LibreOffice completes one year

On 28 September 2010, several members of the OpenOffice.org project formed a new group called “The Document Foundation”. The Document Foundation created LibreOffice from their former project, over concerns that Oracle Corporation would either discontinue OpenOffice.org, or place restrictions on it as an open-source project, as it had on OpenSolaris. It was originally hoped that the LibreOffice name would be provisional, as Oracle was invited to become a member of The Document Foundation. Oracle rejected offers to donate the OpenOffice.org brand to the project, and demanded that all members of the OpenOffice.org Community Council involved with The Document Foundation step down from the OOo Community Council, citing a conflict of interest. The Go-oo project was discontinued in favour of LibreOffice. Improvements made by the project are being merged into LibreOffice. Enhancements made in other forks are also expected to be incorporated into LibreOffice. Also underway is the reduction of Java dependency, with the goal of minimizing security issues and improving application stability.

As of September 2011, The Document Foundation estimates that there are 10 million users worldwide who have obtained LibreOffice via downloads or CDs. Over 90% of those are on Windows, with another 5% on Mac OS X. There are an estimated 15 million Linux users, with most having obtained the software directly from their distribution. This gives a total estimated user base of 25 million people.

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