Recently, Oracle bought SUN Microsystems and got the copyright to all of their products, including the massively popular free alternative to Microsoft Word, OpenOffice.org
This caused some of the creators of OpenOffice to branch off and create their own group, the Document Foundation, as they didn't like the idea of a corporate controlled open-source project. They say that they "welcome corporate participation, e.g. by sponsoring individuals to
work as equals alongside other contributors in the community," but they do not want to be controlled by a corporation and be limited in what they can do. They also created the Document Foundation saying that "...an independent
Foundation brings out the best in contributors and will deliver the
best software for users."
They have offered Oracle to donate the code and copyright of OpenOffice to them, but they have also made it clear that they do not need the copyright to continue working. So instead, they have created a fork of the popular office suite, called Libre Office. This is currently in beta, and it isn't fully developed, but feel free to try it out here. Libre Office will also be an open-source project, and the Document Foundation hopes to expand and make Libre Office the best free alternative to Microsoft Word. Good luck!
-Teguh
Interesting! I hadn't heard about this, so thanks for the update. Have you tried out the beta version of Libre Office? What do you think?
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