"De facto ally of Microsoft" - LibreOffice Weighs In on Euro-Office and EU Digital Sovereignty
8d 9h ago by scribe.disroot.org/u/randomname in buyeuropean@feddit.uk from blog.documentfoundation.org
An open letter from the Document Foundation warns that Euro-Office, which is being “marketed” as the first open-source office suite developed in Europe, isn't what it seems - and may reinforce Microsoft’s closed source technology instead.
... Microsoft ... developed and controls the horrible proprietary OOXML format, designed precisely to prevent Digital Sovereignty by maintaining content lock-in. It is far less understandable on the part of companies that claim to advocate open source, such as those promoting Euro-Office.
Euro-Office defaults to the fully proprietary OOXML document format, developed and controlled solely by Microsoft. This makes it a de facto ally of Microsoft in its content lock-in strategy, with control remaining firmly in Redmond and far from Europe.
So, despite what is being written in support of Euro-Office — the latest of the office suites developed in Europe, and not the first — the announcement is not against Microsoft. On the contrary, it strengthens Microsoft’s strategy against European Digital Sovereignty, or, if you prefer, against the freedom of European users to control and manage their own content.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out MS is behind Euro-Office.
Oh come off it.
Uhh, it's a fork of OnlyOffice.
Also, it supports open formats like ODS. All they have to do is change the default.
I really dislike those opportunistic bootlicker like euro office and euro os.
I'm not familiar with EuroOS. What is it?
I meant EU OS. A "proof of concept" Linux distribution but instead on relying on already existing European based Linux Distributions (arch, opensuse, cachyos) it's using fedora which is backed by Red Hat.
But hey it looks fancy with the European flag replaced the stars of the founding nations with windows cursors.
Euro-Office could always pull a reverse-enshittification by offering full compatibility for the OOXML format and defaulting to it initially, then once the software has a loyal userbase, publish tools making it simple to convert existing documents to open formats as well as arguing for doing so. It would be a fight with Microsoft but they have to start somewhere realistic, and the world still uses Microsoft.
Wouldn't that tool be called "Save As..."? If the suite supports both formats, converting a document is as simple as opening and saving it.
And they could absolutely just default to OpenDocument and also support OOXML, just like LibreOffice does.
An initial screen with a select default option.
You really believe in the good of man eh?
They already support open formats. All they have to do is change the default.
Not a great decision, but a practical one. As long as it has great support for both, the default can be changed later once it has traction.
But why not have it default ODF?
Tell me you’ve not migrated an org of 25000 50-year old public servants without telling you’ve not migrated an org of 25000 50-year old public servants.
No one has done that because no single person can do that by themselves.
I've participated in technical migrations of large organizations full of non-technical, unmotivated users. It sucks regardless.
And we can't just keep lowering our expectations re: people interacting with technology. Desktop computers, office suites, and file formats are concepts that came into the non-techie consciousness 20 years ago now. The people who refuse to use an extra 5 brain cells to try to understand this stuff should not be the baseline we cater to.
Microsoft - The Genocide Computing Company!
Genuine question, if somebody could help me out, I'd appreciate it. How does using OOXML restrict what a user can do with their own content? Or have have I missed the point here?
OOXML is Microsoft's proprietary format. These explain the issue very well.
It's a standard that Microsoft controls. They can use it in an embrace, extend, extinguish strategy in the future, and Euro-Office is doing the embrace part for them.
Compatibility is important. So is defaulting to an open standard. That default safe option is critical.
The ISO format is defined. Microsoft may choose to move beyond it (in fact I think they already have) and Europe, provided they’ve deployed software that doesn’t automatically follow along with this move, will fork and be left with their version. Leverage works both ways.
Boom.