“StarOffice creator Marco Boerries has confirmed that Sun
intends to GPL the productivity suite. Sun will make the official
announcement later today, but leaking to reporters earlier,
Boerries said that source code for the next version of StarOffice,
6.0, will be available for download from 13th October.”
“Sun has distributed millions of copies of StarOffice since last
year, but the company’s previously favoured non-GPL licensing
arrangements haven’t impressed the open source world. Nor indeed
does has Sun helped its case with presumptious press release
headlines such as last week’s “Linux community renews its
commitment to Sun’s StarOffice,” or February’s similarly cheeky
“StarOffice software and StarPortal initiative attain Linux
community support.”
“Last week’s “Linux community renews commitment”
announcement was actually about a string of Linux outfits,
including Caldera, Red Hat, TurboLinux, MandrakeSoft and SuSe,
agreeing to distribute StarOffice. GPLing it may have been the
price Sun had to pay to achieve this support.”