this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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I really don't get this latest series if tantrums from LibreOffice/The Document Foundation. They are attacking every other up-and-coming open source document project.
Are you mad about people choosing a different project that's easier to switch from M$? Stay mad I guess, or make your project better. LibreOffice hasn't had a major UI update in a decade, and it was a decade overdue at the time. The menus are a crowded mess with poorly thought-out hierarchy. Mobile and collaborative editors are a joke. No one cares if LibreOffice technically has the best backend, with the most accurate rendering and niche features, if it is harder for the average mainstream user to learn and use.
You can burn your energy bemoaning the loss of users... or you can be better and win them back. Rarely both.
Last thing, a few facts about the "dreaded" OOXML format they are railing against.
They are not. They are pointing out how innefectual the Euro-Office setup is in the context of EU Digital Sovereignty. If the EU wants to free its document stack from dependencies it makes no sense that they'd pick a product that only supports OOXML, which is fully controlled by Microsoft. (And riddled with Russian spyware, but that's the icing on the cake.)
And speaking of OOXML, let's get some things straight:
It has never been truly open. It was demonstrated back in 2006 and time and time again that Microsoft doesn't publish the full spec and that they obfuscate what they do publish. It is impossible to fully support what comes out of the latest MS Office in an open manner.
Yes, because back in 2006 Microsoft asked their vendors in all ISO-voting countries to join the ISO committees and vote in favor of OOXML. A practice which the ISO was completely unprepared for, but also did absolutely nothing to correct.
ISO/IEC 29500 is a joke and choosing to enforce as an EU-wide standard is a joke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML#Complaints_about_the_national_bodies_process
Which is why LibreOffice, or a similar product that supports both OOXML and ODF should have been chosen.
That has to be taken into account for migration but it doesn't mean we have to keep being tied to Microsoft.
Euro-Office and OnlyOffice don't "only support" OOXML. Where did you get that idea?
And not every software developed in Russia is "riddled with Russian spyware." The code is open so where do you suppose all this supposed spyware is hiding? Or is that just fear-mongering?
I'd love for LibreOffice to do a serious modernization to be a viable alternative. But for most users, it feels like a downgrade whether or not it is technically better under the hood. I use OnlyOffice these days even though it has a lot more bugs because the UX is just that much better in spite of it.
From the fact ODF "support" is an awkward import/export function. It's not a first class format.
On their live service. They don't publish the spyware with the code they choose to open, obviously. 😃
I thought Onlyoffice supported both formats, but apparently you're right; OOXML gets native support and ODF is treated by the developers as an import/export process (based on the comments there).
To the end user, that makes it look like OOXML is the default and ODF is an inconvenient second option you have to manually choose, but the issues probably run much deeper than that.
Russian ownership of OPENOFFICE is why this Euro fork exists.
edit: meant ONLYOFFICE. too many Os out there
OnlyOffice is not related to OpenOffice. OnlyOffice is developed by Ascensio System which has labored to obscure their Russian backing.
Whereas StarOffice/OpenOffice/LibreOffice is a product officially developed by Sun, then donated to the Apache Foundation, then forked as LibreOffice governed by The Document Foundation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org#Forks_and_derivative_software
sorry too many O office apps, I meant onlyoffice, which is the base of the EuroOffice app
Their point about OOXML has traditionally been that the format that Microsoft Office itself produces has never once matched the standardized standard they ratified. So Microsoft used it to check a box on some requirements sheet and muddy the waters (like this), but anyone actually following the standard would not have achieved actual cross compatibility with the massive gorilla in the space. But because it's "Microsoft's format" any issues would have felt like bugs in LibreOffice rather than bugs in Microsoft Office. In contrast the standardized ODF actually matches the ODF you find in practice.
That all having been said, I stopped paying attention to that whole scene a while ago, so I don't know what the current situation is, or if that still applies. It's possible later version of MSOffice actually moved to the standard version at some point, or that the standard was updated to match what MSOffice actually reads and writes. Possible, but I just don't know.
It's a poorly designed standard without a doubt. But it is the format people use, and no one who uses it is paying Microsoft (including LibreOffice).
Whinging about people using it is not the way to make useful software.
I basically agree with you, but I'm also a little pedantic, so I'll also say that if the standard format isn't the format MSOffice outputs, then the standard format isn't the format everyone is using, they're using a similar but incompatibly different format. And so if there's an opportunity to pick what the standard must be going forwards, and the actual true OOXML spec has effectively zero users, and what MSOffice outputs isn't an open standard, then you might as well pick ODF which has more than zero users and is standardized.
But again, this is moot if the thing MSOffice outputs is actually actually OOXML now.
I believe they are using a modified version, not 100% sure. But in my opinion they should let the user decide on install.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47559056
I honestly blame ISO they should have never approved this format. https://www.ip-watch.org/2008/04/01/office-open-xml-officially-approved-as-international-standard/
There is evidence of intent behind some of those poor design choices.
That's how Italo Vignoli is. He's been a source of toxic hatred even back in the OpenOffice split days, when Sun handed OpenOffice to Apache, he attacked OO because they didn't transfer the trademark to him.
The same happened more recently with Collabora Office. Collabora developed a web frontend for LibreOffice, for whatever reason not as part of the LibreOffice project, then Collabora's LO contributors were kicked out of TDF / LO development, and then TDF announced a competitor.
I keep using LO because as a tool it works for me but every single time I see statements by Italo Vignoli, he comes off as totally unbearable.
It's a shame because I really do believe in the project. I just want it to be better.