The Open Office project is declaring its independence from Oracle by forming a separate organization known as the “Document Foundation.”
The Foundation is slated to act as the “cornerstone” of a new ecosystem where entities can contribute and benefit from the availability of a “truly free” office suite known as “LibreOffice.”
As expected, the nascent suite has already won a number accolades from open source champions such as Google and Canonical.
“The creation of The Document Foundation is a great step forward in encouraging further development of open source office suites,” commented Google spokesperson Chris DiBona.
“Having a level playing field for all contributors is fundamental in creating a broad and active community around an open source software project. [We are] proud to be a supporter of The Document Foundation and participate in the project.”
Mark Shuttleworth, founder and major shareholder of Canonical (Ubuntu), concurred.
“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.”
Still, it should be noted that the Foundation isn’t cutting all ties with Oracle.
To be sure, the organization invited the corporation to become a member of the new group and “donate the brand” the community developed over the past ten years
