Opening doors with OpenOffice.org

One of the more enduring buzz-phrases heard in recent years in technology circles, both beginner and advanced, is 'open source.' This refers, of course, to the public availability of a program's source code for modification and improvement. It often results in progressive generations of free software - signifying freedom, as in 'free speech' rather than 'free beer,' although many developers also request and require no remuneration for using their applications. Programmers who thrill in tinkering with and improving applications, utilities, and Linux - the poster child for open source's usefulness and power - have long been passionate about this freedom and about winning people over to the open-source community. That said, most Windows and Macintosh users have had little reason to care, no matter how free the software is. Thanks to OpenOffice.org, however, they might soon have a good reason to start.