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Introduction

Along with an email client and a web browser, an office suite is a core essential application that almost every computer user requires. Although there is a dominant commercial product in this category, its price, along with its closed-source nature, makes it an unsatisfactory option for many. Apache OpenOffice®, for over two decades, has helped fill this gap. Our goal is to develop, publish, and support OpenOffice free for anyone to use, and since it is open source, free for anyone to build upon.

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More than 70% of the world population are poor or have a low income. For many, software is  is a luxury good. End-user facing open-source software, like Apache OpenOffice, bring high-quality software to those who would otherwise have no other options.

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There are over 6,000 languages in the world, but unless the language is associated with a G20 economic superpower, commercial vendors tend to ignore it. The OpenOffice community has a long-standing tradition of supporting numerous languages, including ones used by smaller populations, minority languages and endangered languages.   By supporting these languages that would not otherwise be supported, we help reduce “digital exclusion” and promote development, local education and administration. It is difficult to keep the translation up-to-date for all languages, but with enough volunteers, we can reach this goal.

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