The Document Foundation joins the Open Source Business Alliance

Berlin, October 27, 2014 – The Document Foundation (TDF) joins the Open Source Business Alliance (OSB Alliance), to strengthen LibreOffice ecosystem by creating stronger ties with companies and organizations deploying the free office suite on a large scale.

The aim of OSB Alliance is to improve the success of open source software and open collaboration, through the dissemination of information, the creation of positive conditions for software developers and users, and the active networking between all players. Within this environment, interoperability plays an important role for everyone, and especially for enterprise users.

“The Open Source Business Alliance has been a key stakeholder for LibreOffice, and for several members of the LibreOffice ecosystem. They have funded several interoperability features with Microsoft OOXML, and are an important source of information on the situation of large LibreOffice deployments”, says Thorsten Behrens, TDF Chairman.

“As OSB Alliance working group leader for office interoperability I very much welcome the membership of The Document Foundation. The active participation of this renowned nonprofit organization in our working group is very welcome,” said Matthias Stürmer, while OSB Alliance Chairman Peter Ganten added: “Open Source Office Software like LibreOffice has always been very important to most of our members, and there is a long and successful history of cooperation between the OSB Alliance and the respective projects. For this reason we are very happy to have The Document Foundation in our organization and are looking forward for a great continuation of our cooperation.”

Business users will appreciate that the quality of LibreOffice code is the highest for projects of similar size. According to Coverity Scan, the quality has improved tenfold during the last couple of years, with the number of defects per 1,000 lines of code being reduced from 0.8 to 0.07 thanks to the solution of 6,000 problems. LibreOffice is by far the largest project to have achieved such an outstanding score, with over 9 million lines of code.

About the Open Source Business Alliance

The Open Source Business Alliance (OSB Alliance) is Europe’s biggest association of companies and organizations developing, building and using open source software. The aim of the OSB Alliance is to improve the success of open source software and other forms of open collaboration. The OSB Alliance achieves its objectives, through the dissemination of information, the creation of positive conditions for producers and users, as well as through the active networking of manufacturers, customers and service providers. Interoperability between different open source systems and proprietary software in particular plays an important role. See http://www.osb-alliance.de.

About The Document Foundation

The Document Foundation is an independent, self-governing and meritocratic organization, based on Free Software ethos and incorporated in Germany as a not for profit entity. TDF is focused on the development of LibreOffice – the best free office suite ever – chosen by the global community as the legitimate heir of OOo, and as such adopted by a growing number of public administrations, enterprises and SMBs for desktop productivity.

TDF is accessible to individuals and organizations who agree with its core values and contribute to its activities. At the end of September 2014, the foundation has over 200 members and over 3,000 volunteer contributors worldwide.