Last updated 2002-08-01
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OpenOffice.org is the open source project through which Sun Microsystems has released the technology for the popular StarOffice[tm] Productivity Suite. All of the source code is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Sun is participating as a member of the OpenOffice.org community. OpenOffice.org is being hosted by CollabNet.
The OpenOffice.org project provides the necessary facilities to make this open source technology available to the developer community. This includes the publicly accessible source code, project information Web site (/), and discussion forums.
The objectives of OpenOffice.org are:
The benefits of OpenOffice.org include:
OpenOffice.org represents open sources, open language-independent APIs, open XML-based file formats, and open access. In the short run, these benefits affect source code developers, especially those in the open source community. In the long run, OpenOffice.org will also provide value for API and macro developers and of course, the end-user community, which will enjoy the benefit of new innovation and applications.
OpenOffice.org components include word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, data charting, formula editing, a database, and file conversion facilities (including those for Microsoft Office formats). See our Features page for more information.
There is now a full-featured, open source office productivity application suite available for your use.
The OpenOffice.org project is hosted at /. Here you will find a community with relevant information and interesting discussions. Here you will also find details of how you can become involved in this project.
No. You can not call what you build, or any modifications thereof, StarOffice. You can call it anything else, however, that is not already trademarked. So, if you are working at Bobco Software and you wanted to call what you have built "BobOffice," that would be ok, presuming that Bobco is not already taken by another "Bob."
No. StarOffice is Sun's commercial product and is not licensed under the GPL license family. StarOffice 5.2 is built on a code base that predated the OpenOffice.org code. To modify StarOffice in any way with the code from OpenOffice.org would be out of bounds.
Yes.
OpenOffice.org 2.0 uses Java technology to increase its functionality: Java technology is used for wizards and for the database component; its use here does not affect the licensing of either OpenOffice.org or the Java software.
The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) may be freely (at no charge) downloaded from http://www.java.com and can be freely (at no charge) distributed with OpenOffice.org via CD or other media as provided in the JRE license (among other things, Sun shall deem the OpenOffice.org software to provide significant Java technology based value add to the JRE as required by the JRE license, and note that the JRE needs to be bundled unmodified with the OpenOffice.org software - including the license contained in the installer).
For more information on Java's licensing, please visit http://www.java.com/en/download/license.jsp
Information on OpenOffice.org's license can be found at //license.html.