With the upcoming StarOffice 6 technology, the next generation architecture of separate applications and componentized services will be introduced. Sun will also continue to develop and aggressively market future versions of StarOffice Suite, which will be based on OpenOffice.org. Widespread Community Support OpenOffice.org has already garnered major industry support from many open-source luminaries, including Tim O'Reilly, Miguel de Icaza, Brian Behlendorf, and Andy Hertzfeld. The availability of StarOffice under the GPL will give Linux a boost on the desktop. But more importantly, the wide availability of StarOffice Suite's code for reading and writing Microsoft Office formats will allow other open source projects to provide compatible functionality as well.
Open data is the other side of the open source coin.
Major Linux companies including Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, TurboLinux, Easy Linux, Mandrakesoft, Stormix, Conectivia, Definite Software PLC, and Macmillan have signed agreements to redistribute StarOffice 5.2 software, making it the number one office productivity suite for Linux. Most of these companies have pledged support for OpenOffice.org. With Sun's commitment to open source StarOffice this expands the market for product implementations based on open standards. This dual-licensing approach is designed to allow all organizations and individuals to use the source code freely and openly as they choose. Sun will hold an equal membership position in the OpenOffice.org Foundation project management committee.