Portal:Free and open-source software/Selected article: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:32, 3 January 2006

Revision as of 12:04, 12 January 2006

Line 1:

[[Image:Blender 2OpenOffice.36 Screenshotorg.jpgpng|thumb|250px]]

'''OpenOffice.org''' (abbreviated as '''OOo''') is a [[free software|free]] and [[open source software|open source]] [[office suite]], including a [[word processor]], [[spreadsheet]], presentation, vector drawing, and database components. It is available for many different [[platform (computing)|platform]]s, including [[Microsoft Windows]], [[Unix-like]] systems including [[Solaris Operating Environment|Solaris]] and [[Linux]], and [[Mac OS X]]. It is intended to be [[compatibility|compatible]] with, and compete with, [[Microsoft Office]], it supports the [[OpenDocument]] standard for data interchange, and can be used at no cost.

'''Blender''' is a [[free software|free]] [[software]] program for [[3D_computer_graphics#Modelling|modelling]] and [[rendering (computer graphics)|rendering]] [[3D_computer_graphics|three-dimensional graphics and animations]].

Blender is available for several [[operating system]]s, including [[FreeBSD]], [[IRIX]], [[GNU/Linux]], [[Microsoft Windows]], [[Mac OS X]], [[Solaris Operating Environment|Solaris]], [[SkyOS]], and [[MorphOS]].

OpenOffice.org is based on the codebase of [[StarOffice]], an office suite developed by [[StarDivision]] acquired by [[Sun Microsystems]] in [[August 1999]]. The [[source code]] of the suite was released as an open source project in [[July 2000]], with the aim of breaking the market dominance of Microsoft Office by providing a lower-cost, high-quality and open alternative. The source code for the application suite was previously available under two different [[software license]]s: the [[GNU Lesser General Public License]] (LGPL) and [[Sun Industry Standards Source License]] (SISSL); starting with version 2.0, the code is only available under the LGPL.

Originally, the program was developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio [[NeoGeo (studio)|NeoGeo]] (not to be confused with the [[NeoGeo]] game console) and [[Not a Number Technologies]] (NaN); the main author, [[Ton Roosendaal]], founded NaN in [[June]] [[1998]] to further develop and distribute the program. The program was initially distributed as [[freeware]]<!--did the c-key make it shareware?--> until NaN went bankrupt in [[2002]].

The project and software are informally referred to as "OpenOffice", but project organizers report that this term is a [[trademark]] held by another party, requiring them to adopt "OpenOffice.org" as its formal name, and abbreviated as OOo.

The debtors agreed to release Blender as [[free software]], under the terms of the [[GNU General Public License]], for a one-time payment of &euro;100,000. On [[July 18]] [[2002]], a Blender funding campaign was started by Roosendaal in order to collect donations and on [[September 7]] [[2002]] it was announced that enough funds had been collected and that the Blender source code would be released. Blender is now an [[open source]] program being actively developed by the [[Blender Foundation]].

[[Blender (software)OpenOffice.org|...read the article]]