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Euro-Office Wants To Replace Google Docs and Microsoft Office (howtogeek.com) 77

Posted by BeauHD from the docs-without-the-dependency dept.
Euro-Office is a new open-source project supported by several European companies that aims to offer a "truly open, transparent and sovereign solution for collaborate document editing," using OnlyOffice as a starting point. The project is positioned around European digital independence and familiar Office-style editing, though it has already drawn pushback from OnlyOffice over alleged licensing violations. "The company behind OnlyOffice is also based in Russia, and Russia is still heavily sanctioned by most European nations due to the country's ongoing invasion of Ukraine," adds How-To Geek. From the report: Euro-Office is a new open-source project supported by Nextcloud, EuroStack, Wiki, Proton, Soverin, Abilian, and other companies based in Europe. The goal is to build an online office suite that can open and edit standard Microsoft Office documents (DOCX, PPTX, XLSX) and the OpenDocument format (ODS, ODT, ODP) used by LibreOffice and OpenOffice. The current design is remarkably close to Microsoft Office and its tabbed toolbars, so there shouldn't be much of a learning curve for anyone used to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

Importantly, Euro-Office is only the document editing component. It's designed to be added to cloud storage services, online wikis, project management tools, and other software. For example, you could have some Word documents in your Nextcloud file storage, and clicking them in a browser could open the Euro-Office editor. That way, Nextcloud (or Proton, or anyone else) doesn't have to build its own document editor from scratch.

Euro-Office is based on OnlyOffice, which is open-source under the AGPL license. The project explained that "Contributing is impossible or greatly discouraged" with OnlyOffice's developers, with outside code changes rarely accepted, so a hard fork was required. The company behind OnlyOffice is also based in Russia, and Russia is still heavily sanctioned by most European nations due to the country's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The project's home page explains, "A lot of users and customers require software that is not potentially influenced or controlled by the Russian government." As for why OnlyOffice was chosen over LibreOffice, the project simply said: "We believe open source is about collaboration, and we look for opportunities to integrate and collaborate with the LibreOffice community and companies like Collabora."

UPDATE: Slashdot reader Elektroschock shares a statement from OnlyOffice CEO Lev Bannov, expressing his concerns about the Euro-Office inclusion of its software with trademarks removed: "We liked the AGPL v3 license because its 7th clause allows us to ensure that our code retains its original attributes, so that users are able to clearly identify the developers and the brand behind the program..."

Bannov continued: "The core issue here isn't just about what the AGPL license states, but about the additional provisions we, as the authors, have included. This is a critical distinction, even if some may argue otherwise. We firmly assert that the Euro-Office project is currently infringing on our copyright in a deliberate and unacceptable manner."

"As the creators of ONLYOFFICE, we want to make our position unequivocally clear: we do not grant anyone the right to remove our branding or alter our open-source code without proper attribution. This principle is non-negotiable and will never change. We demand that the Euro-Office project either restore our branding and attributions or roll back all forks of our project, refraining from using our code without proper acknowledgment of ONLYOFFICE."

Euro-Office Wants To Replace Google Docs and Microsoft Office More | Reply

Euro-Office Wants To Replace Google Docs and Microsoft Office

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  • uhh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@NospaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @12:03PM (#66070512) Homepage

    "As for why OnlyOffice was chosen over LibreOffice, the project simply said: "We believe open source is about collaboration, and we look for opportunities to integrate and collaborate with the LibreOffice community and companies like Collabora.""

    Ok, since they just refuse to answer the question, does anyone else know why OnlyOffice was chosen over LibreOffice?

    • Guessing (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DrMrLordX ( 559371 )

      Just a guess but it seems like the Euro-Office team is keen on violating a license or two, and perhaps they found it easier/simpler to violate the OnlyOffice license.

      • Re:Guessing (Score:5, Informative)

        by DeBaas ( 470886 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @12:33PM (#66070572) Homepage

        IANAL but It is the assumption of OnlyOffice that there is a violation. EuroOffice in commit message on Github [github.com]

        Remove unenforceable and non-obligatory Section 7 additions from core
        Under AGPLv3 Section 7, downstream recipients may remove terms that constitute "further restrictions" beyond what Section 7(a)-(f) permits, as affirmed by the FSF.

        Logo retention requirement (Section 7(b)): Section 7(b) permits requiring preservation of "legal notices or author attributions". A product logo is a trademark/brand element, not a legal notice or author attribution. It therefore exceeds the scope of 7(b), qualifies as a "further restriction" under Section 10, and may be removed.

        Trademark disclaimer (Section 7(e)): Purely declaratory — the AGPLv3 does not grant trademark rights in any case. The disclaimer creates no affirmative obligation on the licensee and removing it changes no rights or obligations. There is no legal basis requiring its preservation.

        Apparently AGPLv3 allows some additions in Section 7. What is allowed is defined in a-f. OnlyOffice feels that 7-b allows them to demand that the attribution means that they can demand the Logo and brand elements need to stay. Euro-Office apparently disagrees.
        Euro-Office also claims that 7e gives no legal basis for it.

        I can't assess who is right.

        As to why OnlyOffice over Collabora. In my experience, as OnlyOffice uses the OOXML format of MS, there are a few less issues with MS Office files. In my experience there are indeed a few less lay-out issues. Another thing I once notices was embedded media files in a Powerpoint file that did work in OnlyOffice and not in Libre.

        Although OnlyOffice is now officially based in the EU, there remains some doubts on them as they originated in Russia.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I can't assess who is right.

          I would wish that EuroOffice follows the request of the OpenOffice CEO and submits the disagreement in interpretation of the license to the FSF for their decision.

        • You raise some legitimate points about file format compatibility.

        • I hoped they asked FSF-Europe as the legal system in the EU is quite different than in the USA.

        • This is a weird situation.

          If the license is changed it's no longer AGPL, it's a unique license.

          If the license has restrictions then the copyright is violated by not adhering to the license.

          The above makes it sound like both parties want to have it both ways.

          I would just give the Russians proper attribution but the European governments hate Russia so much that they couldn't possibly do that. This is a problem with having governments run open source projects.

          In the en it's probably going to be like Russian ga

          • If they are lifting a GPL/AGPL licensed piece of software, are they allowed to change the license? I thought they weren't!

          • If the license is changed it's no longer AGPL, it's a unique license.

            A) the copyright restrictions on the AGPLv3 make it illegal to distribute an altered AGPLv3 so that would make it invalid. As I read it, they have only added extra stuff at the end which would be aggregation not alteration so may well be okay as long as they don't add anything the AGPLv3 doesn't permit to be added.

            B) The software clearly states that it is licensed under the AGPLv3, but with permitted restrictions. In which case, the actual AGPLv3 and not any altered version is what we care about anyway.

            I would just give the Russians proper attribution but the European governments hate Russia so much that they couldn't possibly do that. This is a problem with having governments run open source projects.

            My u

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jsonn ( 792303 )
          Ironically, many consider it a major downside of OnlyOffice that it is based on OOXML, since that format is considered less open than ODF.

      • Since Russia is already under sanctions, the EuroOffice probably thought that violating the license of a Russian company is equivalent to applying sanctions on Moscow

        More seriously, it's probably b'cos OnlyOffice is feature-compatible w/ Microsoft Office, particularly Excel. Something that I doubt that either LibreOffice or Collabora do

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "As for why OnlyOffice was chosen over LibreOffice, the project simply said: "We believe open source is about collaboration, and we look for opportunities to integrate and collaborate with the LibreOffice community and companies like Collabora.""

      Ok, since they just refuse to answer the question, does anyone else know why OnlyOffice was chosen over LibreOffice?

      Probably the same reason I use OnlyOffice over LibreOffice? OnlyOffice has a clean, intuitive interface and high compatibility with Office "Open" XML (docx, pptx, xlsx). LibreOffice is clunky, non-intuitive and just frustrating to use. Compatibility has improved, but still has issues compared to OnlyOffice.

      • Re:uhh (Score:4, Informative)

        by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @12:44PM (#66070596) Journal
        The interface in OnlyOffice more closely resembles the modern ribbon interface in MS Office. For some people, that's a reason to choose LibreOffice instead. OnlyOffice. LibreOffice works very well for me, but I don't work with complex documents, and I don't need collaboration or cloud stuff. The latter might be why they selected OnlyOffice, since that's more like Office365 than MS Office; a more modern paradigm.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's probably a combination of factors, including that. As well as OnlyOffice having a more modern UI, LibreOffice's support for a web version has been on and off over the years. It's also quite old and got a fair bit of legacy code and technical debt that makes it somewhat hard to add new features to.

          Collabora is owed by a UK company, outside the EU. OnlyOffice is EU based and already adopted by the French government.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Erioll ( 229536 )
          IIRC, LibreOffice has a ribbon as well, but it's not the default. Which helps old users of the suite, but doesn't help new ones. It's a hard problem: features to bring in more new people, or keep things that the existing users like more.

      • Is OnlyOffice's Excel equivalent something that has all the capabilities of MS Excel - pivot tables, formulas and so on?

    • Re: uhh (Score:4, Interesting)

      by paulatz ( 744216 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @12:45PM (#66070602)
      There is already modern euro-centric rework of LibreOffice, it is Collabora. It used to be just a rebranded fork of LibreOffice, but it then evolved in an online suite, which integrates with Nextcloud. And most recently, a completely new interface, based on LibreOffice but (if I understand correctly) written in python and with all the java legacy code stripped off. The first public version was only released a couple of months ago, it is still a bit unstable and missing some features, but completely usable.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >>written in python and with all the java legacy code stripped off.

        LOL. That's like saying "I removed all that old FORTRAN code and replaced it with BASIC"

      • I have been an on-and-off user of OpenOffice/LibreOffice for many years, and I have to say I've always found it extremely clunky. By all accounts the OOO codebase is pretty convoluted.
        Given how many variations of browser-based office suites now exist, I just don't see the point in starting from the OOO design or code.

      • Is it? I thought that Collabora was a rebrand of KOffice, which was once a part of the entire KDE package

    • Re: uhh (Score:2, Troll)

      by FudRucker ( 866063 )
      Because the Europeans rather see Russia spy on them and steal secrets than have the USA's big tech biz spy on them and steal secrets

    • A few very simple probes reveal that LibreOffice via Collabora is very far from contemporary UX in the browser across devices. ONLYOFFICE however is much much closer to a performant web experience. The enigne under the hood, I suspect, is much better.

      Any modern office editing tool must be browser first. Otherwise you force other people to install stuff on their devices in order to collaborate

      Its 2026, send me a link with proper permissions granted, no account required. For viewing, commenting and editing

      Whi

    • LibreOffice was considered somewhat outdated and the OnlyOffice codebase more modern with less cruft. While LibreOffice still is considered as a viable alterternative to commercial solutions, FOSS OnlyOffice / Euro-Office is now officially preferred.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tohoward ( 78757 )

      The short answer, IMO is that it's (1) easier to integrate with cloud storage (e.g. NextCloud), (2) very compatible with MS office, and (3) is more mature w/r/t it's updates not breaking things, esp. w/r/t (2).

      I pushed hard to get alternatives working with my NC instance, but OnlyOffice ended up being the better answer for those reasons above. Is it a full Office365 replacement? No, not if you use "advanced" features of MS office, where the definition of advanced varies greatly depending on if you're doin

  • Looking forward to open source cooling solutions.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @12:15PM (#66070540)
    ... from OnlyOfficeFans!

  • OnlyOffice CEO doesn't understand AGPL (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jarkus4 ( 1627895 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @12:22PM (#66070560)

    Clearly OnlyOffice tried to run around AGPL terms by forcing any derivative work to use their logo while simultaneously refusing to allow its use (trademark). They tried to do this by using clause 7(b):
    > you may (...) supplement the terms of this License with terms: (...)
    > b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it

    Unfortunately for them logo is not legal notice nor atribution, so they basically created a "further restriction" under the terms of AGPL, which is allowed to be dropped
    > If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

    • Is that what they are doing? I was under the impression that their claim is that the AGPL does not grant anyone the right to remove their branding or alter their open-source code without proper attribution. So why not preserve their branding and logos?

      Whether OpenOffice actually lives in Riga or Nizhny Novgorod is not something for the EuroOffice staff to determine. They should simply work w/ OpenOffice, and then if the EU has a problem w/ that, they should determine in which country OpenOffice actuall

  • because it's U.S. based and our government most definitely has various backdoors to get at anything that's generated using the package. I don't care much, but I totally understand that a lot of people don't like it. I consider myself to be a loyal US citizen, but sorry Uncle Sam, nothing you tell me will convince me that you're not snooping. I know too much history to be that naive.

    And, if I was a European, I probably wouldn't like the idea of using MS office and every document I make winding up on a US

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But, dudes, you're trying to tell me the a RUSSIAN program is gonna be better? What planet do you live on?

      Open source Russian vs closed source American? That matters on this planet.

    • Re: I get that they don't like MS office (Score:5, Informative)

      by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @12:58PM (#66070624)
      I like Microsoft office, better than Libreoffice, which I used a few years before I got Ms office at home through work. But since Snowden, it was pretty clear to me that there probably were intentional back doors.
      Best case, this was only used for (inter)national security. Worst case? This was abused to do industrial espionage, extort people, ... With Trump? You bet they will abuse it without a second thought. We are switching back to Libreoffice now. Too bad though. I miss PowerPoint and OneDrive. Oh well... we will adapt. It is for the greater good.

    • Re:I get that they don't like MS office (Score:4, Informative)

      by alexgieg ( 948359 ) <alexgieg@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @01:13PM (#66070644)

      a RUSSIAN program is gonna be better? What planet do you live on?

      You do understand this is a fork of an open-source package, that the entire code of the original version can be read, and any backdoor, if found, removed from the fork, right?

      • "You do understand ... " - No, he's not.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        I think you've never tried to understand the code of a large project written by a different group of people.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Identifying backdoors in an office package is relatively easy, since it has no business communicating over the network in most cases and it certainly has no business opening server-sockers, ever. For the general case, things are more complex.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            Isn't this specifically supposed to allow groups to coordinate on documents over the internet? That would seem to require opening sockets.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Only with a server in between. This is not P2P. Hence only outgoing sockets and only in very few places.

    • The entire code is there to view. If worried about a backdoor, feel free to do a clone and go examine it.

      I am all for office suite, be it OpenOffice, Libreoffice. I prefer if at least 1-2 would get backing/funding/devs to work on it, preferably more than one, but a F/OSS office suite will be a major gain. Especially if it supported storing documents via various cloud providers, as well as document versioning. Microsoft Word used to allow one to have one document with a ton of versions in it, which made

      • It's riddled with ways to make it difficult for others to contribute. There's comments in Russian (ok, originally Russian project, so to be expected), obfuscated code (not nice), and binary blobs in there.

        OnlyOffice doesn't want people forking their project or even contributing to it. That being said, OnlyOffice is a commercial company, maintaining the project under the same name. They are allowed to do whatever they want to it.

        That being said, when a fork happens, it's tough for them. Soon they'll face com

    • As others have pointed out above, it is an open source project licensed under the AGPL. So backdoors should be easy to detect

      Aside from that, there is a question about whether it's a Russian or a Latvian company. It's headquarters are located in Riga, but there have been claims that the entire staff lives and works in Nizhny Novgorod. So that is something that could be of interest to the EU, but not the EuroOffice creators. The latter's role should only be to come up w/ a software alternative for the

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Without wanting to start a political debate here... A large part of the sentiment to move off US tech is because Europeans are realising that the USA is an unreliable trading partner, and no longer the military ally it once was. Instead, the USA has, for example, started a war which has pushed up prices for everyone in the world, and is somehow blaming the rest of the world for it. This demonstrates the US will do what it wants, when it wants and it won't give anyone the 'heads up', much less let anyone tal

  • OnlyOffice can't save in OpenDocument formats (ODT, et al), which makes it a total non-starter. Would make much more sense to spend their energy on improving Collabora's mobile and web UI.

    • You are incorrect, at least for the "desktop" Linux version. It saves in ODF formats for the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation modes - just checked.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jezral ( 449476 )

        Curious. The Android app is incapable. It can open ODT files, but immediately converts to DOCX and will only save as DOCX.

  • Haha what a bunch of leaches. Of course they don't care about legality, Russians won't be able to do much anyway.

  • >The goal is to build an online office suite that can open and edit standard Microsoft Office documents (DOCX, PPTX, XLSX) and the OpenDocument format (ODS, ODT, ODP)

    OnlyOffice already does that.

    >Importantly, Euro-Office is only the document editing component. It's designed to be added to cloud storage services, online wikis, project management tools, and other software.

    No it's not, OnlyOffice already does that. wtf are they adding? If you want to use OnlyOffice, use OnlyOffice, don't spit o
  • Onlyoffice is great. OnlyOffice has less features than Libreoffice it has a lot cleaner interface. Id love to try EuroOffice, is it available for download binaries without having to compile it?

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