Thursday April 17, 2014

The Apache Software Foundation Announces 100 Million Downloads of Apache™ OpenOffice™

Leading Open Source office application and personal productivity suite for Windows, Mac, and Linux reaches a major adoption milestone



17 April 2014 --Forest Hill, MD-- The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 170 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today that Apache OpenOffice™ has been downloaded 100 million times.



Apache OpenOffice is the leading Open Source office document productivity suite, available in 32 languages on Windows, OS X, and Linux. OpenOffice includes a word processor ("Writer"), a spreadsheet ("Calc"), a presentation editor ("Impress"), a vector graphics editor ("Draw"), a mathematical formula editor ("Math"), and a database management program ("Base"). As Open Source software, Apache OpenOffice is available to all users free of charge; the C++ source code is readily available for anyone who wishes to enhance the applications.



Originally created as "StarOffice" by StarDivision and after further development as an Open Source product under the name "OpenOffice.org", OpenOffice entered the Apache Incubator in 2011 and graduated as an Apache Top-level Project in October 2012.



"I'm extremely pleased to see us reach this major milestone in less than two years," said Andrea Pescetti, Vice President of Apache OpenOffice. "This is a testament to our community volunteers: the hundreds of talented individuals who make Apache OpenOffice what it is, who write the code, test for bugs, translate the user interface, write documentation, answer user questions and manage our servers. We remain committed to offering the successful combination of reliability and innovation that so many users appreciate."



Official downloads at openoffice.org are hosted by SourceForge, where users can also find repositories for more than 750 extensions and over 2,800 templates for OpenOffice.



"By continuously improving Apache OpenOffice Extensions and Templates sites we show how committed we are about providing projects with what they need most," said Gaurav Kuchhal, General Manager for Slashdot and SourceForge. "We are happy to help open source projects to grow, no matter where they are hosted or developed. We have been serving over 122 Million downloads for the Apache OpenOffice project, with daily peaks of about 250,000 and we are committed to providing products and services that demonstrate our dedication to technical excellence."



"Apache OpenOffice reaching 100 million downloads is a remarkable achievement in the project's 29-year history and testament to the power of successful Open Source communities," said Shane Curcuru, Apache OpenOffice mentor and ASF Vice President of Brand Management. "We extend our gratitude to all the volunteers and users whose contribution, feedback, support, engagement, and enthusiasm keeps us focused on delivering great software. We couldn't celebrate this milestone without them!"



Some Trends and Fun Facts about Apache OpenOffice

• OpenOffice supports Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X and Linux

• Top downloads by operating system, in order: Windows, Mac, Linux

• Top downloads by browser, in order: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome

• Top 10 countries for OpenOffice downloads, in order: United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, Canada, and Poland

• OpenOffice supports 120+ languages --those that are 100% translated and maintained are officially released. Latest languages released include Asturian, Basque, Danish, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Scottish Gaelic, and Swedish, thanks to the work of new translation volunteers

• Apache OpenOffice features integrated improvements from IBM Lotus Symphony (a previous fork that has been closed and donated to the ASF) to bring better compatibility with Microsoft Office documents

• OpenOffice 4.0 debuts a major change to its user interface with the introduction of the Sidebar, developed by the Apache OpenOffice "dream team" in Hamburg in close cooperation with hundreds of community members

• OpenOffice 4.0 reflects 500 bug fixes, advances in Microsoft Office interoperability, enhancements to drawing/graphics, and performance improvements, among many others

• The new logo for OpenOffice was chosen after a long selection process that saw over 5,000 votes cast. The winning proposal was submitted by community member Chris Rottensteiner from South Tyrol

• Demand for Apache OpenOffice 4.0 averages 1 million downloads per week

• The Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1 maintenance release fixes critical issues and improves the overall quality of the application, including: additional native language translations, bug fixes, performance improvements, and Windows 8 compatibility enhancements

• Apache OpenOffice successfully supports the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and IAccessible2 interfaces, enabling screen readers and other assistive technologies to work with Apache OpenOffice, improving productivity for users who are blind or with low-vision

• The new accessibility support makes OpenOffice even more attractive for use by governments and public institutions, such as the administrative region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, that recently announced a migration to OpenOffice, among many others

• Ports and distributed versions of Apache OpenOffice include a portable version for Windows, the German PrOOo-box software collection, and AndrOpen Office, an Android port of Apache OpenOffice

• The most frequently used channel for user support is the 60,000+ user-strong official Apache OpenOffice Forum that averages over 100 posts per day and features over 270,000 posts about Apache OpenOffice and all derivatives





Availability and Oversight

As with all Apache products, Apache OpenOffice is released under the Apache License v2.0, and is overseen by a self-selected team of active contributors to the project. A Project Management Committee (PMC) guides the Project's day-to-day operations, including community development and product releases. To learn how to become involved with Apache OpenOffice, visit http://openoffice.apache.org/get-involved.html



Downloads and Resources

Apache OpenOffice Extensions -- http://extensions.openoffice.org

Apache OpenOffice Templates -- http://templates.openoffice.org

Apache OpenOffice ports and distributions -- http://openoffice.org/porting

Apache OpenOffice Forum -- https://forum.openoffice.org

Apache OpenOffice Facebook fans -- https://facebook.com/ApacheOO

Apache OpenOffice Twitter account -- https://twitter.com/ApacheOO

Major OpenOffice deployments -- https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments



About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)

Established in 1999, the all-volunteer Foundation oversees more than one hundred and seventy leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server --the world's most popular Web server software. Through the ASF's meritocratic process known as "The Apache Way," more than 400 individual Members and 3,500 Committers successfully collaborate to develop freely available enterprise-grade software, benefiting millions of users worldwide: thousands of software solutions are distributed under the Apache License; and the community actively participates in ASF mailing lists, mentoring initiatives, and ApacheCon, the Foundation's official user conference, trainings, and expo. The ASF is a US 501(c)(3) charitable organization, funded by individual donations and corporate sponsors including Budget Direct, Citrix, Cloudera, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Hortonworks, HP, Huawei, IBM, InMotion Hosting, Matt Mullenweg, Microsoft, Pivotal, Produban, WANdisco, and Yahoo. For more information, visit http://www.apache.org/ or follow @TheASF on Twitter



"Apache", "OpenOffice", "Apache OpenOffice", "OpenOffice.org", and "ApacheCon" are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.



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Posted at 10:00AM Apr 17, 2014 by Sally in General | |