Apache OpenOffice Downloads

Apache OpenOffice Downloads


Try it. I've been using early versions for some time now and have yet to experience a crash--more than I can say about many other applications. But to me, the most important part is it's use of ODF 1.2 and what that means for interoperability among so-called office applications--and then some.

Here the issue. What makes a document? The physical form? The logical frame? Sheer convention? So, too, the "office" document. A generation has come to expect of a suite those things that are found in the prevailing application. But that assemblage is, however useful, nevertheless rather arbitrary. It was also spawned by the desires of white-collar workers in large corporations, not by the needs and desires of those outside of the corporate walls. Times have changed. Today, and even more so, tomorrow, virtually all people will have access to some form of a computer, and they will be wanting to create, edit, distribute their works. The number of those coming to this 21st century table is not small, it's in the billions.

The ODF can accommodate them, as can open source implementations of the format. I'd imagine that people will be using tablets and other thin devices to access Web services (aka "the cloud"), so it's probable that the implementation we will see on these devices may differ from what we see on the desktop. But the implementations will still offer all users the productivity tools they need and want for their creations, be they text or graphic or musical or voice or some wonderful combination.

Finally: Open source is a community effort. It works best when the community of users substantially overlaps the community making it. In its best form, open source products defy the static and disposable quality of the shrinkwrapped commodity. Open source products are dynamic, they are not limited to a specific slice of time and place, and the old commodity is. The future of an open source product is endless, that of the closed commodity landfill or its electronic equivalent.