So, after weeks of speculation, it’s finally public – Oracle are buying Sun Microsystems. About six months ago the rumours started in earnest that Sun was going to be sold to one or more of EMC, IBM, HP, Fujitsu… By March, the hot bet was that IBM was going to buy Sun for USD 6.5bn. Then it was HP and Oracle who were going to buy Sun jointly for USD 2bn and carve up the company between them. Then IBM was said to be stepping in with a spoiler deal, offering just under USD 7bn.

So, what does this mean for OpenOffice.org? Sun Microsystems started the OpenOffice.org project in 2000, and nine years later are still the principle sponsor, providing developers to work on the project, paying for our web infrastructure, providing administrative support, and lots more besides. This has led to sporadic sniping that Sun ‘owns’ the project – mostly from commercial competitors who would be quite happy to ‘own’ the project themselves, but showed no signs of being prepared to match Sun’s contribution.

Within the project, opinion has been mixed. At every OOoCon I have attended there have been debates on the conference floor, in meeting rooms, or in bars about the pros and cons of having an OpenOffice.org Foundation – an independent legal entity to own the trademarks and have joint copyright of the code, with its own finance and governance. Philosophically, I am bound to agree that this feels the ‘right’ model for an open-source community.

Whatever happens, 2009 looks like being an interesting year for OpenOffice.org.

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