KOfficeSource GmbH ================== We are proud to announce the existence of KOfficeSource GmbH, a company that will sell services around KOffice. As the name suggests it is created in Germany. The founders comprise a small group of members of the developer community, as well as outside talent. What we share is an interest furthering KOffice by supporting it commercially in addition to the non-commercial support that can be found on the mailing lists and IRC. The founders are: * Tobias Hintze: CEO (Geschäftsführer) * Boudewijn Rempt: maintainer of Krita * Inge Wallin: marketing dude and maintainer of KChart * Kalle Mattias Dalheimer: KDE founder and owner of Klarälvdalens datakonsult. What is it? ----------- From the start, KOfficeSource GmbH will function as a pure services company. We will offer professional services around KOffice such as: - Customizing, 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 SVN repository, under the existing licensing rules and the existing governance customs, of course after receiving OK to do this. 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 puzzle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Product). If KOffice will ever be able to challenge OO.o, 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 don't 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, even if it is rather rudimentary so far: http://www.kofficesource.com/