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   Regendans (regendans@todon.eu)'s status on Friday, 19-Dec-2025 04:16:48 JST Regendans

   TIL why Sun Microsystems (Bill Joy and all) bought an office suite company in 1999. 🤨

   "In August 1999, Star Division was acquired by Sun Microsystems[81][82] for US$59.5 million (equivalent to US$112 million in 2024), reportedly because the acquisition was less expensive than licensing Microsoft Office for Sun's 42,000 employees.[83][84]"

   😄

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#History

   And that's how eventually LibreOffice became available for many. 😇

   #SunMicrosystems #staroffice #openoffice #libreoffice

   • Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: likes this.
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     Henrik Hemrin (hehemrin@mastodon.nu)'s status on Saturday, 20-Dec-2025 08:16:37 JST Henrik Hemrin

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     @gemlog @tbn97 @regendans
     I remember when Sun acquired StarOffice. In my memory, which may be incorrect, it was said they wanted to offer for free an alternative to Microsoft office. I think I started to use it as free Sun StarOffice personally, before the free version became OpenOffice. At some point as I recall StarOffice became a paid version because it included some additions that were non-free, I think graphical objects, that OpenOffice did not have, maybe also some support.