Thousands of donors contribute €50,000 in just eight days to The Document Foundation

floeff · February 25, 2011, 2:46pm

LibreOffice Community accomplishes next major milestone
Ongoing donations to support marketing, infrastructure and development

The Community around LibreOffice, the free personal productivity suite, has accomplished the next major milestone in establishing The Document Foundation as a legal entity. In just eight days, some 2,000 donors from all over the world contributed €50,000 for the capital stock necessary to set-up the legal entity in Germany.

"We still can't believe it," says Florian Effenberger, Steering Committee member. "It happened in such a short period of time and was beyond our wildest expectations. You all really rock! On behalf of the Community, the Steering Committee would like to thank all the donors for their generous support."

The €50,000 collected will form the Foundation's paid-up capital, ensuring a permanent future for the organization after the legal paperwork is complete, based in Germany. The capital will be frozen assets for the Foundation: the funds cannot be spent, and we will be able to avail just the annual interest. All money donated from now on will actually bankroll our ongoing running costs for things such as marketing, hardware, infrastructure, attending trade shows, initial financing of merchandising material and, of course, developing new and exciting ideas.

"So we still need your support: Every donation helps to pay for our future operational running," Effenberger adds.

Details on how to donate to The Document Foundation and how the money will be spent are available at http://challenge.documentfoundation.org

Information about LibreOffice can be found at http://www.libreoffice.org
The home of The Document Foundation is at http://www.documentfoundation.org

About The Document Foundation

The Document Foundation has the mission of facilitating the evolution of the LibreOffice community into a new, open, independent, and meritocratic organization over the next few months. An independent Foundation is a better reflection of the values of our contributors, users and supporters, and will enable a more effective, efficient and transparent community. TDF will protect past investments by building on the achievements of the first decade, will encourage wide participation within the community, and will co-ordinate activity across the community.

Media Contacts

Florian Effenberger (Germany)
Mobile: +49 151 14424108 - E-mail: floeff@documentfoundation.org
Olivier Hallot (Brazil)
Mobile: +55 21 88228812 - E-mail: olivier.hallot@documentfoundation.org
Charles H. Schulz (France)
Mobile: +33 6 98655424 - E-mail: charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org
Italo Vignoli (Italy)
Mobile: +39 348 5653829 - E-mail: italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org