The recognition by the state of Berlin of The Document Foundation will be a boost to the use by public administrations of LibreOffice, a free and open source suite of office productivity tools, expects Florian Effenberger, chairman of the new foundation.
The Document Foundation was approved by the state of Berlin on 17 February. It was registered in Berlin by the community involved with LibreOffice, previously organised as OpenOffice.org. The world-wide group considered starting the foundation in either England, France or Germany. The latter country's laws provide the best long-term protection of the foundation's objectives, explains Effenberger. "The law protects is so well, that the foundation cannot, for example, drop its primary focus, free office software, or decide to make it a for-profit organisation."
In Germany, creating a foundation involves a legal check by a state administration, and the LibreOffice community sought advise in three of the countries' sixteen states; Bavaria, Hesse and Berlin. The first two had concerns with recognising a foundation with the unusual requirements for a membership element: new members need to have contributed to the development of LibreOffice for at least three months, and commit to continue supporting it for at least six more months. "We also started out with more than 140 members from all over the world, and all three states thought that was unusual too."
After explaining the foundations' aims and rules to all three states, the group settled in Berlin. "It was the most open to our approach."
Effenberger expects that over time, the presence of the foundation in Berlin will make a difference for this state's use of this type of software. "It will make more public administrators aware that they can foster open standards and free and open source."
More information:
The Document Foundation
Heise news item (in German)