OpenOffice.org ("OOo")--the development project behind OpenOffice.org 1.0 ("OOo1"), the open-source office suite--declared its 2nd birthday on October 13th, 2002, and the tone was optimistic. On that day, the Community announced 8.5 million binary downloads tracked over the life of the Project, with about 5 million of those coming after the launch of version 1.0 in May 2002.

These numbers caused the trade and open-source press to prick up their ears sharply, a contrast to the laconic well-wishing that colored the 1.0 release a few months prior. The numbers also stimulated some FUD from the direction of Washington State. So there is a palpable sense of obligation in the Community to the large amount of work ahead, as well as great anticipation.

OpenOffice.org 1.0, the software, seems to have struck a chord based on the combination of its low price (free) and its promise of file format compatibility and continuity. The suite allows users to open and save-as the file format of the leading suite (from Word 6.0/97/2000/XP). In addition, OOo1's well-documented implementation of the XML file format offers guaranteed access to work created in the OOo suite (since future changes to the XML standard, properly implemented, will always be continuously accessible if not backward-compatible).

While OOo1 download-by-country statistics resemble any chart of GDP per capita (or total number of PCs per 1,000 people) you've ever seen in The Economist, the countries we hear about at the Project level that are most active in planned adoptions are extremely motivated to move. There are installations in place or in planning stages in the German Bundestag, the Maltese Prime Minister's office, to name just two. The governments of Italy, England, Canada, China, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica and many other countries have taken a view that these platforms can help them manage and control both smaller, more efficient IT budgets and establish for the first time a path to universal access to public documents.

Not surprisingly, other early adopters of OOo1 are the same kinds of people and organizations who were early supporters of Linux: military, security and police agencies. I'll never forget a New Jersey State Trooper's depth of interest in the project when I spoke with him at LinuxWorld NY, back in February 2002. The guy still had his gun on while we chatted, and he was clearly a serious user. He got more utility out of his Palm device in front of me that day than anyone I have ever seen tapping away on the subway. These adopters today are agencies with urgency: those who pay attention to the quality of their tools, who need infrastructure that works and who care about their budgets. So it's no shock at all when we notice that the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is a dedicated user of open-source software. Furthermore, it is rumored that the Office of Homeland Security does not use IIS or Outlook.

There is no question that governments and agencies get open source, Linux and OOo1 at the IT level. In the UK, for example, early adopters of these tools are the Central Scottish Police and Scotland Yard.

Against this backdrop, the question of when corporations will wake up to open source is germane. But they are--at least in the City that Never Sleeps--evaluating open-source tools, including Linux, OpenOffice.org 1.0/StarOffice 6.0 and thin-client arrangements. Dan Ravicher, a hip intellectual property lawyer here at Patterson Belknap, NY, along with Jim Gleason, President of NYLUG.org, hosted a breakfast for folks to chat about how Disney, Morgan Stanley, Dreamworks, Credit Suisse First Boston, Merrill Lynch and others are hot on open source.

The reasons companies to-date seem deaf to the words "open source" and "Linux" are multifaceted. Large companies can't simply let employees install free software: they need to reorganize their IT and legal departments to deal with technical and licensing integration into complex heterogeneous environments. But another major factor is that their site licenses for things like proprietary office suites have time on them, say two years left to run. That means the 150-more seats added in the new desk at a Brown Brothers Harriman costs them next to nothing--until their existing site licenses expire (for those who did not take to "software assurance").

So the corporations are planning, in that inimitable way they do. A large investment bank I speak with thinks that Linux might one day deserve about a 20% share of their desktop infrastructure, if only to keep their vendors honest. I think they will more likely see worker-bee productivity gains and penetration more like 50%. It's Cluetrain all over again, but look for the migration stats to favor Linux & Co. in the glass house in '03-'05. These things take time. Red Hat, with a new arrangement on systems integration with IBM, should do well in this spell.

So it's almost needless to say that rave reviews about OOo1 are beginning to appear. Let's face it, people expect this software to be much more dog-eared than it really is at the price. Conversely, users (particularly LaTeX users) love to tell us how dog-eared the suite looks, especially the fonts. And we are pleased to hear it, because the OOo Community is extremely open to (and dependent upon) constructive criticism, the more specific, the better.

OOo sees the next few builds focusing on smoothing bug fixes and integration with other suites and environments. Developer build 643, just released, already looks and feels noticeably slicker on Linux, although it is suitably unstable.

Figure 1. OOo Developer Build 643: smoother look and feel. One notable new feature is native export to PDF--midway on the dropdown.

Figure 2. OOo1 Writer. Nice fonts!

An effort is being made to coordinate if not standardize file formats with the other open-source office suites. The Community is extremely excited about the work going into the OpenOffice.org 1.0 for Mac OS X, with a developer build now available in beta that is sufficient for daily use. The OS X port, led by Ed Peterlin and his group of independent developers, is important to OOo because of the passion of the Mac user community. We are likely to get lots of sparks flying and good cheer from Mac enthusiasts when the final version is announced.

This current build for OS X runs on X11, and Peterlin has outlined a path to a Cocoa build with full Aqua look and feel. He estimates it will be out in 12 to 18 months. Anyone who has Mac and UNIX skills, step right up and help us accelerate this schedule.

There has been a lot of discussion over the need for a groupware or PIM solution to go into OOo. The present thinking of the OOo Groupware Project, led by Gary Frederick, is to not reinvent the wheel but to fit it around open standards like iCal, Mozilla Mail and perhaps others. They want to find a good open-source server and integrate with other existing groupware software.

Ximian has already been integrating OOo1 into their Red Carpet distribution environment and are looking into integrating OOo1 more suavely into GNOME. I believe integrating OOo1 with Evolution could be a really neat solution for Linux, and we completely support the idea. But that leaves a few other OS platforms in the OOo constellation unaddressed (Windows, Solaris, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, to name only the available platforms). If OOo and Ximian could work together to bring Evolution alongside OOo1 to Win32, then we'd have a goer.

No doubt, too, Mitch Kapor's Chandler is interesting. Although it's no Outlook killer, integrating Chandler with OOo1 could create an office suite-cum-PIM solution that's popular in the middle and lesser developed markets, where OOo currently is thriving.

OOo is working with some interesting partners on integration. OEone--a fledgling creator of a full-function, media-enabled Linux desktop and contributor of some key parts of the Mozilla code--is working on some groupware integration with OOo1.

On the OOo Project side, the Community is focusing on building its global native-language communities, in which members converse in local languages. Six non-English-speaking "Langs" are going to date: French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and Italian. We'd love to have others: Vietnamese, Chinese, Polish, Russian--the sky's the limit as long as there is motivation, and we know there's interest. Speak to project leaders, Louis Suarez-Potts and Guy Capra, about forming a new Lang in you neighborhood today.

The Porting Project, led by Kevin Hendricks and Martin Hollmichel, is extremely important to the overall Project and looks to be supporting more platforms than were originally imagined.

Ports of OpenOffice.org 1.0 now available include:

Ports in development include:

Language porting activities are also critical to making OOo1 available and useful in the new and rapidly growing markets around the world that are not as yet saturated with PCs and office software. New language porting initiatives come to our attention frequently. We encourage the local developers responsible for the language porting to form a Native-Lang web site and start a community conversation that increases the tensile strength of OOo's awesome motley fabric.

The QA Project is growing, and its role in checking out issues and bug triage has never been more critical to us. We would love to see more folks come on board to assist here.

The Marketing Project, led by Nick Richards and myself, is working on expanding global impact through guerilla methods and massive locally based communications and support efforts. Nick is just now taking over from Josh Berkus, who made critical contributions throughout the Project in its early growth phase. Nick is articulating a fresh vision for the future of OOo and its marketing that will be apparent to Project watchers 2003.

Marketing is always expanding its "MarCon" (Marketing Communications) network of members around the world who manage press release information flow, so the project is synchronized on messages in all the necessary languages. We are also looking at P2P distribution as an option for when download demand gets urgent.

Pick a project and come aboard.

Presently, our bundling news is positive. Red Hat 8.0 and SuSE 8.1 have packaged OOo1 in their respective standard editions, and Ximian is including OOo1 in its Red Carpet update and dependency interface (which I personally enjoy). Lindows OS has both OOo1 and StarOffice 6.0 in its "look-Ma-no-hands" click-and-run service. If I've left anyone out, please let me know. Xandros is known to have something brewing, too. And OEone's offering (above) will be on the horizon soon.

The community of Linux distributors is one group I, personally, would like to monitor more closely from OOo. Not only do you have sophisticated users internally who have the ability to contribute productively on the bug front and with integration, but OOo would like to track the Linux distribution's' own release schedules more closely so that we can plan our own release schedule with mindfulness. Please see me after class, and we'll put some people together.

The Community could use more testimonials like Verizon's, where they are saving many millions of dollars by switching to Linux and OOo1/SO6, among other things for their system developers. Please don't hesitate to tell us if you are using OpenOffice.org 1.0.

Also, we would love to have some true ROI data and anecdotes to use to support the argument for adoption. We are happy to protect identities if we use your data.

One final request: downloaders and installers of OpenOffice.org 1.0, please link to the OOo User Survey when the installation wizard prompts you. The information you give is all optional, and it's really helpful to the Community's effort to improve the software and respond to user needs.

Come and visit our booth at LinuxWorld Expo in New York on January 22-24, 2003, where OpenOffice.org will share an area in the dot-org Pavilion with the Linux Terminal Server Project and quite possibly a pod in the Sun booth. We enjoy hearing from you.

OpenOffice.org 1.0 is dual-licensed under the LGPL and SISSL and is free to all users. It can be downloaded at www.openoffice.org. There, you'll find useful documentation, links to Howtos and mailing-list based support.

Enterprises and educational institutions might look to Sun's StarOffice 6.0 for value-added features and contractual support.

Sam Hiser is a contributor to the Marketing Project and member of the Release Committee of OpenOffice.org. He teaches middle-school English in the Bronx and consults on desktop productivity in media, financial services and education.