Last Straw

OpenOffice.org 2.0, a replacement for Microsoft Office, was released today. You can download and use it right away, for free!

It opens Word and Excel files et cetera, and not only is it free, but it also features an open document format, meaning you’ll never again be forced to pay some fat pig corporation like Microsoft for the privilege of opening your own documents (or have to ferret around the internet searching for a pirated copy of their software).

The reason it’s free is because it’s open source, which means the computer code used to create it is licenced in such a way that anybody can use and alter it, as long as their alterations and improvements are then licenced in the same way. And lots of people do it, many coders love writing software this way. It’s part of an open and particpatory culture that has been emerging along with the internet over the years. A heap of software is created in this way, OpenOffice just happens to be one of the most high profile because it directly challenges Microsoft’s cash cow, Microsoft Office. Heh.