We are now well in the middle of October and this means it’s our usual time of celebration at OpenOffice.org . OpenOffice.org is now 9 years old, which is no small accomplishment for a Free Software project. We will soon all gather to celebrate this event in Orvieto, where the OOoCon will take place between the 3 and 6th of November. (Don’t forget: we have an ODF plugfest at the same place on the 1st and 2nd of November!) Last year has been a good year. Our mirrors saw a significant rise as we released our major release number 3 and its subversions. Our office suite has never been better, never faster, never more versatile than the one we distribute today. Our community has vastly expanded, and is still growing at a healthy rate.

For all this we should be thankful and we should realize we are all contributing to an extraordinary project that helps dozens of million people worldwide, contributes significantly to bridge the digital divide, and is an essential tool of Free Software on potentially any desktop. The future will bring some changes; the nature of these changes is something that is still unknown to us. But regardless of what will happen in the next year (and I believe we should expect the best for OpenOffice.org) we should always remind ourselves the power of the Community.

The power of the Community is not a magical thing, regardless of how I might try to make it sound like it is. The Community itself is quite intangible, but it is only through ourselves and the others with whom we contribute and share that things work, that a project is carried forward and that in some sense, magic happens. Thank you, OpenOffice.org, for these 9 years of magic. I expect to see more next year.