LibreOffice development extends to Brazil

LibreOffice development extends to Brazil

The Internet, December 6, 2010 – The Document Foundation welcomes the new BrOffice Centre of Excellence for Free Software, a software development project recently announced by BrOffice, Itaipu Binacional and the Itaipu Technological Park Foundation. The main software lab, based in Foz do Iguacu, will contribute to the development of LibreOffice (BrOffice in Brazil), and other free software projects. The activity is forecast to start in the first quarter of 2011.

“BrOffice has 15 million users in Brazil, and it was time to have a community of developers to contribute to the project and make it more independent from large corporate sponsors”, said Claudio Filho, President of BrOffice and a founding member of TDF. “The idea of a Brazilian development lab for BrOffice was born with the community in 2001, and the launch of The Document Foundation and LibreOffice have created the right environment to make it a reality”.

The BrOffice Centre of Excellence for Free Software will train professionals in Brazil to contribute to the development of LibreOffice, making The Document Foundation a stronger free software project independent from a single corporate sponsor. The lab will reduce the dependence of Brazilian users from international development, and in doing so will contribute code and features to the free office suite.

“The process of building an independent foundation, in terms of governance and software development, is not a trivial task. The announcement of the Brazilian Center of Excellence is an important step in this direction, and is a sign of the activities which have happened before the date of the launch in September”, said Charles Schulz, a member of TDF Steering Committee.

“BrOffice was one of the early sponsors of The Document Foundation, and we have a huge challenge here to keep LibreOffice on the leading edge of free office suite software,” said Olivier Hallot, a board member of BrOffice and a founding member of TDF.

The home of The Document Foundation is at http://documentfoundation.org.

The Document Foundation has the mission to facilitate the evolution of the OOo Community into a new open, independent, and meritocratic organization within the next few months. An independent Foundation is a better match to the values of contributors, users and supporters, and will enable a more effective, efficient, transparent, and inclusive Community. TDF will protect past investments by building on the achievements of the first decade, will encourage wide participation in the Community, and will co-ordinate activity across the Community.

Media Contacts

Florian Effenberger (Germany)
Mobile: +49 151 14424108 – E-mail: floeff@documentfoundation.org
Olivier Hallot (Brazil)
Mobile: +55 21 88228812 – E-mail: olivier.hallot@documentfoundation.org
Charles H. Schulz (France)
Mobile: +33 6 98655424 – E-mail: charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org
Italo Vignoli (Italy)
Mobile: +39 348 5653829 – E-mail: italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org