Lodahl's blog: Lots of reasons for using OpenOffice.org

17 September 2006

Lots of reasons for using OpenOffice.org

  • The price
OpenOffice.org is free. You can use itf free of charge no matter if you are a private person, a student or a commercial company.
  • Its legal

Making a copy for a friend is completly legal. You don't have to control who have access to your CD anymore.

  • Its open

If you need to make changes to the application you can find the source code and you can make any changes that you want.

  • Its good

OpenOffice.org has allmost the same functionalities as competitive applications. Most people think that OpenOffice.org has less features and this is in a way true. But the features that is not in OpenOffice.org is typical features that nobody uses anyway.

  • OpenOffice.org is well documented

You can find several manuals and how-tos on www.oooathors.org in several languages. The translation is an on-going process.

  • Its supported

Lots of companies around the World is supporting OpenOffice.org. Sometimes the product is called another name as StarOffice, but you CAN get support for OpenOffice.org.

  • OpenOffice.org is social and solidarity

Its free of charge. Not only for you but also for any other child or adult in the World. This means that people in the third world can get access to a comprehensive office application. Because it's open anyone can make a local translation. This is NOT the case with commercial office applications.

  • Democratic

Any one can participate in development. There is not a company taking all decisions about the content. YOU can vote for new features. Or you can create features for the application.

  • OpenOffice.org uses OPEN document formats

If you use a 'closed' format you are actual taken hostage. What happens if the provider makes a new version or closes? You will be asked to pay ransom to get your documents back. When you use OpenOffice.org your documents are GARANTIED in the future. The format is open and can be used by ither applications. If OpenOffice.org is no longer available you can use any other application that uses the format (StarOffice, Workplace, NeoOffice, ...).

  • OpenOffice.org runs on allmost any platform

Other applications are often tied to one single operation platform. OpenOffice.org runs on several platforms and is continuously ported to new platforms. If you are using several platforms like Linux, Windows and Mac you will find OpenOffice.org on all these platforms.

OpenOffice.org can use YOUR contribution
Not only developers can participate. A lot of translation work is going on. Graphical work is needed too.

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