[plug] explanation of free software, OOo in particular

[Gregory Orange]

Hi all,

My father-in-law is interested in quality software. He can't quite cope 
with the change to a Linux install just yet (altho I'll be putting 
Ubuntu[1] on his second computer relatively soon), but he sees the value 
in considering alternative software to what came prebundled with his 
machine. Specifically he's using Thunderbird and Firefox.
Now, with the grief that various versions of MS Office have caused him, 
I think OpenOffice would be a big step forward for him. He's interested, 
and now I just need to sell him on it. Ok, on to my point...

He's asking questions about free software, freeware, open source 
software, "Who Writes this Open Office?", etc - all quite valid 
questions which I can answer usefully, but not succinctly. Can anyone 
point me in the direction of a nicely written article or page on the topic?
I've found heaps, but they're white papers, full definitions, discussion 
papers about the various types of licences, etc. How about one simply on 
who writes Open Office (some description of 'the community') and how it 
relates to Star Office and Sun and the rest. Even a touch of history. 
I'm not asking much, am I (: Altho I reckon something's buried in the 
OOo website or metasites somewhere... just finding it.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html was helpful, but really 
just for the picture at the top!
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html is good too - I'll send that 
to him.
http://about.openoffice.org/index.html - ugh, where to begin?! There's 
so much there.

TIA,
Greg.

[1] Or some other distro if someone wants to try and convince me that 
it's a better idea

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