able to run natively on Windows, Linux or Solaris, as well as every other major platform, and available in over 30 supported languages, OpenOffice.org is fulfilling the promise of open source. Tens of millions use the application daily; thousands contribute to the open-source project of the same name, which CollabNet hosts. We count at least 30 million downloads since the project began―and that is not including the millions registered by RedHat, SuSE, or Mandrakesoft, who include OpenOffice.org in their distributions. OpenOffice.org is being taken up by governments and businesses throughout the world, who see in it not just a way to save both initial and total costs, but a way to gain control over the property they create and the means of creating it. City governments, such as Munich, Germany, to name but one of many, and federal administration offices, such as the French, chose OpenOffice.org for its power and future, not because it is also free, or gratis, both to the city and to its citizens. [“Quote, from French admins, if possible: We moved to OpenOffice.org wanting an application our users could learn immediately and our citizens could freely obtain. OpenOffice.org has proven more than we anticipated, and its future exciting.” And what is that future? An application that bridges not just the proprietary and open-source world but that also bridges the digital divide. An application which, along with its enhanced derivations, such as StarOffice, will become the default productivity suite for businesses and governments from Amsterdam to Zanzibar. An application that uses an internationally standardized file format and an open production process to give users perpetual right over their property. That file format, a form of XML, is the open standard advocated by the impartial body, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). As a result of using this standardized file format, all documents created by the next generation of OpenOffice.org, will be vendor neutral: the file format is open. There will be no possibility of vendor lock in. Rather, there will be consumer choice. People will choose OpenOffice.org or its commercial derivations, such as StarOffice, on the basis of value, not because they have no choice. OpenOffice.org is more capable. It can save files to PDF and presentations to Shockwave Flash. It can save any file as a native Microsoft Office file. It is secure. OpenOffice.org is also easily learned. We take pride in the fact that there is a global movement to use OpenOffice.org in every level of classroom. The next year will be remarkable. In March, OpenOffice.org 2.0 will come out, and it will leap over every other office suite. Using the OASIS file formats, and even more interoperable, with other suites, it will bridge the world.