OpenOffice.org, the Free Competitor to Microsoft Office, Celebrates International Mother Language Day

OpenOffice.org celebrates its success in supporting digitally endangered languages on UNESCO's International Mother Language Day.

Edinburgh, UK (PRWeb) February 21, 2007 -- The OpenOffice.org Community encourages you to join in UNESCO's celebration of February 21 as International Mother Language Day. Since 1999, UNESCO has been using February 21st to celebrate the many and diverse languages on this planet, over half of which are under threat. In 2006, UNESCO officially recognised the way in which computing was making the situation worse, and called for a year of "languages and cyberspace". If people cannot use computers in their mother language, they suffer digital exclusion; their language becomes devalued; and the language itself becomes digitally endangered.



The OpenOffice.org Community are proud of their work to support digitally endangered languages. With the help mostly of local volunteers, the OpenOffice.org Native Language Confederation have provided translations and support for the OpenOffice.org office software in over eighty languages. Since the last International Mother Language Day alone, eleven new projects have started.

Thanks to this work, speakers of all these languages can now use the essential office software tools (word processor, spreadsheet, graphics, database, etc.) in their own mother language, entirely free of charge. OpenOffice.org actively encourages members of other languages to start translation projects, providing guidance and support over the internet from an international network of enthusiasts.

OpenOffice.org software is available as a free download.

About OpenOffice.org
The OpenOffice.org Community is an international team of volunteer and sponsored contributors who develop, support, and promote the leading open-source office productivity suite, OpenOffice.org®. OpenOffice.org's leading edge software technology (UNO) is also available for developers, systems integrators, etc to use in OpenOffice.org extensions or in their own applications.

OpenOffice.org supports the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) OASIS Standard (ISO/IEC 26300) as well as legacy industry file formats, and is available on major computing platforms in over 80 languages. OpenOffice.org software is provided under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL) and may be used free of charge for any purpose, private or commercial.

The OpenOffice.org Community acknowledges generous sponsorship from a number of companies, including Sun Microsystems, the founding sponsor and primary contributor.

Press Contacts
Louis Suarez-Potts (UTC -05h00)
OpenOffice.org Community Manager
+1 (416) 625 3843

John McCreesh (UTC +0h00)
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead
+44 (0)7 810 278 540

Cristian Driga (UTC +0200)
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Co-Lead
+40 7887 000 60

Worldwide Marketing Contacts

Press Contact: John McCreesh
Company Name: OpenOffice.org
Email: email protected from spam bots
Phone: +44 (0)7 810 278 540
Website: http://www.openoffice.org/product

Press Release Source: EMediaWire