if only there was a good, actively developed and highly regarded free and open source alternative whose name would be something like “LibreOffice”…
I like and use Libreoffice, but its a local application. This makes it fine for working by yourself and on your own hardware. Google Docs (Gstuite) is an online application with the best collaboration integration I’ve seen and works on nearly any device you can open a modern browser on. Yes, both products have a word processor and a spreadsheet, but they don’t serve all the same use cases.
If this new Euro-office can replicate the Gsuite offerings (that Libreoffice lacks), then Euro-office could be a great addition to the open source community.
Nah this new Euro-Office is literally a OnlyOffice fork according to their GitHub. It’s much closer in comparison to LibreOffice than Google docs.
They have worked with NextCloud to make Euro-Office an app/add-on (I forget what NextCloud calls them specifically) from this release (v1.0), so that they can integrate with a platform that already… Has this feature (with Collabora office), but hey… The more the merrier.
Although straightforward, I appreciate they didn’t reinvent the wheel here – Nextcloud plus OnlyOffice is a solid combo to replace the MS365- and Gsuite-like product lines.
OnlyOffice is both. They have a fantastic web version that integrates well into NextCloud already. And they have a mobile version too. Assuming all of those get forked with it, we can certainly expect a Gsuite alternative.
right, thank you for pointing it out.
I remember seeing a post earlier this year about libreoffice doing a web based version.
You’re proving my point. They just started working on it 3 months ago. It will be a long time, if ever, before it is a Gsuite replacement. They even said they tried this a few years ago and abandoned it. There’s a risk they’d do it again.
So if there’s another open source effort specifically focused on an online product, its a good thing.
Pretty sure it uses Collabora, which is literally LibreOffice source code in a web shell.
Edit: just checked, they are using OnlyOffice as a base instead of the already European Collabora. Strange choice but so be it.
LibreOffice feels like a java app with 40 years of baggage and tech debt going back to Sun Microsystems
It feels like when I was trying to use GIMP. In theory there might be a good product in there somewhere, but it’s not worth it to wade through the terrible UX decisions in order to find out.
Afaik there’s a port that makes the ui more like Photoshop, I forget the name, maybe another lemming can fill it in.
There were several attempts for that. The most recent one is PhotoGIMP, which is actually a patch and not a port. Before that, there used to be Gimpshop, but the dude behind it got fucked over by someone who bought a dotcom domain with that name and served ad and spyware. Though, ever since the major gui rework several years ago, i don’t see much of a point. It is a different software, no matter how much you try to cover it up, the functionality and workflow will always be different. And most other commercial software don’t constantly try to copy some other software either.
Now when are we getting: As-Office, Aus-Office, Afri-Office, NAmeri-Office, SAmeri-Office and Ant-Office?
I think I’m gonna stick with LibreOffice
Nothing bad in having some variety.
Maybe they’ll come up with stuff the other team didn’t and both improve that way.
“Office EU is a complete cloud-based office suite (like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace) that is 100% European-owned and runs entirely on European infrastructure.”
its datafarming
Can you elaborate?
“Cloud-based” is the issue they’re complaining about. I mean we’re talking about an office suite. Those have been able to run on a potato since the 1980’s. Why the heck does that need to be hosted by a supercomputer that somebody else owns and operates?
https://www.techzine.eu/news/infrastructure/140634/dutch-central-bank-chooses-lidl-for-european-cloud/
https://www.techzine.eu/news/infrastructure/141644/kpn-launches-sovereign-cloud-with-stackit-in-the-netherlands/One of the biggest telecom provider of the Netherlands KPN has started to work with German company Schwarzdigits to create a fully European Cloud as well and they’ll release it today!! Looooooooooooooooooooooooove these initiatives !!! Letsgo Europe 😍 🇪🇺
If governments across the world gave a quarter of what they give to Microsoft to open source projects that compete, not only would they get to stop paying Microsoft all that money, they’d have a better product to boot. Add to that the side benefit to people and companies using it, and it’s pretty obvious why Microsoft will do everything in its power (except make a better product for a better price) to prevent that.
I can’t wait for all the Office EU <–> MS365 tools Microsoft make that always make the Office EU software look bad on purpose
Looks like it’s powered by NextCloud? If so, that’s FOSS funding that we all win!
I’m using nextcloud+onlyoffice as office 365 replacement so this is simply excellent news! Glad i can get rid of onlyoffice the company.
What’s wrong with Only office? I like it way more than Collabora.
They’re trying to exploit what they consider a loophole in the AGPL to stop people from forking the project.
At the same time they refuse to accept any PRs.
FSF has a great write up about it.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/agpl-is-not-a-tool-for-taking-freedom-away
Countries outside of the US are sick and tired of paying for what they see as untrustworthy American-dominated software-as-a-service (SaaS).
SJVn is so hit-and-miss for tech clue, but this resonated.
Canada is a country outside of the US. Can we get on the notion of independence and digital sovereignty yet, or are we still gonna chain our junk flotilla to this Titanic? And when it goes down, will Millhouse still be complaining about how slow we sink?
People inside the US are sick of this too.
Spotted a typo, it refers to “Apache Foundation’s OnlyOffice,” when that product is OpenOffice (as one can discover by following the link). This is different from the OnlyOffice mentioned earlier in the paragraph.
Isn’t OpenOffice deprecated? Or am I mistaken?
LibreOffice is the fork that’s truly community driven. OpenOffice is open source but controlled by big tech.
Despite the name, OnlyOffice has no connection with LibreOffice’s ancestor, the Apache Foundation’s OnlyOffice
It pisses me off when tech journalists don’t bother to double check with a simple web search. Don’t even need to actually search, just type in the search bar “apache foundation o” and it autocompletes in “apache foundation OpenOffice”
It could be worse:
Apache Foundation’s OnlyFans
i remember hearing this is just a rebrand of onlyoffice, is there something interesting about it (from a technical pov)?
https://github.com/Euro-Office
Euro-Office liberates the ONLYOFFICE code base
Euro-Office is based on the ONLYOFFICE Open Source, an AGPL codebase. This code base is being extensively reviewed and cleaned up, with the goal of making it easy to build and contribute to. Why did we resort to a fork, rather than collaborate? Of course, forking should be a last resort. Unfortunately, open collaboration with ONLYOFFICE was not possible, for a number of reasons:
- Contributing is impossible or greatly discouraged. ONLYOFFICE typically does not review or accept pull requests. Build instructions are unreliable, outdated or just plain broken.
- The company regularly makes controversial decisions like closing off features in the mobile apps like mobile editing, and the removal of an administrator panel.
- Lacking transparency. Commit messages, when visible, often just refer to an issue number in an internal issue tracker. There are quite a number of binary blobs and compiled or obfuscated code blobs. Most internal code comments are Russian which makes is hard to work with.
- The mobile apps are not really open source but just wrappers. Example. The apps have extensive proprietary sections which will need to be re-implemented. Work on this is underway.
- ONLYOFFICE is a Russian company (despite many attempts to hide this), and nearly all developers reside in Russia. Open Source is a global effort, but current political situation makes collaboration hard and trust difficult to earn. Especially when development is not transparent and open. A lot of users and customers require software that is not potentially influenced or controlled by the Russian government.
Ah, good riddance to OnlyOffice, then!
Hope they will provide a Mac and Linux build.
It’s online only for now - clients are coming but for now focus is on online.
Yes, the desktop apps are a separate build, but if they stop at online editing ie for nextcloud, it’s a big misunderstanding of what office work stil look like today
Yeah I tend to agree but then I’m surprised how many people think GSuite is just fine!
I’m disappointed it’s not “Euroffice”.
That only works in English. It’s easier not to try and get clever with naming schemes when it needs to cover 12 different languages including one language that’s written right to left.
Also from an administration standpoint it’s a pain in the arse having a program with a clever name that you have to explain every time somebody tries to search for it in the company portal, and then can’t find it. I already have this issue with some software on our domain called Omny instead of Omni.
Orafice. EuroOffice. Eurafice!
