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| <h2>Community Stories</h2> |
| <br> |
| <h4>OpenOffice.org and the Promise of Collaboration</h4> |
| <p>2001 October 13 </p> |
| <p>-Jost Ammon, <a href="http://whiteboard.openoffice.org/marketing/">Marketing |
| Project Co-Lead</a> </p> |
| <br> |
| <p>I have ever been an addict to music. Of course I've always wanted to share |
| my experience with music. The ‘Net offered me totally unexpected opportunities |
| to do so, first, by enabling me to participate in various mailing lists with |
| others who share the same interest as I, and whom I would never have met where |
| I live, later in getting acquainted with Lyle Mays, composer and keyboarder |
| to the Pat Metheny Group, who was open enough to enter an email relationship |
| with someone he didn't know. And when I thought of writing an essay about this |
| virtual/non-virtual acquaintance with Lyle and with others, I began to explore |
| this new medium which offered possibilities that go far beyond of what is possible |
| with the good old linear and two-dimensional text, based on black letters on |
| a white paper.</p> |
| <p>I wanted to create a website that would reflect my interests and allow me to |
| communicate with my virtual (and nonvirtual!) friends. And as I started my website |
| I realized I needed an HTML editor. I found some for free, but one of them vanished |
| after I had learnt to handle it, or rather it morphed into a bigger word processing |
| software I never really got to master. Then I needed software that could edit |
| graphics. I found one, but again it didn't have all the features I needed. Finally |
| I needed a database for all my emails, and again had to look for yet more software. |
| I don't know remember when it was, but one day I found a CD-ROM copy of StarOffice |
| in a magazine at the library. I copied it to my PC and started working with |
| it. </p> |
| <p>It could do everything I needed.</p> |
| <p>I could compose my website, write my stories, articles, letters; I could control |
| the website’s design easily. I could update the source code of my website. |
| I could edit the graphics; and I also found that StarOffice contained the database |
| I wanted, one that allowed me to index and search through my emails by keyword. |
| The more I became attracted to this universal tool for a universal medium, the |
| more I learned about Open Source, since Sun Microsystems gave the code of its |
| StarOffice to the open-source community helping OpenOffice.org (the software) |
| get off the ground. I learned about the free and open spirit of the Internet |
| that still lives. And that it lives only through the idea of sharing. I learned |
| about OpenOffice.org (the Project), this international community that shares |
| the idea of putting the best of each together, in order to create a universal, |
| free and open tool for our daily work. And so I found not only the medium and |
| its tool but also the spirit that embraces it all.</p> |
| <p>OpenOffice.org is just more than just the best office suite, based on incredible |
| work by some of the brightest individuals the international ‘Net community |
| has gathered together. And it’s more than just the best software to express |
| the universality of the medium called the ‘Net. Free, OpenOffice.org is |
| ultimately an expression of our will to grow on the grounds of sharing our freely |
| accessible knowledge. </p> |
| <p>Perhaps it is good to recall some facts about OpenOffice to get a grip on the |
| dimensions of OpenOffice.org. There are more than 3600 subscribers to the mailing |
| lists and contributors of code, documentation and bug identification. Over two |
| million downloads as of this day, not counting those of the mirrors. At least |
| twenty-three ongoing projects including, besides the technical features, things |
| like documentation, groupware, and even marketing. There are now open-source |
| functions such as printing, spellchecker, and thesaurus in English. We have |
| ports available for Linux, Solaris, Windows NT, 2000, 95/98/ME, Linux PPC, and |
| soon even Mac OS/X. And last but not least, OpenOffice.org receives nearly half |
| a million page hits a week.</p> |
| <p>All these open-source efforts remind me a bit of editing the French Encyclopédie. |
| Some 250 years ago the brightest spirits of the western world gathered to pool |
| their experiences for the largest status quo of knowledge ever recorded until |
| then. Its impact was inconceivable at the time and paved the way to the civilization |
| we know today. Today the same is certainly true for the Internet and maybe so |
| for the open-source movement. In this context the significance of OpenOffice.org |
| exceeds being "just another good software," but is rather a significant comment |
| on how we interpret progress. </p> |
| <p>For the full article, "Halfway to Literacy," please go to Jost Ammon's |
| <a href="http://www.openbook.gmxhome.de/OO%20aniversary%20story.html">page</a>. |
| </p> |
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