- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
Nextcloud, Ionos and other partners are developing an open-source office suite under the project name „Euro-Office“ as an alternative to the market-dominant Microsoft Office.
The two partners are not starting from scratch, but have forked the components of OnlyOffice available as open-source code and want to build on them. In the summer, the software is then intended to replace the previous office component Collabora in Nextcloud and the Ionos Nextcloud Workspace. A ‘technical preview’ is already available on GitHub.
While this is a good news, I think they should move from github, you know microslop copilot…
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Why don’t they contribute to LibreOffice Online?
That was my thought and Nextcloud already supports Collabora Office which is a fork of LibreOffice Online I believe.
Because the Only Office source is more modern while Libre Offices’s source code now is around 35 years old. At least that was the reasoning in one of the articles I read.
So old code is now suddenly bad? Weird and somewhat also not the case, as LibreOffice is constantly updated.
I guess it is a preference. I for myself tend to rather use a FreeBSD than Fedora for production environments.
Sometimes it is better to start fresh.
Especially when you want to be the owner of something.
Libre has 35 years of good, bad, and the ugly. It’s has 35 years of tech debt, and design choices made. That’s not easy to just “fix”
It’s a completely different beast to sift through legacy code than it is to just start fresh requiring a completely separate set of skills.
Not getting rid of the old is one of the many reason Windows is such a shit show. Every program today in 2026 asks itself “Am I Barbie Riding Club(1996)? Before it runs because it needs a special compatibility mode”. Why inherit among the million other issues if you don’t want to?
You are certainly right at this point. To be honest, I have never looked at the source of LibreOffice and it might be a huge mess. Additionally, the maintainers need to be somewhat cooperative. I could imagine that this is also a problem (developing many years of FOSS makes your personality really toxic unfortunately)
Bet they are not starting fresh. Instead of using 35 year old code base they are using 20 year old code base.
Technical debt is a thing. Everyone says Xorg is too old to be maintained so we have to switch to Wayland for example. I don’t know the state of Libre Office but it’s possible it simply can’t be easily migrated to newer, better tools.
Of course this is a matter of how well the maintainers took care of tech debt. Additionally, architectural changes are often not possible or only if you put a lot of effort in it.
Not the same issue. Wayland was needed because xorg architecture just cannot be backwards compatible and would be super difficult risky to retain legacy. Not the same issue here
Old isn’t necessarily bad, unless years of decision-making have left it in a massively complex state (see also: Xorg)
The real reason here is that LibreOffice is written in C++, which is falling rapidly out of fashion for modern apps, leading to a smaller supply of developers.
Contrast this with Onlyoffice. Yes, the document engine is still written in C++, however the build tools use more modern items like python and onlyoffice supports having Javascript frontends and scripting, making it easier to source web devs to work on these parts.
I am not sure if this is the real reason. C++ is still a very valid option. People used to low level languages can rather easy switch the language they are writing in.
Maybe one day we will find out the real reason.
So old code is now suddenly bad?
Yes. It must go stale without some kind of needless churn; right?
I loved solving a problem that redhat cant fix (because the smart people left) on their theForeman clone with a workaround that I learned from the days of NIS+. A 30-year-old workaround for last year’s shitty install.
But fear of established, known-good code will certainly change that in the long run: ifconfig, netstat, ifup, fstab, xinet, service; the more we can churn out the working tools for neu dreck coded by dunning-kruger lost-boys kids who had no mentoring to prevent dumb patterns, the less the working solutions for known-good tools will work. And that’s, some how, “progress”.
Libre is rooted a bit in 90s design, with an OO object model designed to roughly mirror Microsoft 's COM/DCOM. I’m sure Libre has seen a lot of modernization - and I want that codebase to survive. But it’s also nice to have a second option, now.
Guess we should all stop using cell phones too, the erlang that powers them is old as dirt and therefore must be bad.
You got that backwards. Its open office that hasnt been updated in years.
OnlyOffice not OpenOffice
Huh, I didnt realize that was an actual product and not just a mistake.
Only Office is a Russian thing. Euro Office takes all the open source parts of Only Offices, forks them and rewrites stuff only handled by binary blobs.
It’s a quite interesting project, freeing that half-open office suite.
Guys u are on slippery slope onlyoffice is russian company just with different name inside russia
oh my god, will Russian egg sacs develop inside my computer and drink all my fruit juice at night??
How can I protect myself and my loved ones?
Ascensio Systems SIA developed it and it’s Latvian… Couldn’t find what you’re referring to, would appreciate a link to the info you’re talking about.
Damn. And Infomaniak uses them.
Thanks for the info.
Yes they are. That’s why you take only the open parts of it, fork and rewrite replace all the binary blobs. That’s why you do your own change management and ignore the Russians. Read up on how the new project actually works.
Because it’s RDP based (unless something has changed). OnlyOffice is HTTP based, so it slots in perfectly for online portals.
OpenXchange is also part of the IONOS group. I don’t understand why they don’t focus on one solution to make it as good as possible.
Sounds good to me! I hope they support the open document formats better than onlyoffice currently does. Also euro-office isn’t a particularly good name, although it has the advantage of being explicit about where it’s based.
It looks like a well deserved middle finger to the US.
I would suggest FreedomOffice.
It’s like “freedom fries”, but with actual freedom.
Maybe liberation office, or just LibreOffice for short.
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Honestly this stinks of potential enshitification downstream. Libreoffice and Openoffice are just fine. Nextcloud’s posture in the market and “Brand name feel” sets of my alarm that it is like 5 minutes away from charging people subscriptions for self-hosting if they don’t already. Synology runner up?
Nextcloud’s business model is service contracts. Which is going great. The origin story of Nextcloud is that ownCloud was too commercial (open core) instead of fully open source, so they forked it. I haven’t seen any moves by Nextcloud that has moved their focus from open source to hint at enshitification. Your claims are rather bold and without proof. Nextcloud doesn’t even use LibreOffice, but the online derivative Collabora. Also OpenOffice has been dead for more than a decade so I don’t know why you even reference that. Are you confusing this with the totally different OnlyOffice (‘only’ not ‘open’) which this news is actually about?
Their fork of OnlyOffice is actually because it is open core and they want it fully open source: https://github.com/Euro-Office/#euro-office-liberates-the-onlyoffice-code-base
Good podcast episode interviewing Frank Kolichek were the folk is mentioned : https://opensourcesecurity.io/2026/2026-02-nextcloud-frank-karlitschek/
I haven’t made any claims. My comment is about the “vibes” of NextCloud as a “product” and “company”, if you want objectivity in what i’m saying.
Im not a nextcloud user and it’s good that you personally don’t feel that they’ve made any moves towards enshitification but we’ve seen countless companies start with great and pure intentions that unfortunately throw that all out the window when: an opportunity to be a market leader, opportunity of profits becomes too great, or the userbase becomes significant enough. “Open Source” seems to unfortunately be part of the tech company corporate playbook.
We live in a world where organizations and companies get to change terms after sale now. While it is not zero sum, if you’re not exercising skepticism towards those trying to offer you something, you’re probably doing yourself a disservice. Nothing is truly free.
Also, OpenOffice is definitely not dead lol https://www.openoffice.org/
Nothing is truly free. Absolutely. They are living of their contracts and are doing rather well.
That leads me to my point: there are profits and they are already bring made. (Yeah capitalism, can always be more. But since they started as a fork they know the risks and might not even feel that that is the right way to go.)
Skepticism yay, feeling something is legitimate but shouldn’t be a guiding beacon for the general public.
Nextcloud uses GNU AGPLv3 and explicitly doesn’t use a CLA: https://github.com/nextcloud/server/blob/master/contribute/HowToApplyALicense.md. They do this to prevent themselves from relicensing it. So they can’t suddenly take the code and make it closed source.
Regarding OpenOffice. I used to be a big fan of OpenOffice more than a decade ago, but LibreOffice has become my open source office suite since then.
Apache OpenOffice (AOO) might still work, but there is no significant development (see commits of the last year https://github.com/apache/openoffice/graphs/contributors?from=2025-05-01&to=2026-04-02&type=c). Only one person is committing on a daily/weekly basis, but this person is in their own words not a developer (https://github.com/apache/openoffice/pull/202#issuecomment-2561915795). Most of the commits are ‘cleanup’ commits where whitespace or comments are changed https://github.com/apache/openoffice/commits/trunk/.
LibreOffice on the other hand is actively developed. Others who are actually involved explained this better than I can:
Nextcloud is free software (aGPL v3) though so your worries are very misleading.
LibreOffice doesn’t run on mobile.
This project is not “Nextcloud” only. There are eight vendors competing on Nextcloud also contributing.
The article is on a ‘pay or ok’ site.
They need to come up with a less cringe name than EuroOffice if they want any adoption. Not going to replace nationalism with pan-European nationalism.
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Nice. Public beta: https://github.com/Euro-Office/
Interesting, it is a fork of Onlyoffice.
Yup, with the few closed source parts rewritten in OSS, and a full audit conducted. Guessing they chose it since it is more modern than Libre and web-native.
I tried Nextcloud. I didn’t find it great for syncing files. I’m the only user of the server and keep getting merge conflicts.
Moved to OpenCloud which has been much more stable, if not as feature rich.
…if not as feature rich.
Nextcloud has groupware, opencloud doesn’t right?
Groupware?
term for software that support multiple people working on it at the same time, a la google docs or figma
web mail, calendars, contacts, etc
It sure sounds like you’re doing something wrong then because almost all of us who use that software don’t have that issue.
Hehe… the project is dying before it even started:
ONLYOFFICE has issued a formal notice regarding the “Euro-Office” project recently announced by #Nextcloud and #IONOS.
𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗬𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺𝘀, 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗚𝗣𝗟𝘃𝟯 𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗬𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟲.
The violations include:
- Removal of ONLYOFFICE branding and logo from derivative works
- Failure to provide proper attribution to the original technology
- Non-compliance with open-source distribution obligations under AGPLv3, Section 7
To be clear: ONLYOFFICE is #opensource. We actively support forks, integrations, and derivative works. Hundreds of partners build on our #technology every day: legally, transparently, and successfully.
The use of our technology without respecting the #legal conditions that govern it is unacceptable. Under Section 8 of AGPLv3, any breach of the license results in the automatic termination of all rights granted. Without a valid license, continued use constitutes copyright infringement.
𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘁𝘆. 𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
𝗪𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀.
Read the formal notice: https://onlyo.co/41Ci2gW
#software #opensource #AGPLv3 #license #compliance #sovereignty #intellectualproperty
Tried nextcloud, 3 updates per day, fuck off.
I moved my data there a couple of months ago and couldn’t be happier. Maybe try a different provider?
I love Nextcloud, but I have everything running in containers, and I have them auto updating on system boot.
Its a super powerful software. Its on my top list of self hosting software. But it breaks so often with auto updates. And there is the potential of having to reinstall it because of a broken install, and your personal service being down for weeks.
Borg backups work, but they are not intuitive to setup when using containers.
Auto setting up trusted domains is not intuitive.
My solution going forward, is to have secondary containers which I don’t update as frequently, that point to the same user files folder on the primary containers. Kind of like having my services load balanced. I plan on doing this for some of my other containers that are frequently down.
In my experience, services that require more than 1 container are the ones that crash the most. Especially when they connect to a database container.
my advise: do not update immediately to a freshly released major version of Nextcloud. Just wait several point releases.
That’s fair, but even then it might break when I update it. I think rotating containers on which one I update is the way to go so I always have 1 running.
I’ve never tried this technique but I’m curious to try it out.
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