Instead of relying solely on the customary internal engineering team, Sun Microsystems has opened the StarOffice code to the open-source market through the OpenOffice.org project.
"Sun Microsystems' engineering efforts that will deliver future versions of the StarOffice productivity suite will be derived directly from the OpenOffice.org technology base," states a white paper on the project.
"Sun will use the single OpenOffice.org master CVS source base as its own engineering master source base. Developers from all communities will be able to see Sun's development contributions on a daily basis and be able to become directly involved in the development of the OpenOffice.org technology as the branded StarOffice productivity suite."
Sun believes the project will spark development on the office productivity suite to refine code and add new features, as well as use of the code in new applications. Sun has also made the StarOffice APIs and XML file format available to the community. It says that it hopes to encourage interoperability between office formats.
"No longer will files and documents wear the cement shoes of a single vendor or operating system, but standards will flourish and compatibility reign across platforms," states an OpenOffice.org statement.
The desktop Linux GUI, Gnome, has selected the OpenOffice.org project as its primary office production suite for Gnome 2.0. Gnome will also be included in Sun's Unix operating, Solaris.
The product falls under both the GNU general public license (GPL), as well as the Sun Industry Standard Source License (SISSL). One of SISSL's key purposes will be to force developers to openly publicise source code in the event of incompatible changes, thus forcing compliancy with other developers.
Sun will maintain copyright as, according to the company, "legally, only the copyright holder can pursue copyright violations, and we want to be very clear on this. There is no other agenda then the fact that Sun is very serious about enforcing the licences they have chosen." The project is to be governed by the OpenOffice.org Foundation.
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