OpenOffice.org 3 Hits Beta Testing

From the 'newer, better, faster' files:

After what seemed like an eternity (to me at least) OpenOffice.org 3.0 (OOo) is now finally in full Beta testing. Hurray!

There are a lot of things to like about OOo 3, but on the surface it just 'looks better' with new icons. It also supports importing Microsoft's Office 2007 XML formats as well as OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 standard. OOo's solid marketing team has listed a full list of new features in a nice high level document.

OOo will also be the first OOo release to be distributed under the LGPLv3 open source license.

OOo overall though has made some significant strides lately in smaller point releases. The OOo 2.4 release last month added a nice bunch of new charting improvements.