Getting Started Guide

What is “open source”?
The four essential rights of open-source software are embodied within the Free
Software Foundation’s General Public License (GPL):
• The right to use the software for any purpose.
• Freedom to redistribute the software for free or for a fee.
• Access to the complete source code of the program (that is, the “blueprints”).
• The right to modify any part of the source, or use portions of it in other
programs.
The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read,
redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves.
People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs.
For more information on Free and Open Source software, visit these websites:
Open Source Initiative (OSI): http://www.opensource.org
Free Software Foundation (FSF): http://www.gnu.org
What are “open standards”?
An open standard provides a means of doing something that is independent of
manufacturer or vendor, thus enabling competing software programs to freely use
the same file formats. HTML, XML, and ODF are examples of open standards for
documents.
An open standard meets the following requirements:
• It is well documented with the complete specification publically available,
either free or at a nominal charge.
• It can be freely copied, distributed and used. The intellectual property of the
standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
• It is standardized and maintained in an independent, open forum (also called
"standards organization") using an open process.
What is OpenDocument?
OpenDocument (ODF) is an XML-based file format for office documents (text
documents, spreadsheets, drawings, presentations and more), developed at OASIS
(http://www.oasis-open.org/who/), an independent, international standards group.
Unlike other file formats, ODF is an open standard. It is publicly available, royalty-
free, and without legal or other restrictions; therefore ODF files are not tied to a
specific office suite and anybody can build a program that interprets these files. For
this reason ODF is quickly becoming the preferred file format for government
agencies, schools and other companies who prefer not to be too dependent on a
particular software supplier.
OpenOffice.org by default saves documents in Open Document Format.
OpenOffice.org 3 has adopted version 1.2 of the OpenDocument standard. OOo can
also open and save many other file formats; see “File formats OOo can open” on page
367, “File formats OOo can save to” on page 369, and “Exporting to other formats”
on page 370.
Appendix B Open Source, Open Standards, OpenDocument 365