Foreword

Over the last decade, open source has continued its meteoric ride to the top; with Web servers like Apache and operating systems like Linux and BSD Unix, open source's development and continued growth has profoundly impacted the software marketplace.

For years, Microsoft Office has been the undisputed champion of the "productivity" suite. But recently, some critics have accused it of being bloated and overly complexnot to mention expensive! Sun's acquisition of StarOffice, and its subsequent release as OpenOffice.org, was met with derision from some pundits, who said going up against Microsoft Office was a fool's game.

Yet, look where we are now: OpenOffice.org has reached the point where the development and user communities are growing by leaps and bounds. And recent efforts by corporations, institutions, and other groups to find ways to get their work done without having to pay more software licensing fees have given OpenOffice.org the opening it needs to really take off.

Robin's book comes at the perfect time. With the extremely popular 2.0 release, more people will discover OpenOffice.org's incredible value. A book like Robin's is important because it helps people master the OpenOffice.org tools they need to get things done. And that's ultimately what software should be aboutthe tools to get things done. OpenOffice.org is one of the best tools around for the business of doing businessand it is ready, willing, and able to work for you.

Jeffrey Bates

VP Editorial Operations, Co-Founder Slashdot.org