The Document Foundation has announced the first members of its Advisory Board: Google, SUSE, Red Hat, Freies Office Deutschland e.V., Software in the Public Interest, and the Free Software Foundation. The new appointees will serve for an initial term of one year.

The body represents The Document Foundation's sponsors, with each sponsor having the right to one representative. They will provide the future Board of Directors with advice, guidance and proposals, and will consult regularly on the further development of the Foundation and its associated projects.

"We're very proud, and warmly welcome the first members of the Advisory Board. Its composition shows that LibreOffice is a vendor-neutral, truly-free office suite, and confirms that The Document Foundation has created a solid base to build upon, for the community, for corporations and enterprises, and for adopters and end-users," said Florian Effenberger on behalf of The Document Foundation's Steering Committee.

Jeremy Allison, co-founder of Samba and member of Google's Open Source Programs Office, added, "The creation of The Document Foundation's Advisory board is a great step forward for the organization. Google is pleased to be a supporter of The Document Foundation, and to provide funding and advice to advance their work."

John Sullivan, Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation, concluded, "The Free Software Foundation is pleased to offer its advise to The Document Foundation. We applaud TDF's demonstrated commitment to user freedom, and will do our best to help it achieve its free software goals going forward."