[dot] KOfficeSource: a KOffice Consultancy Company

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URL: http://dot.kde.org/1199838571/

From: Jonathan Riddell <>
Dept: help-at-hand
Date: Tuesday 08/Jan/2008, @16:29

KOfficeSource: a KOffice Consultancy Company
============================================

   Announcing itself today is KOfficeSource GmbH
[http://www.kofficesource.com/], a company that will sell services
around KOffice.  The founders comprise a small group of members of the
developer community, as well as outside talent.  They share an interest
in furthering KOffice by supporting it commercially in addition to the
non-commercial support that can be found on the mailing lists and IRC. 
As the name suggests it has been created in Germany but will operate
across Europe and further afield.

     "The founding of KOfficeSource GmbH shows the commercial potential
of the KOffice suite.", said Sebastian Kügler, KDE e.V. director. "It is
great to see a company spinning off the KDE Community. Combining the
commercial experience in the field with excellent connections in the
community seems to be a recipe for success. And success is also what we
wholeheartedly wish to the founders of KOfficeSource.

     Kügler continues: With the upcoming release of KOffice 2 later this
year, this makes for a new contender in the office market space which no
doubt will be beneficial for institutional, commercial and home users
alike."

     The founders of KOfficeSource GmbH are:

    * Tobias Hintze:   CEO (Geschäftsführer)
    * Boudewijn Rempt: maintainer of Krita
    * Inge Wallin:     marketing coordinator and maintainer of KChart
    * Kalle Mattias Dalheimer: KDE founder and owner of Klarälvdalens
      datakonsult.

     From the announcement:
 [
http://www.kofficesource.com/announcements/community-announcement.txt]


                              WHAT IS IT?

     From the start, KOfficeSource GmbH will function as a pure services
company.  We will offer professional services around KOffice such as:

    * Customising, e.g. by adding features or creating new GUIs.
    * Integration into workflow systems or other products.
    * Training for users, system administrators and programmers.
    * Packaging

     Since KOfficeSource does not own any copyright to the code, we can
not and do not want to steer the development in any particular
direction. We will work with the community, basing our services on what
the developers are already producing

     Sometimes we will create new features, new modules or maybe even
new components for KOffice.  We will then offer the new features to the
community to accept into KOffice or decline as it sees fit.  We will
work with the current developer community as closely as possible when
developing new code. This means that we will work in the existing
Subversion repository, under the existing licensing rules and the
existing governance customs.



                    WHAT WILL THIS MEAN FOR KOFFICE?

     In the long run, we think the mere existence of a company like this
will make KOffice more interesting for other companies to deploy.  It
gives KOffice yet another piece in the Whole Product
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Product] puzzle.  If KOffice will
ever be able to challenge OpenOffice or the proprietary competition, we
will need all of these pieces and more. This is the first step in that
direction.

     On a shorter time scale it will probably not mean much at all.  We
do not expect to become very active until KOffice 2.0 is out, maybe even
2.1. We do not have any large funds at this time that we could use to
sponsor any development.  We will offer our services when the chances
arrive and in time we will be more active.



            WHAT WILL THIS MEAN FOR THE DEVELOPER COMMUNITY?

     Probably nothing, right now. The developers involved in this
company will hack on as usual, In the longer run, over a few years, we
might be able to hire developers part or full time. We have great hopes,
but they will take time to become real.



                            MORE INFORMATION

     You can read more on our website [http://www.kofficesource.com/].