The Document Foundation, which oversees the development of the free LibreOffice package, about upcoming changes related to the branding and positioning of the project in the market. The expected release of LibreOffice 7.0 in early August is currently available for testing in the form of release candidates, and they plan to distribute it as 'LibreOffice Personal Edition'. The code and distribution conditions will remain the same, and the office suite will continue to be available for free and without exception, including for corporate users.
The addition of the 'Personal Edition' label is aimed at simplifying the promotion of additional commercial editions that may be offered by third-party providers. The essence of the initiative is to separate the current free LibreOffice, supported by the community, from the enterprise products and additional services that can be offered by third parties. Ultimately, the goal is to shape an ecosystem of providers offering commercial support services and LTS releases for companies in need of such services. Commercial products will be supplied under the 'LibreOffice Enterprise' line and offered on separate websites libreoffice.biz and libreoffice-ecosystem.biz.
The proposal to use the 'Personal Edition' label was preliminarily approved during the discussion for the next five years. This label was added in the recently released candidate for the LibreOffice 7.0 and caused confusion within the community. To dispel any possible misconceptions, the governing board issued a statement assuring that LibreOffice will always remain a free product with open source code, an unchanged license, and the ability to use all available functionality. The rebranding changes are only related to the marketing promotion of the project. The final decision has not yet been approved and is still in draft form, with suggestions for improvement being accepted on the '«.
Allikas: opennet.ru
