LibreOffice, Intel joins the open source project

The Document Foundation recently announced that Intel started distributing LibreOffice on the AppUp Center, chipzilla’s app store for x86-based computers. Not just that: Intel joined the foundation itself, financially supporting the FOSS (free open source software) productivity suite that has become the only true competitor to Microsoft’s Office juggernaut.

Born as a fork from the now almost neglected OpenOffice.org project, LibreOffice features a full-fledged suite including a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation program and other essential software for personal and professional productivity.

The “special” version of LibreOffice released via the AppUp Center features five different languages (English, German, French, Spanish and Italian), a new “smooth, silent” installation and improved uninstallation processes and is based on the LibreOffice build made by open source company SUSE.

“We are thrilled to add Intel to our existing roster of supporters”, TDF board member volunteer Florian Effenberger said, explaining that “TDF is first and foremost a vendor neutral project committed to excellence in the office suite space, but we greatly value the support and advice we gain from organisations such as SUSE, Red Hat, Google, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Software in the Public Interest (SPI)”.

Dawn Foster, open source community lead for Intel, stated that the corporation’s engineers “have worked with the LibreOffice codebase to optimise it for Intel hardware”, and that “adding it to the AppUp Center is an obvious extension, and will provide an exciting feature for all Ultrabook users”.

And what about Microsoft? Its foremost ally in the IT industry started giving money and coding help to one of its few “real” competitors in the productivity software field, so it’s easy to speculate that the latest Intel move will not be greeted happily at Redmond.