EOS: Government agencies seem to be increasingly avid adapters of open-source products, no doubt at least partially due to lower costs. And I see that two governments (Massachusetts and Vienna) are listed in the OpenOffice 2.0 press release as enthusiastic users. But will OO also be popular in the business world, both at the Fortune 2000 level and in SMB markets as well? What advantages besides cost does OO in particular and open source in general offer to business users?

John: Governments and SMEs are both target markets for OpenOffice.org. For public administrations, OpenOffice.org offers a unique value proposition based on openness, standards compliance, value for money, future-proofing, and accessibility. For SMEs, OpenOffice.org offers a cost-effective office productivity suite that just does the job without worrying about retraining, compatibility, viruses, enforced upgrades, and licensing.

Although OpenOffice.org 2 is a perfectly acceptable solution for large corporates, we would expect them to be more attracted to Sun's StarOffice, which is based on the same code, but with the full package of commercial support offerings typically demanded by corporate users.

EOS: In the "what have you done for me lately" category, what are your plans for future releases? How long will 2.0 be the quintessential Open Office version?

John: We believe that our community development process has been proven in the move from versions 1 to 2. We have shown our ability to develop the features that matter to users in a process that guarantees high quality - in an industry better known for bugs than for stability. We have shown our ability to innovate - OpenOffice.org 2 is the first office productivity suite to fully support OpenDocument files. We're well on track to exceed our goal of over 40% by 2010.

Louis: Indeed. I'd raise one more point. OOo 2.0 is massively usable and interoperable. But even before 2.0, at least 49 M people had downloaded the application. In six months' time, I'd expect that we'll see tens and tens of millions using OOo; and governments throughout the world mandating that their files, their nation's intellectual property, be archived using OpenDocument.