Dear supporters of OpenOffice.org,
the past days and weeks here in the project were marked by sometimes
heated discussions, about how we perceive the cooperation in the project
and how we make this more willing and able. Unfortunately, this
discussion has not always been objective, problem- and goal-oriented, as
it would have been desirable, but sometimes very emotional.
Cause of the discussions was the announcement of the establishment of a
foundation, with the goal to further the free office suite and represent
the community independent from individual sponsors. This idea is almost
as old as the OpenOffice.org project itself and has been repeatedly
discussed within recent years.
The OpenOffice.org project has grown considerably in its first decade of
existence. This growth was strongly promoted by the support of the main
sponsor, Sun and Oracle, by employing developers and also through the
provision and maintenance of the technical platform.
However, many voluntary project members and employees of other companies
have contributed many hours of work and financial investments to both
the product OpenOffice.org as well as the underlying project. As
successful example of this collaboration, it is worth to mention the
work in the areas of documentation, quality assurance and translation,
joint marketing efforts or organizing community events and trade shows.
However it showed more clearly that all the cooperation and the common
finding of solutions sometimes faces limitations. These are places where
ideas on further development of the working platform, design or
marketing do not match the ideas of the main sponsor or have just not
been addressed or implemented because the responsible or (legally)
capable entity does not make any decision. This has led and still leads
to unnecessary misunderstandings and discussions. To break through these
limits, project must evolve and requires an independent body - a Foundation.
Oracle's official response to the announcement of The Document
Foundation was clear – Oracle will continue OpenOffice.org as usual. The
result is now indeed the lately postulated conflict of interest for
those community members who are in charge of or representing project,
but to whom it is not enough “to continue working as we always did”.
Although it has been stressed several times that there will be
collaboration on a technical level, and changes are possible – there is
no indication from Oracle to change it's mind on the question of the
project organization and management. For those who want to achieve such
a change, but see no realistic opportunity within the current project
and are therefore involved in the TDF, unfortunately this results in an
“either / or” question.
The answer for us who sign this letter is clear: We want a change to
give the community as well as the software it develops the opportunity
to evolve. For this reason, from now on we will support The Document
Foundation and will – as a team - develop and promote LibreOffice. We
hope that many are going to join us on this path.
We are also aware that every individual has to make his or her own
decision freely. We decided to withdraw our previous positions in the
germanophone project.
Many thanks to all who made the previous development of OpenOffice.org
possible and with whom we share a long path.
Marko Moeller, Co-Lead, contact website
Jacqueline Rahemipour, Co-Lead, board OOo DeV
Eric Christian, contact PrOOo Box
Rene Hermann, contact for new members
Thomas Krumbein, contact marketing, chairman OOo DeV
Volker Merschmann, contact website
Irmhild Rogalla, contact user support
Friedrich Strohmaier, contact PrOOo Box
Wolfgang Uhlig, contact documentation
Simon Wilper, contact documentation
Thorsten Behrens, development
Rainer Bielefeld, quality assurance
Ulf Brekenfelder, translation
Sigrid Carrera, documentation and user support
Florian Effenberger, marketing, board OOo DeV
Gisbert Friege, website education portal, Dmaths
Gerald Geib, translation und quality assurance
Markus Gommel, treasurer OOo DeV and member support
Thomas Hackert, translation and quality assurance
Volker Heggemann, quality assurance
Edgar Kuchelmeister, user support and documentation
Christian Lohmaier, website and quality assurance
Andreas Mantke, development and documentation
Christoph Noack, user experience and artwork
Jens Nürnberger, PrOOo-Box and quality assurance
Wolfgang Pechlaner, quality assurance and translation
Manfred Reiter, former Co-Lead
Uwe Richter, PrOOo-Box
Bernhard Rückgauer, OOo DeV
André Schnabel, translation, supervisory board OOo DeV
Heinz W. Simoneit, marketing
Klaus-Jürgen Weghorn, website
Stefan Weigel, user support and documentation
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