Canonical has joined the project advisory board for The Document Foundation, the non-profit organization who shepherd development of LibreOffice.

No great big surprise, of course as Canonical has been an active member of the LibreOffice community since its inception back in 2010. The hugely popular office suite has been shipped by default on all versions of Ubuntu since Ubuntu 11.04.

The advisory board was created to represent The Document Foundation’s chief sponsors, and the company describes it as ‘the kernel of the LibreOffice ecosystem’.

Today’s announcement means that Canonical will be able to provide advice, recommendations and guidance to The Document Foundation’s board of directors to help ‘improve the presence of free software – and LibreOffice – inside enterprises and public administrations worldwide’.

It joins a host of other well-known FOSS projects, open-source organisations and technology companies who already sit on the Advisory Board, including GNOME, KDE, Red Hat and Google.

Of note, LibreOffice 5.2 in August 2016 will be one of the first big-names apps to be available in the Canonical-led snap packaging system, which TDF say “will make LibreOffice easier and simpler […] to maintain.”

Press Statements

In a press blurb today, The Document Foundation (TDF) writes:

“Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, the leading operating system for cloud and the Internet of Things. Most public cloud workloads, new smart gateways, self-driving cars and advanced humanoid robots are running on Ubuntu. Additionally, Canonical leads the development of the snap universal Linux packaging system for secure, transactional device updates and app stores,” says Marina Latini, Chairwoman of The Document Foundation.

Canonical’s Will Cooke, Desktop Engineering Manager for Ubuntu, is also positive, saying: “We are extremely pleased to become a member of the LibreOffice Project Advisory Board and having the opportunity to provide our guidance and insights to help improve LibreOffice for users around the world,” said

“At Canonical, we believe in the power of open source software. We are committed to developing it, and will support projects and initiatives that help to promote its benefits to a wider audience.”