OpenOffice.org Offers Cash Prizes to Boost Innovation

OpenOffice.org is looking for great ideas for enhancing its free software alternative to Microsoft Office, and thanks to sponsorship from Sun Microsystems, it's got generous cash prizes on offer.

Edinburgh, Scotland (PRWEB) January 31, 2008 -- The OpenOffice.org Community, home of the leading free software alternative to Microsoft Office, today announced details of a major new initiative. The OpenOffice.org Community Innovation Program is a contest open to all Community members, designed to foster community development and innovation. There are six broad categories for entries: Technical, Community, Tools, OpenDocument Format (ODF), Documentation and Special.

Community Manager Louis Suarez-Potts described the scheme to potential entrants: "What are we looking for? In general terms, we are looking for superlative work that is useful to the Community; work that is challenging, that is non-trivial, and that furthers the Community as much as the software. You can enter alone or in a team; and if you are eligible, you could win a lot of money."

It is expected that the contest will generate keen interest among current Community members, and bring a surge of new members to the Community. The Community welcomes software engineers, testers, translators, authors, support people, artists, marketing people - "whatever you do well, do it for OpenOffice.org" - see website (http://contribute.openoffice.org)

Full details are available here (http://development.openoffice.org/community_innovation_program.html). The contest has been backed by $175,000 of prize money from Sun Microsystems - part of a $1m investment in open-source community development announced last December (http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/awards).

About OpenOffice.org:

The OpenOffice.org Community (http://marketing.openoffice.org/press_kit.html) is an international team of volunteer and sponsored contributors who develop, support, and promote the leading open-source office productivity suite, OpenOffice.org®. OpenOffice.org's leading edge software technology (UNO) is also available for developers, systems integrators, etc to use in OpenOffice.org extensions or in their own applications.

OpenOffice.org supports the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) OASIS Standard (ISO/IEC 26300) as well as legacy file formats such as Microsoft Office and is available on major computing platforms in over 70 languages. OpenOffice.org software is provided under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL) and may be used free of charge for any purpose, private or commercial.

The OpenOffice.org Community acknowledges generous sponsorship from a number of companies, including Sun Microsystems, the founding sponsor and primary contributor.

Press Contacts:

Louis Suarez-Potts (UTC -5h00)

OpenOffice.org Community Manager

Chair, Community Council

louis @ openoffice.org

+1 (416) 625 3843 (mobile)

+1 (416) 531-9513 (landline)

John McCreesh (UTC +0h00)

OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead

Member, Community Council

jpmcc @ openoffice.org

+44 (0)7 810 278 540

Florian Effenberger (UTC +01h00)

OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Co-Lead

email floeff @ openoffice.org

+49 8341 99660880 (landline)

+49 151 14424108 (mobile)

Worldwide Marketing Contacts (http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html)

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