

It continues these days as a project of the non-profit Apache Software Foundation.

Subsequently the project continued with help from Sun employees and volunteers. In 1999, Sun Microsystems, a highly respected hardware and software company, acquired StarOffice suite, and in 2000 open-sourced it, making it available as freeware, under the name, presumably as a rebuke to Microsoft. It began life in 1985 in Germany, and became an office suite called StarOffice that was used on computers including Zilog, Amstrad, and Commodore 64. While Open Office is freeware at the present time, it has a strong pedigree.
