Now, it has shifted its crosshairs to a supposed ally, OnlyOffice, explicitly labeling the rival productivity suite as “fake open-source.” According to TDF, OnlyOffice partners with Microsoft to enforce vendor lock-in by defaulting to Microsoft file formats instead of championing open standards.
Libreoffice, I love you, but this is a really bad look for you if your beef with OnlyOffice is just that it defaults to saving files in Microsoft format and you’re making this much stink about it.
In the original blog post, it isn’t stated as a conclusion that OnlyOffice is fake open-source because they default to a proprietary file format, but rather just as a general dig at them.
I can certainly understand the sentiment. OnlyOffice is developed by a corporation. It can be forked in theory, but in practice there is no open-source community with the knowledge or developer capacity to do so. So, users are ultimately still reliant on a corporation with a profit motive to not fuck them over.
Also has to be said, though, that the dig is written as part of the perspective from the author of that blog post, and merely mentioned in passing, too. It is far away from an official statement by the LibreOffice community.
I appreciate the additional clarity here, and I agree the article listed here doesn’t represent the real Libreoffice blog post well. Thank you for sharing the better information on this situation.
I mean, that’s significant enough to me. Open Source software defaulting, and thereby, promoting proprietary formats? Boo.
We need less proprietary formats, not more.
We need less proprietary formats, not more.
Software is a tool and should not be treated like a religion.
We need more users of open source non-commercial software. If we alienate all of those new users coming from commercial software because of some purity test, then we’ll never get there. If defaulting to a commercial file format for Onlyoffice convinces new users that its a viable alternative to Microsoft because it can save files in formats they are used to and still work with people they send files too that are still using Microsoft, then thats a win.
A more savvy user can choose to change the default saving file format as they progress away from commercial software.
Never a single “normie” that ever tried LibreOffice complained that “it doesn’t save to Microsoft format by default”.
They just say “I can’t find things in this interface” because they have been accostumed to Microsoft’s UI. That’s where OnlyOffice comes in. But it should definitely save new files as OpenDocument files by default. Otherwise, what a shitty move.
Never a single “normie” that ever tried LibreOffice complained that “it doesn’t save to Microsoft format by default”.
I not sure you deal with many “normies” then. They wouldn’t even form that statement you’re making. “Normies” don’t even know what a default saving format is. I have firsthand experience with multiple “normies” that have had this exact resulting problem with OpenOffice (before the Libreoffice fork). The way it manifested was a situation where they say this:
“I tried OpenOffice and I was able to create my document just fine, but when I sent it to my coworker/friend/teacher they couldn’t open it (because it was an ODF file) or the formatting was all screwed up when they did, so I gave up on the software and went back to Microsoft”
Sure, they could have likely saved their file in an MS format for better compatibility when they sent it but these these weren’t savvy users that even though to change the file format when saving because thats never something they had to do when they used Microsoft Office.
So if you want to get non-savvy users to adopt open source, its not a bad idea to meet them closer to where they are. Am I saying Libreoffice should change default saving format? No. But Libreoffice criticizing another open source product where they chose to is what is the bad look.
