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[–] 77 points 5 months ago (1 child)

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.

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  • [–] 37 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    i remember hearing this is just a rebrand of onlyoffice, is there something interesting about it (from a technical pov)?

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  • [–] 66 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    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 Build instructions are unreliable, outdated or just plain broken.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.
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  • [–] 32 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    I’m using nextcloud+onlyoffice as office 365 replacement so this is simply excellent news! Glad i can get rid of onlyoffice the company.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    What's wrong with Only office? I like it way more than Collabora.

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  • [–] 30 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Isn't OpenOffice deprecated? Or am I mistaken?

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  • [–] 15 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    It still exists and gets regular updates, but has been half-dead for 20 years.

    I wish OnlyOffice was a little more well-known and community-developed - it's way better at what it does

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  • [–] 30 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    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"

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (5 children)

    why reinvent the wheel when we have LibreOffice already

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    OnlyOffice is a much more polished and mature suite than LibreOffice.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    Is it really, or is it just a matter of interface?

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

    It is actually better in rendering Microsoft office files with weird layouts

    Also it integrates wonderfully in nextcloud, it's like Google docs (auto save, history, collaborative editing)

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  • [–] 26 points 5 months ago*

    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 😍 🇪🇺

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  • [+] 22 points 5 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Looks like it's powered by NextCloud? If so, that's FOSS funding that we all win!

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago

    NextCloud is a contributor, I believe the screenshot they're using is to show that Euro-Office can be used as an integration/app in NextCloud as of now.

    Euro-Office seems based mostly on OnlyOffice if I'm reading their source page correctly. It's a competor to LibreOffice more than a whole platform.

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  • [–] 187 points 5 months ago (51 children)

    if only there was a good, actively developed and highly regarded free and open source alternative whose name would be something like "LibreOffice"...

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  • [–] 195 points 5 months ago (17 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 32 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I remember seeing a post earlier this year about libreoffice doing a web based version.

    Yeah, here it is.

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  • [–] 25 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 50 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 17 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Is cryptpad able to open existing docx files? Last time I checked I couldn't figure out how to do it. I mostly need to edit word documents that people send me, and send them back the same format.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    It can import most file types supported by only office

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Where is that option? I'm only getting the option to create a new document for some reason, and to export documents created on cryptpad to docx. I assumed it was because they only figured out the conversion one way but maybe I'm just missing the button?

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    An office suite for collaborating ? Great idea ! I brt they would call it something like "Collabora Office" !

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  • [+] 22 points 5 months ago* (8 children)
  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Isn’t Only Office European too? My memory tells me it’s from Estonia. It’s Europe!

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  • [–] 18 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    No it's not. The main company is Russian and they try way too hard to hide the fact that they are from Russia. They constantly creating new sub companies in Estonia, Cypher, UK and some more and transfer the HQ there while main Company is still in Russia along with CEO that owns it.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    Oh, that’s sad. Thanks for informing me (and others) on that part! Considering the war in Ukraine (where I live now), there’s a no way, I’m going to use it then. In this case, I agree. Having a European solution is better than using Russian or even USian.

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  • [–] 18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Looks like this is going to be a browser based suite with online collaboration, more like Google docs than Microsoft office.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Would only be interested if there's a local version as well that can turn syncing on or off. A purely web based office suite is unappealing.

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago* (4 children)

    LibreOffice feels like a java app with 40 years of baggage and tech debt going back to Sun Microsystems

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Afaik there's a port that makes the ui more like Photoshop, I forget the name, maybe another lemming can fill it in.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Uhh, you realize it's just OnlyOffice, right? Another actively developed, free and open source (but web-first, vs desktop first) software?

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  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    While they claim to be open source, OnlyOffice uses their trademark to block forks and derivative work. Which is why this Euro Office was created, along with more control over mobile apps, since that part has issues as well.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Why are there so many different open source office suites? Wouldn't it be more effective if they joined forces? Or do they have incompatible visions?

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    Because before cloud vendor subscription lock-in was considered socially acceptable, there were a lot of big tech companies that wanted to be seen being “open source” in name to court customers while locking you in by other means. “Open”Office is the quintessential example, but it is by no means a unique situation in the “Open” source world.

    It happens often enough that there are some people who get very upset with you for not knowing the difference between “Open Source”, “open source”, and “source available”.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

    Libraoffice isn't good though, if it was people would already use it.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Who does? I don't know of any major company that uses LibreOffice

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    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?

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  • [–] 25 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    "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

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 15 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    “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?

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Collaborative editing and the like isn't really easy to solve with other methods. Maybe a P2P approach could be viable.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    P2P wouldn't scale very well, though. It would be really complicated once you have more than a small handful of people.

    From what I remember, Lemmy had/has a similar problem, where the whole thing would start bogging down past a point, because all the connected instances would need to update each other, instead of a main hub they could query like more centralised networks would.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago

    Having degoogled this year, I deeply miss Google sheets and the ability to (a) summon it on any device and (b) share it with shy real-time participants.

    I am trying out cryptpad which feels both flabby in terms of complexity and ui, but also in terms of delays and nuisances in processing and learning curve. Like if I were dumped into 'Corel quattro' or 'Lotus 123' for the first time, now.

    But I don't want them being able to slurp up my data and then hand it over to an adversarial government, so I am very interested in continuing to shift to European service providers for email, password management, and office documents.

    The criticism in the thread isn't about the vendor in specific, but the technology in general? Because I need persuasion (not that it's your job, I just know we are all fumbling towards hopefully "better")

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    Well hold on now. Could it be self hosted?

    I use google docs when i want a simple document that is accessible and thats useful. I use open office or local programs when i want to drill into the details.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    This seems to be marketed to businesses and governments, but is it limited to them? Or should anyone be able to set up a public instance?

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