[tdf-announce] The Document Foundation announces the results of the Android Tender

Berlin, January 27, 2015 - Following the successful release of the
LibreOffice Viewer (Beta), The Document Foundation announces the results
of the Android tender - http://tdf.io/tender - today. The tender aims at
developing the technical framework that will ultimately power
LibreOffice for Android, including the document editor. This tender is
one more step towards a compelling, elegant and full-featured experience
of LibreOffice on Android.

"We have received a large number of requests for LibreOffice on Android,
but at the same time we have realized that without a solid base
framework it would have been extremely difficult for the ecosystem to
develop a full fledged application for that platform," comments Thorsten
Behrens, TDF Chairman. "With the other members of the BoD, we have then
decided to use a portion of the money coming from donations to fund the
development of such a framework. This represents an innovative way to
spend donations money, and respects the will of the people who have
donated to fund an Android application. We invite our happy users to
keep on their support with donations."

To confirm the interest for LibreOffice on Android, the Viewer -
although still a Beta - has already been downloaded by tens of thousands
of users in just a week, and reviewed by hundreds of websites.

Three work packages, out of the four included in the tender, have been
assigned as follows: (1) infrastructure and (2) selections to Collabora,
(4) cloud storage and e-mail to Igalia [details of the work packages are
available on the tender page]. Results are expected during the month of
March 2015.

"The tender process has been a completely new experience for the Board
of Directors and for myself", says Florian Effenberger, Executive
Director of The Document Foundation. "The most challenging part has been
to create the format of the tender according to the principles set in
our statutes, to set an even ground of competition for all the
participants. Once again, we have set a new ground for free software
foundations, by investing in the development of a framework, to foster
the development of a full fledged LibreOffice for Android. I would like
to take this opportunity to thank all the companies who have sent their
proposals, including those who have not been selected."

The Document Foundation will be making the work available as a series of
Beta builds over time which will incrementally add more powerful editing
capabilities. Users are encouraged to download and play with the
application, and provide their feedback to help improve the quality of
the software.

The Document Foundation is grateful to all donors for their ongoing
support of the project, through the donations page at:
http://donate.libreoffice.org.

Short link to blog post: http://wp.me/p1byPE-x2.

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