OpenOffice.org, the open source foundation of Sun's StarOffice 6 office suite, announced the availability of its 1.0 release today. While the suite has been stable for a few months, this release no doubt symbolizes its readiness to move from the developer to the consumer.
The release boasts numerous noteworthy features such as Microsoft Office compatibility, something difficult to achieve, but necessary in business environments. Additionally OpenOffice.org has the ability to run on Linux, Microsoft Windows, Sun Solaris, and Apple Mac OS X. This makes the software quite possibly the best choice for any office that is a mixed-platform environment.
Eric S. Raymond, founder of the Open Source Initiative commented about the release musing “OpenOffice.org 1.0 may be the single best hope for consumers fed-up with
Microsoft's desktop monopoly.” Gnome Project founder Miguel de Icaza also spoke about the release noting that “OpenOffice.org may be the most important open source project right now, because people will try it and see they can get everyday work done … they'll see — in a low-risk way — that open source software can work for them and be an even better solution.”
-Timothy R. Butler