LibreOffice is free software – but “free” is about way more than just being zero-cost. It’s about giving users fundamental freedoms in how they run, share, study and improve their software and computers – giving control back to them.
For example, the source code for LibreOffice – that is, the human-readable “recipe” behind the program – is available for everyone to see, study and modify. You can download this code, see what it does, change it for your needs, and then turn it back into an executable version for your computer. Many hundreds of people have done this already, contributing back important changes and updates to LibreOffice. And then you’re free to share the changes with other users.
This is in contrast to most other office suites, which don’t give users these freedoms; they are “closed”, so users can’t look under the hood, can’t study how they work, can’t make changes, and can’t share the software. Users become restricted and trapped, controlled by and locked into specific software from a specific company – the very opposite of freedom.
So today, on “I love Free Software Day”, we at The Document Foundation would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who works on free software such as LibreOffice. Whether you’re involved in development, QA, design, translations, marketing, infrastructure or any other projects – we ❤️ your support.