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For our part, Apache OpenOffice recognizes the need for more interaction with the Linux community and we will continue our communication with a number of distributions to make finding OpenOffice in distribution repositories a reality. Currently, we feel utilizing "community" repositories, rather than the formal repositories for distributions, in the best way to achieve this goal in the short term.
Comment: If some people want to collaborate bringing Apache OpenOffice to Debian I will help to do so. I myself have not enough experience to do it, esp. in compiling. (Mechtilde).
Information on creating an Apache OpenOffice package for some Linux distributions
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