“In one of the largest actions of its kind, Sun is working with
the leaders of the free software and open source community to make
the source code for its StarOffice software suite freely available
under the GNU General Public License (GPL). In addition, Sun will
commit the efforts of its development team, as well as the
resources of a $14 billion global company, to work side by side
with members of the community to continue to develop the code at
OpenOffice.org, a site hosted and managed by Collab.Net.”
“This news is already being heralded by some of the most notable
members of the open source community, including Tim O’Reilly
(O’Reilly & Associates), Miguel de Icaza (HelixCode), Brian
Behlendorf (Collab.net), and Andy Hertzfeld (Eazel), as well as
many of the world’s leading Linux vendors.”
“OpenOffice.org and the OpenOffice.org Foundation will host
the source code (in CVS) and maintain the reference implementation
of the software, APIs and file formats. Development will take place
in the open, with all contributors working from the same
source. According to the principles of open source software
and the GPL, improvements to the software are contributed back to
the project, making them available to all.”