Heavy drama in the open-source world of...
...Office Document Software.
Nextcloud, originally a fork of ownCloud, has launched Euro-Office, a fork of OnlyOffice (pissing off OnlyOffice). Collabora is weighing in and issuing comments against both OnlyOffice and Euro-Office while, itself, forking Collabora Office Desktop from the Document Foundation's LibreOffice. Document Foundation has now resumed LibreOffice Online which competes against Euro-Office and OnlyOffice.
(I think I've got all that right 😅 Correct me if I haven't! 😂)
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥 I unironically love this!!!! ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
Document software may appear boring on its face, but Microsoft Office is a big reason why folks still stay with Microsoft OS and don't (can't...) move to Linux. MS Office 365 is often used as a bridge to allow folks to move to Linux while still using Microsoft products in the browser but that solution still keeps them tied to closed source solutions.
Development of Free and Open Sourced Software (FOSS) office products, both desktop apps and online web apps, is a core and key element to allowing FOSS solutions to thrive - both for individuals and organizations.
This level of drama and fighting is indicative of a lot of effort and attention being thrown into this arena. I'm confident over time it'll settle and different projects will merge back together or at the very least borrow and build upon each's efforts.
Read and get your fill of the drama here: https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/02/eurooffice_forks_onlyoffice/
@tinker a true drama, I just wonder the motivation behind the fork while having an option to contribute.
@tinker They all are running up to be the preference platform for sovereign offfice application.
Just a subtle note: someone is using OOXML (which has origin in no open or documented standard), others at least have roots in ODF (which is open, documented, and ISO standard).
Who will get more credit, and how, is a matter of weight in the same American lobbyists. Prove me wrong and I'll be happier.
@tinker And Proton now, too! Theirs may be proprietary - I haven't been able to track down what it may have been forked from, at any rate.
@tinker for these of us who hadn’t followed it:
- where does OnlyOffice come from?
- what does Collabora do, and what’s their (now ex?) relationship to TDF?
- TDF are those who forked LibreOffice off OpenOffice? (which itself is StarOffice IIRC?)
- what is this "Online" version? where comes it from? any relationship other than the name to the version without it?
My point of knowledge is basically, there’s Lotus Smartsuite and Softmaker Office, and OOo is now LO in distros, and I had to suffer through Winword 97 during apprenticeship.
@Gina - Hahaha! I'll be the Andy Cohen of FOSS 😂
On this week's "Real Housespouses of FOSS" we find the dev teams of XFCE and LXQt battling it out over whose Linux desktop environment is really the lightest! Gnome developers weigh in on the need for features while KDE laughs in the corner maintaining that you can have both!
Will the FOSS families care? Will the closed sourced neighbors be convinced to even try?
@tinker 🤣 Your synopsis of the drama is fantastic! Please do keep us updated on developments in the Office Document Software space. 🍿
Aside: I'm rooting for LibreOffice, but man do they need to do something about the download and installation process for Mac. I cannot fathom why they think a torrent is the best option, especially when the Windows process is a typical UX.
Edited: grammar
@tarabara - See this is great - I'll get you and @RachelThornSub together to battle out the gossip of whether we should support LibreOffice or not!
The drama. The DRAMA!!!
@tinker @RachelThornSub FistyCuffs! 🥊
(Except I didn't know about what Rachel described so I'm in agreement there, no room for that garbage.)
@tarabara @RachelThornSub 💯 (I use and support LibreOffice a lot and would hope it would be easier to clamp down on that sort of mentality - which is not unique to LibreOffice but is absolutely their responsibility to address within their own projects)
@rickf @tinker correct. There are basically 3 alternatives to MS Office in the #opensource market atm:
1. Nextcloud based: think OpenDesk, Euro-Office, the Good Cloud, office.eu, IONOS and many others. Choice of Collabora or OnlyOffice. Some with Nextcloud Talk, others like Opendesk with OpenTalk.
2. LaSuite based: the French gov suite, via Mosa.cloud, lasuite.coop, Linagora and Openburo.eu as a collective. Self built, very lean apps.
3. Alternative offering: like Proton with their own suite.
@tinker I just hope OpenOffice.org doesn't join the call. 😂
@tinker You say that the Document Foundation has "resumed LibreOffice Online", can you find a single commit done to it since they "resumed", though?
@tinker
I have been using LibreOffice since they forked from OpenOffice and had no idea OnlyOffice was actually being used by anyone, no offense meant. I've never been impressed with Collabora and Nextcloud in general always had an off vibe and always looks like they are trying to do way too much at once. In short, I'm betting on LibreOffice with the online implementation to come out on top, but I look forward to the diversity of development that could come out of this. Then again, in real work environments where microshits online suite is already paid for or google docs are allowed, everyone I engage with still just emails documents or shares them on a cloud drive after making local edits, so maybe this is a fight over a solution still looking for a problem.
@mirabilos @tinker Smartsuite… hmm how does that relate to 1-2-3?
Mostly correct, but saying the Document Foundation "resumed" LibreOffice Online as kind of a "competitor" is a bit over the top.
Their announcement was much more defensive, along the lines of: "ok, since many of you really want something like that, you can continue working on it – we'll reopen the repository".
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/24/libreoffice-online-a-fresh-start/
@tautology @rickf @tinker i meant anything that offers a browser based office suite, aka files + text editor + videocalling or chat solution, email as bonus.
I'm sure there are many more than the ones I mentioned.
@tml - Not yet. Going solely off of this: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/24/libreoffice-online-a-fresh-start/ ( "resuming" also includes planning and organizational work - not just coding. But we'll see I guess).
@tuxwise - drama requires a bit over the top.
But yeah, you're absolutely correct. We'll see if it pans out.
@tautology @rickf @tinker I will say, it's getting super annoying to be approached weekly by companies that sell "THE sovereign office suite, fully EU, for only €€€ per year, etc" and it's literally just Nextcloud and Collabora.
@tinker @tarabara The post that sent me into a rage is this one:
https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/autofill-function-for-furigana-when-typing-in-japanese/48874
A "leader" on the forums couldn't be bothered to Read the Fucking Question, yet felt free to insult the OP and offer a useless "solution." When the OP very politely pointed out that gabix was not offering a solution to the question that was actually asked, gabix just ignored it on no doubt moved on to terrorize some other noob.
Indeed. As I said, and at the risk of being overly-cynical, it's all about the money. But deAmericanizing one's tech stack is a sound plan, regardless. #resiliency #autonomy #privacy
@rickf @tautology @tinker true, and don't get me wrong, we love Nextcloud <3. What I'm less impressed by is businesses selling NC as their own amazing invention.
@tinker forking frenzy is a great headline 😁🤩
@tinker I've recently (a few weeks) started using LibreOffice. It seems OK so far ... in contrast to previous years when family members have tried its predecessors and found them useless at things like interoperability.
@RachelThornSub @tarabara - Yeah, thats trash. They need to reign that in.
@tinker Heavy drama… and somewhere an AI is quietly rewriting the whole doc in 2 seconds 🤖😂
@tinker While I wait I will continue using Softmaker Office NX 🙂
Oh, they even had their own "PowerPoint" — Lotus Freelance Graphics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Freelance_Graphics
I remember running into this software as a young kid, I had no idea what presentations are and I was like: "What is this?! Is it an image editor like PaintBrush? Even if it is, it's a very weird one!" 🤪
Only years later it all started making sense to me.
@m0xEE @tinker @zaphodb I have no idea, someone threw the CDs-with-booklet at Karneval instead of candy, and someone I knew picked up two and gave me one, so I used it for a bit, a few years after it was actually released; before that, MS Works 1.05 for DOS was as close to an “office suite” as I ever got…
The devs from onlyoffice went down a dark path a while ago by trying to stop people from self Hosting without paying for support. I also gave up on onlyoffice due to the infamous document deletion bug when syncing back to NC.
However the useability of onlyoffice vs collabora was always better. If NC pulls this off and fix thw bugs, then we finally have a proper FOSS alternative.
@tinker That's called competition - a concept totally unknown to the MS Office universe.
@tinker before falling into open source ocean I only knew one fork 🍴. 😅
Shared competition.
They all produce documents that can be opened by each other. Monopolizing in the opposite of FOSS. Consider the Foss response to Windows.
There are more distributions of linux than there are users of linux.
This is a good thing. Lock-in, monopoly, walled garden, are flaws. All are attempted control, are hidden, are intrinsically for "someone other than you"
It means anyone with knowledge is able to assist. That is economic freedom designed into FOSS.
I just hope LibreOffice wins as much as I liked BluRay to win, can Sony put it on the next Playstation? That may help. We all know Betamax should have won but it didn't, don't let LibreOffice get Betamaxed.
@Gina @tautology @rickf @tinker With FOSS it often seems if you look away for a bit they will have doubled when you look back again ^^
@tinker
The part you missed is that The Document Foundation kicked out the entire Collabora team, including seven of the top 10 contributors to LibreOffice. Before that happened, Collabora was doing nothing of the sort.
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@artfulmodder - I would not be surprised if that was intentional... and I really don't want to go through the hassle of confirming it 😬
@tinker I read a couple of blog posts from OnlyOffice and found them quite entertaining.
Basically they say that Euro Office MUST keep the OnlyOffice branding and logos. But those brands are basically trademarks, hence Euro Office would be in a violation of said marks in the latter case.
Moreover, having unofficial forks with the original branding could lead to confusion.
I mean, there is a reason why Linux Mint does NOT use Ubuntu’s trademarks.
@tinker
One element that's interesting is that OnlyOffice is licensed using the AGPL which includes a "can't remove the branding" section long with saying nobody has permission to use their branding as if that's somehow a judo throw to prevent any forks. And that's why they're mad.
@bigolewannabe Which means I can't call my OnlyOffice fork "Sucks". I have to name it "OnlyOffice Sucks"
OK, what's the best free Git hosting now that Github has gone over to the dark side?
I love Codeberg, however the absence of a GUI to sync a fork is quite show-stopping:
– since I no longer attempt to remember Git stuff.
Not in that tree, as far as I can tell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyOffice
Via Onlyoffice version 7.2 released, download for free • The Register (2022):
@bardmoss@autistics.life said in Heavy drama in the open-source world of...:
The part you missed
It's in Liam Proven's article, which the opening post encourages us to read.
@tinker competition is good. Also, the adversary comments means the developers do not understand open source: the system is working as it should, and in open source collaboration is the best way to keep your stronghold.