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OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org is an open-source office productivity software suite. It originated from the proprietary StarOffice, developed by Star Division, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999. Sun open-sourced the software in July 2000 as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and released OpenOffice.org version 1.0 on 1 May 2002.
Following Sun’s acquisition by Oracle Corporation, development of OpenOffice.org slowed and eventually ended. In 2011, Oracle donated the project to the Apache Software Foundation, which continues it as Apache OpenOffice, although that project has been largely dormant since 2015. A more actively developed fork, LibreOffice, was created in 2010 by members of the OpenOffice.org community.
OpenOffice included applications for word processing (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), vector graphics (Draw), database management (Base), and formula editing (Math). Its default file format was the OpenDocument Format (ODF), which it originated. It could also read a wide variety of other file formats, with particular attention to those from Microsoft Office. OpenOffice.org was primarily developed for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Solaris, and later for Mac OS X, with ports to other operating systems. It was distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 (LGPL); early versions were also available under the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL).
OpenOffice.org originated from StarOffice, a proprietary office productivity software suite developed by German company Star Division beginning in 1985. In August 1999, Star Division was acquired by Sun Microsystems for US$59.5 million (equivalent to US$112.3 million in 2024), reportedly because the acquisition was less expensive than licensing Microsoft Office for Sun's 42,000 employees.
On 19 July 2000, at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Sun announced that it would release the StarOffice source code to encourage the development of a free and open-source office suite. The project, officially named OpenOffice.org, with the ".org" added to avoid trademark conflicts, officially released its source code on 13 October 2000. The first public preview, Milestone Build 638c, followed in October 2001 and quickly surpassed one million downloads. OpenOffice.org 1.0 was officially released on 1 May 2002.
OpenOffice.org became the default office suite on many Linux distributions and quickly emerged as a significant competitor to Microsoft Office, reportedly achieving 14% penetration in the large enterprise market by 2004. Sun designed the suite’s OpenOffice.org XML file format, compressed in a ZIP archive, for easier data interchange and machine processing, intending it to replace proprietary binary formats. In 2002, Sun submitted the format to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards leading to the creation of the OpenDocument file format standard in 2005, which was ratified as ISO/IEC 26300 in 2006. OpenDocument became OpenOffice's default format beginning with version 2.0 and other organizations would adopt the OpenDocument format.
Development of OpenOffice.org was led by Sun, which continued to use the codebase as the upstream source for StarOffice, which it continued to sell commercially. Sun also licensed the codebase to third parties, including IBM, which used it as the foundation for IBM Lotus Symphony (originally IBM Workplace). This dual role led to criticism that Sun prioritized commercial interests over community collaboration. For example, building OpenOffice.org on many Linux distributions proved difficult, prompting the creation of projects like ooo-build to improve compatibility and incorporate unaccepted community patches. Sun was also criticized for being slow to accept outside contributions and controversially required contributors to sign a Contributor Agreement granting joint ownership of submitted code, enabling the company to continue selling proprietary versions of the software.
Following Sun’s acquisition by Oracle Corporation in January 2010, development continued under the a new brand, Oracle Open Office. However, Oracle significantly reduced the number of developers assigned to the project, and its commitment to the project was widely questioned. In September 2010, the majority of community OpenOffice contributors left the project, and formed The Document Foundation (TDF), citing concerns over Oracle’s management of the project and its broader approach to open-source software. TDF launched a fork called LibreOffice in January 2011, which was quickly adopted by most Linux distributions.
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OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org is an open-source office productivity software suite. It originated from the proprietary StarOffice, developed by Star Division, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999. Sun open-sourced the software in July 2000 as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and released OpenOffice.org version 1.0 on 1 May 2002.
Following Sun’s acquisition by Oracle Corporation, development of OpenOffice.org slowed and eventually ended. In 2011, Oracle donated the project to the Apache Software Foundation, which continues it as Apache OpenOffice, although that project has been largely dormant since 2015. A more actively developed fork, LibreOffice, was created in 2010 by members of the OpenOffice.org community.
OpenOffice included applications for word processing (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), vector graphics (Draw), database management (Base), and formula editing (Math). Its default file format was the OpenDocument Format (ODF), which it originated. It could also read a wide variety of other file formats, with particular attention to those from Microsoft Office. OpenOffice.org was primarily developed for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Solaris, and later for Mac OS X, with ports to other operating systems. It was distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 (LGPL); early versions were also available under the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL).
OpenOffice.org originated from StarOffice, a proprietary office productivity software suite developed by German company Star Division beginning in 1985. In August 1999, Star Division was acquired by Sun Microsystems for US$59.5 million (equivalent to US$112.3 million in 2024), reportedly because the acquisition was less expensive than licensing Microsoft Office for Sun's 42,000 employees.
On 19 July 2000, at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Sun announced that it would release the StarOffice source code to encourage the development of a free and open-source office suite. The project, officially named OpenOffice.org, with the ".org" added to avoid trademark conflicts, officially released its source code on 13 October 2000. The first public preview, Milestone Build 638c, followed in October 2001 and quickly surpassed one million downloads. OpenOffice.org 1.0 was officially released on 1 May 2002.
OpenOffice.org became the default office suite on many Linux distributions and quickly emerged as a significant competitor to Microsoft Office, reportedly achieving 14% penetration in the large enterprise market by 2004. Sun designed the suite’s OpenOffice.org XML file format, compressed in a ZIP archive, for easier data interchange and machine processing, intending it to replace proprietary binary formats. In 2002, Sun submitted the format to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards leading to the creation of the OpenDocument file format standard in 2005, which was ratified as ISO/IEC 26300 in 2006. OpenDocument became OpenOffice's default format beginning with version 2.0 and other organizations would adopt the OpenDocument format.
Development of OpenOffice.org was led by Sun, which continued to use the codebase as the upstream source for StarOffice, which it continued to sell commercially. Sun also licensed the codebase to third parties, including IBM, which used it as the foundation for IBM Lotus Symphony (originally IBM Workplace). This dual role led to criticism that Sun prioritized commercial interests over community collaboration. For example, building OpenOffice.org on many Linux distributions proved difficult, prompting the creation of projects like ooo-build to improve compatibility and incorporate unaccepted community patches. Sun was also criticized for being slow to accept outside contributions and controversially required contributors to sign a Contributor Agreement granting joint ownership of submitted code, enabling the company to continue selling proprietary versions of the software.
Following Sun’s acquisition by Oracle Corporation in January 2010, development continued under the a new brand, Oracle Open Office. However, Oracle significantly reduced the number of developers assigned to the project, and its commitment to the project was widely questioned. In September 2010, the majority of community OpenOffice contributors left the project, and formed The Document Foundation (TDF), citing concerns over Oracle’s management of the project and its broader approach to open-source software. TDF launched a fork called LibreOffice in January 2011, which was quickly adopted by most Linux distributions.