6 ms·

LibreOffice blasts OnlyOffice for working with Microsoft to lock users in

145 points by XzetaU8 8mo ago

zenon_paradox 8mo ago
[flagged]
Flavius 8mo ago
The 'fake open-source' debate is interesting, but OnlyOffice is still the best free alternative for anyone coming from MS Office. LibreOffice has a great mission, but their UI feels dated and the formatting issues with DOCX/XLSX files are still a deal-breaker for me.
- xvilka 8mo ago
  LibreOffice constantly works on improving the import of the DOC/DOCX/XLS/XLSX/etc formats, thus if something doesn't work for you, it's better to file a bug in their bugtracker[1]. [1] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=gui...
  - cyber_kinetist 8mo ago
    The site is making ordinary users (other than developers) shy away from submitting bug reports. Come on, you need to make a whole account in Bugzilla for you to report bugs? The best thing would be to have a "Report bug" window directly in the program that lets the user send complaints without hazzle!
    - user205738 8mo ago
      Creating an account on bugzilla is much easier than on the same github, and it is also used in many projects, so registration makes sense.
    - lmz 8mo ago
      The best thing for users maybe. A special kind of hell for the people investigating. And since there are numerous non paying users vs only so many people who have the skills to fix things...
      - nickserv 8mo ago
        It's incredibly useful to know what problems your users are facing. It doesn't necessarily mean fixing any one particular bug, rather should help prioritize future work.
      - mikkupikku 8mo ago
        Of course the developers only want to interact with other developers, never those stinky users who don't even know the proper technical jargon for the bugs they're finding. But that doesn't mean we should pander to developer wishes.
        lmz 8mo ago
        I'm sure if the "stinky users" have a support contract then someone will be happy to look at any kind of report and try to triage or reproduce. Otherwise the least they can do is figure out Bugzilla signup.
        mikkupikku 8mo ago
        > I'm sure if the "stinky users" have a support contract then someone will be happy to look at any kind of report I'm sure you know that's not true. I'm sure you know that developers hate taking bug reports from users even when those users have support contracts.
        lmz 8mo ago
        The case being discussed here is LibreOffice. Yes in general that is also true, but non paying users don't contribute anything. If they paid at least there's an expectation of fixes. Or at least the money can be used to hire a separate support team.
    - braiamp 8mo ago
      Interesting that this is a take, because MS Office (and all MS products) don't include such button.
      - jodrellblank 8mo ago
        a) Yes they do: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-give-feedback-on-microsoft-365-2b102d44-b43f-4dd2-9ff4-23cf144cfb11 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-give-fee... https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-use-the-feedback-tool-in-microsoft-office/ https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-use-the-feedback-tool-in-micr... b) they have automated crash report and usage telemetry to tell them what isn’t working
- stop50 8mo ago
  Openoffice had afaik not an big change in years and Libreoffice had quite a lot of changes that improved Msoffice support.
  - ZiiS 8mo ago
    I also missread Only as Open
- 2b3a51 8mo ago
  "...their UI feels dated" How do you define dated in this context? Personally, I quite like being able to use the CUA keyboard shortcuts to access menu items. I like consistency over decades but I appreciate that there are other ways of looking at this.
  - Flavius 8mo ago
    Take a look at these screenshots: https://libreoffice.en.uptodown.com/mac https://libreoffice.en.uptodown.com/mac It looks ancient, worse than office apps from 20 years ago.
    - barnabee 8mo ago
      Office apps from 20 years ago looked better than office apps now.
      - blackhaz 8mo ago
        And from 32 years ago as well - MS Office 4.0 as an example.
    - slyfox125 8mo ago
      It looks great using Plasma. If the comparison and "problem" is the lack of a "ribbon" menu, etc., then you are missing the whole point of Office alternatives: they are free, open source, but most importantly, they are usable. That is, they do not eschew usability and function for the sake of change, pure aesthetics, or a company's latest foray into some new gimmick. Ultimately, the "classic" approach taken is because many users feel that the classic style is more usable and makes them more productive irrespective of their learned habits of the past 20-30 years.
      - mft_ 8mo ago
        It looks awful and undiscoverable on a standard Mint/Cinnamon install. Anyway, the point is surely that if LibreOffice really wants to attract users from Microsoft Office, then it should do everything possible to optimise that transition? Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement. Honestly, at this stage, thinking of Gimp, FreeCAD, LibreOffice, and Blender, it’s as though there’s a weird group psychology deliberately against offering even decent (let along best-in-class) UIs in the open source world. These are all apps with excellent fundamental underlying engines/tech which are handicapped hugely by their UI/UX. (Yes I know some of these have improved in recent years, but only after far longer without improvements.)
- Mikhail_K 8mo ago
  > their UI feels dated A big selling point for me. Needless reworking of familiar interfaces plagues MS Windows ecosystem and I'm glad LibreOffice is displaying healthy conservatism by not fixing what isn't broken.
- throwaway270925 8mo ago
  Also free and great at MSOffice file compatibility is FreeOffice from SoftMaker: https://www.freeoffice.com/ https://www.freeoffice.com/
- petepete 8mo ago
  Does Microsoft Office exist now? Looked like they've entirely rebranded it to Microsoft 365 Copilot App (according to office.com)
SebastianKra 8mo ago
Link to the actual source: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/16/why-odf-and-not-ooxml/ https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/16/why-odf-...
manosyja 8mo ago
OnlyOffice isn’t a „rival“ to LibreOffice as TFA says, because the former has been dead for a long time. Edit: Further, the ooxml format was heavily criticised ~20 years ago, back when it was introduced. This is old news.
- LiamPowell 8mo ago
  The last release was only 3 months ago and they have 30 git repos with commits in the last 24 hours.
  - Jaxan 8mo ago
    Maybe they are confused with OpenOffice?
    - tialaramex 8mo ago
      Which, to be fair, isn't technically dead. Apache OpenOffice, the rotting corpse of OpenOffice.org now maintained by Apache, released 4.1.16 just a few months ago. What should have happened was that ten years ago Apache should have "retired" OpenOffice. That's Apache's terminology for projects which are abandoned. But instead it has limped on for all these years, sucking up valuable effort by users with Apache claiming that it'll be fine somehow.
- ekianjo 8mo ago
  > dead Surprisingly moving a lot for something dead https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/docs/docs-changelog.aspx https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/docs/docs-changelog.aspx
- Sophira 8mo ago
  Are you thinking of OpenOffice instead of OnlyOffice?
fweimer 8mo ago
How does LibreOffice handle ODF standardization? If they want to add a new feature that result in changes how things are formatted visually, write they papers to update the ISO standard for ODF, working with other office suite implementers to achieve interoperability, wait a couple of years for the new standard with the changes getting published, and finally turn on the feature for users? My impression is that this is more or less how ISO standards are supposed to work. Personally, I don't want to work in such an environment.
- seec 8mo ago
  Pretty much, and yes, this is not a desirable path for progress. But communists have an absurd love for bureaucracy, and their need to control is unlimited, so they'll argue to the death about stupid shit instead of, you know, actually competing.
- quikee 8mo ago
  Well, that's almost how it work but of course without the waiting bits. The change would be added to LOExt namespace and would be written to the document and read on load. Then the change is proposed for inclusion into the next ODF version. Once the ODF version is released, LO would add support for that as well and changed if needed. On next save the feature would use the ODF version instead of LOExt. The process has its issues and could cause problems, but in practice I don't remember anyone reporting issues.
markus_zhang 8mo ago
Eh, I think as an open source solution you definitely want to grab as many users as possible by using the most popular office file format. And then maybe you can do something different. TBH I don't think de-big-tech will ever succeed in a capitalistic world.
revolvingthrow 8mo ago
I wish the excel clones were better. LibreOffice’s UI is extremely dated imo, to the point it doesn’t even let you make a damn table, but at least what’s there works correctly. OnlyOffice is not only missing some pretty basic functionality such as preferences (???), it also inexplicably deleted a single spreadsheet out of a multi-sheet file on two occasions on macOS and generally has some peculiar functionality and ux here and there.
- yummypaint 8mo ago
  I think I've tried every spreadsheet program still being maintained at this point. Try gnumeric, it's a clear cut above everything else. Mandatory Excel rant: Excel can't be trusted with data destined for publication. It's bloated, buggy as hell, user hostile, and has set genetics research back with its utterly braindead autocorrect. The default plot options are the exact polar opposite of how data are presented in science, and almost impossible to make serviceable. Everything Excel touches ends up looking like a hastily thrown together 6th grade science project. Libreoffice is also riddled with serious bugs and also loses data, but hey it's free and not a decades old flagship product from a multi billion dollar tech company.
  - ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
    Hey, I'm very interested in this because LibreOffice annoys me and I can't explain why. It's not the "dated look" that everybody complains about; but I suspect it's related to UX somehow. Could you articulate why Gnumeric is better than everything else?
    - Betelbuddy 8mo ago
      To start, your calculations will be correct unlike with Excel https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/tas.2011.09076 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/tas.2011.09076 https://exceloffthegrid.com/excel-calculate-wrong-results/ https://exceloffthegrid.com/excel-calculate-wrong-results/
      - 8mo ago
dizhn 8mo ago
I don't like any of the libreoffice/openoffice behemoths. I only ever used them because there wasn't anything better/comperable, so I will stay away from that discussion. I like OnlyOffice. Their desktop apps are much lighter and better looking. They work fine for my light needs. They also do have a LOT more than just desktop apps. The last time I mentioned them I was informed they are Russian. If that matters to you. It is actual open source software though. Perhaps the EU should fork it. :) (By the way I hadn't checked last time but, wikipedia says Latvian with Russian origin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyOffice. This page does say they are Russian, https://www.en-zdv.uni-mainz.de/2023/05/30/software-onlyoffice-will-be-switched-to-the-open-source-version/ https://www.en-zdv.uni-mainz.de/2023/05/30/software-onlyoffi... and that they are switching to the open-source version.) https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/desktop-apps https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/desktop-apps EDIT: Some more context. A cryptpad developer says > we consider the OnlyOffice code upstream as "untrusted". https://forum.cryptpad.org/d/232-onlyoffice-concerns-vendor-makes-shady-moves/4 https://forum.cryptpad.org/d/232-onlyoffice-concerns-vendor-...
- bundie 8mo ago
  >They also do have a LOT more than just desktop apps. Please explain what you mean by this...
  - dizhn 8mo ago
    Mobile, web, collaboration etc. Check out their top level git org.
- KronisLV 8mo ago
  > The last time I mentioned them I was informed they are Russian. Here's the company info on a Latvian org registry: https://company.lursoft.lv/en/ascensio-system/40103265308 https://company.lursoft.lv/en/ascensio-system/40103265308 I logged in to the platform, not sharing the names myself, but basically: * company was registered in Latvia in 2010 (e.g. included in VAT register over here) * board has 1 member since 2009, registered in Russia (Russian passport) * has 1 shareholder, Ascensio System Limited in the UK (05718967) * has one beneficial owner, in 2023 updated data from Russia to Turkey (passport issued in Istanbul) In 2024 their turnover was short of 3 million EUR, seems like profit wise in 2024 they're 1 million EUR in the red. Also not sure if the site is busted, but shows the number of employees as 1. So yeah, the company is registered over here, seems like they're trying to distance themselves from Russia for obvious reasons. Not sure why the downvotes for the parent comment, that's probably nice to mention.
TazeTSchnitzel 8mo ago
LibreOffice, descendent of OpenOffice, descendent of StarOffice, has a project leadership that believes OpenDocument is the best and most open format. That's very convenient for them, considering that OpenDocument is a standardisation of the native file format of that lineage of office suites. Microsoft Office has a project leadership that believes that Office Open XML is the best and most open office format. That's very convenient for them, considering that Office Open XML is a standardisation of the native file format of that lineage of office suites. Now, OnlyOffice is presumably something written from scratch, unrelated to those two lineages. They chose to prioritise compatibility with the market leader's standard, and the second place in the market is upset that a competitor isn't favouring them instead. I think this is a bit silly.
- southerntofu 8mo ago
  I think this is an unfair take. ODF is an actual file format, while OOXML is a serialization format for Microsoft Office specifics, as debated here 6 months ago. [0] Beyond marketing fluff, I don't think anybody at Microsoft genuinely believes they have an "open office format" or an actual "standardization". Even Apple back in the day had to reverse-engineer the Microsoft formats. [1] Whether you'd like to denounce OnlyOffice taking part in this masquerade or not is a political issue. But giving Microsoft any form of benefit of the doubt on this matter is historically wrong and, I believe, ethically evil. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45144758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45144758 [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera...
  - abanana 8mo ago
    Indeed, the basic point is fine - just 2 competitors standing up for their own choice - but the use of the words "and most open format" ruins the GP's point and perhaps is the reason for the downvotes. There's no way one can argue that Microsoft believes their format is the most open.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 8mo ago
    What is an “actual file format”? Every file format is a serialisation of some kind of data-model. I'm sure the OpenDocument data-model might be simpler and cleaner in some ways than the Office Open XML one. But for something with the complexity of an office document, you can't escape the fact that every file format is full of assumptions about the application interacting with it. I find the examples in the article from [0] unconvincing, it reminds me of arguments about programming language syntax. (I do not doubt that the OOXML standard is a mess though.)
FpUser 8mo ago
Keep blasting, I do not care. I like OnyOffice. It feels very light and fast and handles my very limited and light usage with grace. LibreOffece in my opinion does not come close by feel.
- k8sToGo 8mo ago
  I also use it, but I would not call it light and fast.
k8sToGo 8mo ago
And yet it was OnlyOffice that enabled me to get rid of MS Office and finally switch to Linux fully.
vertnerd 8mo ago
I am not an MS Office user, but I have seen the effect of format lock-in with Google Sheets. A few months back I began a project to de-Google my life, which went pretty smoothly until I tried to download my spouse's accounting spreadsheet from Google Sheets to Excel format. Both LibreOffice and Excel could open it, but nothing worked correctly. So for several months, I kept that one Google Sheet live until I could come up with an alternative. When I created the original file in Sheets, I was blindly using all sorts of features and capabilities (including Google Forms) that simply have no direct analog in other products. A couple of days ago I bit the bullet and dug into the Excel file and figured out how to redesign everything and get it going again. Yay me. I'll admit I don't like the UI in LibreOffice, but I didn't like it very much when I first tried using it (as Star Office) back in the 90s either. Yet I keep coming back to it. If I'm going to be locked into a format or app, I'd rather it be something like LibreOffice.
- 1e1a 8mo ago
  Did you try exporting it in the OpenDocument (.ods) format?
- maxloh 8mo ago
  Your use case (specifically with Forms) seems aligned with Grist, which is also open source and has been adopted by the French government. In my experience, it’s much stricter than a standard spreadsheet though. It feels a bit like moving from Python to Java.
sp_c 8mo ago
I thought PDF won this, why do we care? If I send a document to someone, it is PDF. If I'm working on a project with someone, we can agree on our tools together.
xvilka 8mo ago
The only clean solution would be to force ISO to admit their mistake (or malicious intent) and rescind the "Open" Office XML format for good.
- samrus 8mo ago
  What's wrong with the format?
  - xvilka 8mo ago
    It's not really open[1]. [1] https://fsfe.org/activities/msooxml/msooxml.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/msooxml/msooxml.en.html
kkfx 8mo ago
Honestly? Office automation suites have had their day, along with the people who use them. It's high time people learned to produce documents of typographic quality by writing in markup languages, it doesn't really matter if it's raw LaTeX or some DSL, and it's time the majority learned "the power of text": full-text searchable, easily manipulated, versionable, and manageable, compared to those monsters born in another era with the sole intent of letting untrained secretarial staff use a desktop computer. Anyone who doesn't get that simply doesn't have enough IT skills to work in this day and age; it's time to say it loud and clear.
- ImJamal 8mo ago
  Office provides far more than just typographic quality. They provide spell check and grammar check which is what most people care about. Many people creating latex, as far as I know, are using text editors which are missing those features or are quite limited.
  - kkfx 8mo ago
    Actually office suites fails to provide typographic quality. Fails also to provide useful computation and presentation tools for the modern time, spell checking and (limited) grammar checking are not their exclusive as well. Essentially ALL features of all office suites I know are sub-par to most other classic tools born before them, and they also are limited and limiting.
- samrus 8mo ago
  > the sole intent of letting untrained secretarial staff use a desktop computer. I dont like this "skill issue" rhetoric. The barrier of entry being lower is good for everyone, if you dont directly use simple tools, then you will still benefit from others in society using it to produce information and what not. Also how do you propose spreadsheets work with markup?
- oblio 8mo ago
  LOL, have you tried to maintain any sort of huge table using markup?
xvilka 8mo ago
Another big issue is that Apache Software Foundation should admit that the OpenOffice is dead and just redirect the site to the LibreOffice instead. Currently, they just damage the open source by allowing downloading effectively abandonware that doesn't represent the quality of the open source office software: people download OpenOffice, find many problems (that long gone in LibreOffice), decide that open source office is bad, and go to the proprietary alternatives.

145 points by XzetaU8 8mo ago

[flagged]

The 'fake open-source' debate is interesting, but OnlyOffice is still the best free alternative for anyone coming from MS Office. LibreOffice has a great mission, but their UI feels dated and the formatting issues with DOCX/XLSX files are still a deal-breaker for me.

xvilka 8mo ago
LibreOffice constantly works on improving the import of the DOC/DOCX/XLS/XLSX/etc formats, thus if something doesn't work for you, it's better to file a bug in their bugtracker[1]. [1] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=gui...
- cyber_kinetist 8mo ago
  The site is making ordinary users (other than developers) shy away from submitting bug reports. Come on, you need to make a whole account in Bugzilla for you to report bugs? The best thing would be to have a "Report bug" window directly in the program that lets the user send complaints without hazzle!
  - user205738 8mo ago
    Creating an account on bugzilla is much easier than on the same github, and it is also used in many projects, so registration makes sense.
  - lmz 8mo ago
    The best thing for users maybe. A special kind of hell for the people investigating. And since there are numerous non paying users vs only so many people who have the skills to fix things...
    - nickserv 8mo ago
      It's incredibly useful to know what problems your users are facing. It doesn't necessarily mean fixing any one particular bug, rather should help prioritize future work.
    - mikkupikku 8mo ago
      Of course the developers only want to interact with other developers, never those stinky users who don't even know the proper technical jargon for the bugs they're finding. But that doesn't mean we should pander to developer wishes.
      - lmz 8mo ago
        I'm sure if the "stinky users" have a support contract then someone will be happy to look at any kind of report and try to triage or reproduce. Otherwise the least they can do is figure out Bugzilla signup.
        mikkupikku 8mo ago
        > I'm sure if the "stinky users" have a support contract then someone will be happy to look at any kind of report I'm sure you know that's not true. I'm sure you know that developers hate taking bug reports from users even when those users have support contracts.
        lmz 8mo ago
        The case being discussed here is LibreOffice. Yes in general that is also true, but non paying users don't contribute anything. If they paid at least there's an expectation of fixes. Or at least the money can be used to hire a separate support team.
  - braiamp 8mo ago
    Interesting that this is a take, because MS Office (and all MS products) don't include such button.
    - jodrellblank 8mo ago
      a) Yes they do: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-give-feedback-on-microsoft-365-2b102d44-b43f-4dd2-9ff4-23cf144cfb11 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-give-fee... https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-use-the-feedback-tool-in-microsoft-office/ https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-use-the-feedback-tool-in-micr... b) they have automated crash report and usage telemetry to tell them what isn’t working
stop50 8mo ago
Openoffice had afaik not an big change in years and Libreoffice had quite a lot of changes that improved Msoffice support.
- ZiiS 8mo ago
  I also missread Only as Open
2b3a51 8mo ago
"...their UI feels dated" How do you define dated in this context? Personally, I quite like being able to use the CUA keyboard shortcuts to access menu items. I like consistency over decades but I appreciate that there are other ways of looking at this.
- Flavius 8mo ago
  Take a look at these screenshots: https://libreoffice.en.uptodown.com/mac https://libreoffice.en.uptodown.com/mac It looks ancient, worse than office apps from 20 years ago.
  - barnabee 8mo ago
    Office apps from 20 years ago looked better than office apps now.
    - blackhaz 8mo ago
      And from 32 years ago as well - MS Office 4.0 as an example.
  - slyfox125 8mo ago
    It looks great using Plasma. If the comparison and "problem" is the lack of a "ribbon" menu, etc., then you are missing the whole point of Office alternatives: they are free, open source, but most importantly, they are usable. That is, they do not eschew usability and function for the sake of change, pure aesthetics, or a company's latest foray into some new gimmick. Ultimately, the "classic" approach taken is because many users feel that the classic style is more usable and makes them more productive irrespective of their learned habits of the past 20-30 years.
    - mft_ 8mo ago
      It looks awful and undiscoverable on a standard Mint/Cinnamon install. Anyway, the point is surely that if LibreOffice really wants to attract users from Microsoft Office, then it should do everything possible to optimise that transition? Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement. Honestly, at this stage, thinking of Gimp, FreeCAD, LibreOffice, and Blender, it’s as though there’s a weird group psychology deliberately against offering even decent (let along best-in-class) UIs in the open source world. These are all apps with excellent fundamental underlying engines/tech which are handicapped hugely by their UI/UX. (Yes I know some of these have improved in recent years, but only after far longer without improvements.)
Mikhail_K 8mo ago
> their UI feels dated A big selling point for me. Needless reworking of familiar interfaces plagues MS Windows ecosystem and I'm glad LibreOffice is displaying healthy conservatism by not fixing what isn't broken.
throwaway270925 8mo ago
Also free and great at MSOffice file compatibility is FreeOffice from SoftMaker: https://www.freeoffice.com/ https://www.freeoffice.com/
petepete 8mo ago
Does Microsoft Office exist now? Looked like they've entirely rebranded it to Microsoft 365 Copilot App (according to office.com)

SebastianKra 8mo ago

Link to the actual source: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/16/why-odf-and-not-ooxml/ https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/16/why-odf-...

manosyja 8mo ago

OnlyOffice isn’t a „rival“ to LibreOffice as TFA says, because the former has been dead for a long time. Edit: Further, the ooxml format was heavily criticised ~20 years ago, back when it was introduced. This is old news.

LiamPowell 8mo ago
The last release was only 3 months ago and they have 30 git repos with commits in the last 24 hours.
- Jaxan 8mo ago
  Maybe they are confused with OpenOffice?
  - tialaramex 8mo ago
    Which, to be fair, isn't technically dead. Apache OpenOffice, the rotting corpse of OpenOffice.org now maintained by Apache, released 4.1.16 just a few months ago. What should have happened was that ten years ago Apache should have "retired" OpenOffice. That's Apache's terminology for projects which are abandoned. But instead it has limped on for all these years, sucking up valuable effort by users with Apache claiming that it'll be fine somehow.
ekianjo 8mo ago
> dead Surprisingly moving a lot for something dead https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/docs/docs-changelog.aspx https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/docs/docs-changelog.aspx
Sophira 8mo ago
Are you thinking of OpenOffice instead of OnlyOffice?

fweimer 8mo ago

How does LibreOffice handle ODF standardization? If they want to add a new feature that result in changes how things are formatted visually, write they papers to update the ISO standard for ODF, working with other office suite implementers to achieve interoperability, wait a couple of years for the new standard with the changes getting published, and finally turn on the feature for users? My impression is that this is more or less how ISO standards are supposed to work. Personally, I don't want to work in such an environment.

seec 8mo ago
Pretty much, and yes, this is not a desirable path for progress. But communists have an absurd love for bureaucracy, and their need to control is unlimited, so they'll argue to the death about stupid shit instead of, you know, actually competing.
quikee 8mo ago
Well, that's almost how it work but of course without the waiting bits. The change would be added to LOExt namespace and would be written to the document and read on load. Then the change is proposed for inclusion into the next ODF version. Once the ODF version is released, LO would add support for that as well and changed if needed. On next save the feature would use the ODF version instead of LOExt. The process has its issues and could cause problems, but in practice I don't remember anyone reporting issues.

markus_zhang 8mo ago

Eh, I think as an open source solution you definitely want to grab as many users as possible by using the most popular office file format. And then maybe you can do something different. TBH I don't think de-big-tech will ever succeed in a capitalistic world.

revolvingthrow 8mo ago

I wish the excel clones were better. LibreOffice’s UI is extremely dated imo, to the point it doesn’t even let you make a damn table, but at least what’s there works correctly. OnlyOffice is not only missing some pretty basic functionality such as preferences (???), it also inexplicably deleted a single spreadsheet out of a multi-sheet file on two occasions on macOS and generally has some peculiar functionality and ux here and there.

yummypaint 8mo ago
I think I've tried every spreadsheet program still being maintained at this point. Try gnumeric, it's a clear cut above everything else. Mandatory Excel rant: Excel can't be trusted with data destined for publication. It's bloated, buggy as hell, user hostile, and has set genetics research back with its utterly braindead autocorrect. The default plot options are the exact polar opposite of how data are presented in science, and almost impossible to make serviceable. Everything Excel touches ends up looking like a hastily thrown together 6th grade science project. Libreoffice is also riddled with serious bugs and also loses data, but hey it's free and not a decades old flagship product from a multi billion dollar tech company.
- ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
  Hey, I'm very interested in this because LibreOffice annoys me and I can't explain why. It's not the "dated look" that everybody complains about; but I suspect it's related to UX somehow. Could you articulate why Gnumeric is better than everything else?
  - Betelbuddy 8mo ago
    To start, your calculations will be correct unlike with Excel https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/tas.2011.09076 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/tas.2011.09076 https://exceloffthegrid.com/excel-calculate-wrong-results/ https://exceloffthegrid.com/excel-calculate-wrong-results/
    - 8mo ago

dizhn 8mo ago

I don't like any of the libreoffice/openoffice behemoths. I only ever used them because there wasn't anything better/comperable, so I will stay away from that discussion. I like OnlyOffice. Their desktop apps are much lighter and better looking. They work fine for my light needs. They also do have a LOT more than just desktop apps. The last time I mentioned them I was informed they are Russian. If that matters to you. It is actual open source software though. Perhaps the EU should fork it. :) (By the way I hadn't checked last time but, wikipedia says Latvian with Russian origin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnlyOffice. This page does say they are Russian, https://www.en-zdv.uni-mainz.de/2023/05/30/software-onlyoffice-will-be-switched-to-the-open-source-version/ https://www.en-zdv.uni-mainz.de/2023/05/30/software-onlyoffi... and that they are switching to the open-source version.) https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/desktop-apps https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/desktop-apps EDIT: Some more context. A cryptpad developer says > we consider the OnlyOffice code upstream as "untrusted". https://forum.cryptpad.org/d/232-onlyoffice-concerns-vendor-makes-shady-moves/4 https://forum.cryptpad.org/d/232-onlyoffice-concerns-vendor-...

bundie 8mo ago
>They also do have a LOT more than just desktop apps. Please explain what you mean by this...
- dizhn 8mo ago
  Mobile, web, collaboration etc. Check out their top level git org.
KronisLV 8mo ago
> The last time I mentioned them I was informed they are Russian. Here's the company info on a Latvian org registry: https://company.lursoft.lv/en/ascensio-system/40103265308 https://company.lursoft.lv/en/ascensio-system/40103265308 I logged in to the platform, not sharing the names myself, but basically: * company was registered in Latvia in 2010 (e.g. included in VAT register over here) * board has 1 member since 2009, registered in Russia (Russian passport) * has 1 shareholder, Ascensio System Limited in the UK (05718967) * has one beneficial owner, in 2023 updated data from Russia to Turkey (passport issued in Istanbul) In 2024 their turnover was short of 3 million EUR, seems like profit wise in 2024 they're 1 million EUR in the red. Also not sure if the site is busted, but shows the number of employees as 1. So yeah, the company is registered over here, seems like they're trying to distance themselves from Russia for obvious reasons. Not sure why the downvotes for the parent comment, that's probably nice to mention.

TazeTSchnitzel 8mo ago

LibreOffice, descendent of OpenOffice, descendent of StarOffice, has a project leadership that believes OpenDocument is the best and most open format. That's very convenient for them, considering that OpenDocument is a standardisation of the native file format of that lineage of office suites. Microsoft Office has a project leadership that believes that Office Open XML is the best and most open office format. That's very convenient for them, considering that Office Open XML is a standardisation of the native file format of that lineage of office suites. Now, OnlyOffice is presumably something written from scratch, unrelated to those two lineages. They chose to prioritise compatibility with the market leader's standard, and the second place in the market is upset that a competitor isn't favouring them instead. I think this is a bit silly.

southerntofu 8mo ago
I think this is an unfair take. ODF is an actual file format, while OOXML is a serialization format for Microsoft Office specifics, as debated here 6 months ago. [0] Beyond marketing fluff, I don't think anybody at Microsoft genuinely believes they have an "open office format" or an actual "standardization". Even Apple back in the day had to reverse-engineer the Microsoft formats. [1] Whether you'd like to denounce OnlyOffice taking part in this masquerade or not is a political issue. But giving Microsoft any form of benefit of the doubt on this matter is historically wrong and, I believe, ethically evil. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45144758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45144758 [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera...
- abanana 8mo ago
  Indeed, the basic point is fine - just 2 competitors standing up for their own choice - but the use of the words "and most open format" ruins the GP's point and perhaps is the reason for the downvotes. There's no way one can argue that Microsoft believes their format is the most open.
- TazeTSchnitzel 8mo ago
  What is an “actual file format”? Every file format is a serialisation of some kind of data-model. I'm sure the OpenDocument data-model might be simpler and cleaner in some ways than the Office Open XML one. But for something with the complexity of an office document, you can't escape the fact that every file format is full of assumptions about the application interacting with it. I find the examples in the article from [0] unconvincing, it reminds me of arguments about programming language syntax. (I do not doubt that the OOXML standard is a mess though.)

FpUser 8mo ago

Keep blasting, I do not care. I like OnyOffice. It feels very light and fast and handles my very limited and light usage with grace. LibreOffece in my opinion does not come close by feel.

k8sToGo 8mo ago
I also use it, but I would not call it light and fast.

k8sToGo 8mo ago

And yet it was OnlyOffice that enabled me to get rid of MS Office and finally switch to Linux fully.

vertnerd 8mo ago

I am not an MS Office user, but I have seen the effect of format lock-in with Google Sheets. A few months back I began a project to de-Google my life, which went pretty smoothly until I tried to download my spouse's accounting spreadsheet from Google Sheets to Excel format. Both LibreOffice and Excel could open it, but nothing worked correctly. So for several months, I kept that one Google Sheet live until I could come up with an alternative. When I created the original file in Sheets, I was blindly using all sorts of features and capabilities (including Google Forms) that simply have no direct analog in other products. A couple of days ago I bit the bullet and dug into the Excel file and figured out how to redesign everything and get it going again. Yay me. I'll admit I don't like the UI in LibreOffice, but I didn't like it very much when I first tried using it (as Star Office) back in the 90s either. Yet I keep coming back to it. If I'm going to be locked into a format or app, I'd rather it be something like LibreOffice.

1e1a 8mo ago
Did you try exporting it in the OpenDocument (.ods) format?
maxloh 8mo ago
Your use case (specifically with Forms) seems aligned with Grist, which is also open source and has been adopted by the French government. In my experience, it’s much stricter than a standard spreadsheet though. It feels a bit like moving from Python to Java.

sp_c 8mo ago

I thought PDF won this, why do we care? If I send a document to someone, it is PDF. If I'm working on a project with someone, we can agree on our tools together.

xvilka 8mo ago

The only clean solution would be to force ISO to admit their mistake (or malicious intent) and rescind the "Open" Office XML format for good.

samrus 8mo ago
What's wrong with the format?
- xvilka 8mo ago
  It's not really open[1]. [1] https://fsfe.org/activities/msooxml/msooxml.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/msooxml/msooxml.en.html

kkfx 8mo ago

Honestly? Office automation suites have had their day, along with the people who use them. It's high time people learned to produce documents of typographic quality by writing in markup languages, it doesn't really matter if it's raw LaTeX or some DSL, and it's time the majority learned "the power of text": full-text searchable, easily manipulated, versionable, and manageable, compared to those monsters born in another era with the sole intent of letting untrained secretarial staff use a desktop computer. Anyone who doesn't get that simply doesn't have enough IT skills to work in this day and age; it's time to say it loud and clear.

ImJamal 8mo ago
Office provides far more than just typographic quality. They provide spell check and grammar check which is what most people care about. Many people creating latex, as far as I know, are using text editors which are missing those features or are quite limited.
- kkfx 8mo ago
  Actually office suites fails to provide typographic quality. Fails also to provide useful computation and presentation tools for the modern time, spell checking and (limited) grammar checking are not their exclusive as well. Essentially ALL features of all office suites I know are sub-par to most other classic tools born before them, and they also are limited and limiting.
samrus 8mo ago
> the sole intent of letting untrained secretarial staff use a desktop computer. I dont like this "skill issue" rhetoric. The barrier of entry being lower is good for everyone, if you dont directly use simple tools, then you will still benefit from others in society using it to produce information and what not. Also how do you propose spreadsheets work with markup?
oblio 8mo ago
LOL, have you tried to maintain any sort of huge table using markup?

xvilka 8mo ago

Another big issue is that Apache Software Foundation should admit that the OpenOffice is dead and just redirect the site to the LibreOffice instead. Currently, they just damage the open source by allowing downloading effectively abandonware that doesn't represent the quality of the open source office software: people download OpenOffice, find many problems (that long gone in LibreOffice), decide that open source office is bad, and go to the proprietary alternatives.