Meteoric Growth of LibreOffice on Display
The LibreOffice Conference is in full swing in Berlin and announcements are coming out already. All of the early announcements have one main theme in common: LibreOffice is experiencing amazing growth, both in development and adoption. One particular new adoption has the project breaking out the champagne and confetti.
Sometimes you can almost hear the excitement emanating from these announcements. The whole project appears to the outside world to be a well oiled machine run by a bunch of happy warriors. Perhaps this is why the growth of LibreOffice since its fork has surpassed just about everyone's expectations. Could anyone have predicted in less than two years LibreOffice would in use by 60 millions people worldwide?
Florian Effenberger is quoted as saying, "As of today, LibreOffice is being used by close to 60 million people. It is the standard free office suite on all major platforms, available in over 100 languages. Large cities and organizations are deploying it very successfully, more and more schools and universities are rolling it out, and there's not a single month where it is not covered by major media around the globe."
One of these roll-outs was the subject of the second announcement today. "The Document Foundation announces that the German city of Munich is migrating to LibreOffice, following a growing trend of migrations and adoptions worldwide." Apparently, Munich has been one of the brass rings for which many office suites vie and now LibreOffice can claim the prize. But it's not the only one.
Other high profile examples are given.
Just before the city of Munich, a similar announcement was made by the French Prime Minister, who mentioned LibreOffice as a pillar in the overall migration of free software of all government bodies. MimO, the technology group taking care of the migration project, has already certified LibreOffice as the free office suite of choice.
Others include Chicago Public Library, Hospitals of Copenhagen, Regione Umbria of Bolzano, Las Palmas in Spain, City of Limerick, Municipality of Pilea Hortiatis in Greece, and City of Largo in Florida.
It's been an exciting two years for those involved in and who use LibreOffice. Italo Vignoli said, "I have traveled the world to speak at free software conferences about the project, and I have met hundreds of people who recognize in LibreOffice the legitimate heir of OpenOffice. Today, the numbers we are releasing show that also governments and enterprises share this perception."