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Along with an email client and a web browser, an office suite is a core essential application that almost every computer user requires. Although there is a dominant commercial product in this category, its price, along with its closed-source nature, makes it an unsatisfactory option for many. Apache OpenOffice ®, for over two decades, has helped fill this gap. Our goal is to develop, publish, and support OpenOffice free for anyone to use, and since it is open source, free for anyone to build upon.
Overcoming the
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“Digital Divide”
More than 70% of the world population are poor or have a low income. For many, commercial software is often seen as a luxury good. End-user facing open-source software, like Apache OpenOffice, brings high-quality software to those who would otherwise have no other affordable options.
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There are over 6,000 languages in the world, but unless the language is associated with a G20 economic superpower, commercial vendors tend to ignore it. The OpenOffice community has a long-standing tradition of supporting numerous languages, including ones used by smaller populations, minority languages, endangered languages, etc. For example, South Africa has 10 official languages other than English. OpenOffice has been translated to all of them. By supporting these languages that would not otherwise be supported we help reduce "digital exclusion" “digital exclusion” and promote development, local education and administration. It is not easy to keep the translation up-to-date for all languages but with the help of thanks to volunteers we can reach this goal.
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Persons with disabilities, especially those with visual impairments, commonly rely on "assisted technology" “assistive technology” to interact with computers. Such technologies work well only when applications are designed and coded to work well with them. Additionally, users who create documents must do their part to ensure that the documents they create work well with assistive technology, for example through the use of image captions, consistent list levels, etc. The OpenOffice project aims to provide accessibility support, both in the core product and including broader ecosystem support via extensions, for working with Braille printers, exporting to DAISY talking books, etc.
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We believe a consistent user experience is more important than a constantly changing user interface. This is especially important for older people or people with visual impairment or other disabilities.
Community-led development
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“The Apache
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Way”
The ASF provides a foundation for open, collaborative software development projects by supplying hardware, communication, and business infrastructure. Each project is independent in the development of their software within the ASF guidelines and is governed by a Project Management Committee (PMC) that is composed of committers to the project.
Our project is driven by a community of volunteers dedicated to maintaining, improving and supporting this great software product and the infrastructure that supports it. We are not guided by commercial interests, but by "“The Apache Way" ” of community and software development. Our permissive Open-Source license is people and business friendly and is another part of our continued success.
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In June 2011 Oracle Corporation contributed the source code and trademarks for "OpenOffice“OpenOffice.org" org” to The Apache Software Foundation. IBM Corporation followed that by contributing the source code from their "Symphony" “Symphony” product as well. The result of this and much hard work since is "“Apache OpenOffice"”.