OpenOffice.org would be interested in several of the adjustments that IBM has made to the application, according to Suarez-Potts.

Big Blue has tackled some long standing issues by increasing performance, reducing the size of the code base and increasing its ease of use for corporate users. "The code that IBM has created seems pretty cool," said Suarez-Potts.

Bob Sutor, vice president of standards and open source at IBM, told vnunet.com in an email that the company is open to discussing the OpenOffice situation.

"If OpenOffice did become independent we would be interested in talking to Sun about it, but it's not holding us back in any way," he wrote.

Sutor added that IBM supports the Open Document Format (ODF) in several of its products. OpenOffice uses the same format, which ensures that an ODF document can be opened and edited in any ODF-supporting application.

Sun has not responded to numerous requests for information. The company looked into the creation of a separate foundation last year, but Suarez-Potts claimed that the idea has been mothballed.

Suarez-Potts stressed that he is not currently pushing Sun to relinquish control, and that he would pursue the matter only if it has a clear advantage such as code contributions from IBM.

"If IBM expresses strong interest in the idea, and we can maintain the costs, then we should pursue it," he said.