OnlyOffice Suspends Nextcloud Partnership For Forking Its Project Without Approval (neowin.net) 46
darwinmac writes: OnlyOffice has suspended its partnership with Nextcloud after the latter forked its editors into a new project called Euro-Office, according to a report from Neowin. The move comes just days after Nextcloud and partners like IONOS announced the fork as part of a broader push for European digital sovereignty. In a statement, the company accused the project of violating its licensing terms and international intellectual property law, claiming that Euro-Office uses its technology without proper compliance. OnlyOffice also pointed to missing attribution requirements and branding obligations tied to its AGPL-based licensing model.
As a result, its 8-year-old partnership, which allowed Nextcloud users to edit and collaborate on office documents right inside their own instance, has been suspended. OnlyOffice also accused Nextcloud of not behaving in a manner expected of a partner, alleging attempts to poach its employees and influence customers against the company. Nextcloud said it forked the OnlyOffice repository instead of collaborating with the company because the project is notoriously difficult to contribute to. It also pointed out that OnlyOffice is a Russian company with Russian employees who leave code comments in Russian. In addition to that, some users may feel uncomfortable using software that could be linked to the Russian government.
As a result, its 8-year-old partnership, which allowed Nextcloud users to edit and collaborate on office documents right inside their own instance, has been suspended. OnlyOffice also accused Nextcloud of not behaving in a manner expected of a partner, alleging attempts to poach its employees and influence customers against the company. Nextcloud said it forked the OnlyOffice repository instead of collaborating with the company because the project is notoriously difficult to contribute to. It also pointed out that OnlyOffice is a Russian company with Russian employees who leave code comments in Russian. In addition to that, some users may feel uncomfortable using software that could be linked to the Russian government.
Oh well... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What ever happened to "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission"...
Because it's like the phrase, "Devil hates a coward." It's an admission and excuse for being an ass.
hmm (Score:4, Funny)
At some point it just seems less exhausting to just use Office.
Re: (Score:3)
This, however, is far from that point. ... But I *do* prefer LibreOffice. However my use case is different.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
There isn't one. But there IS a need to be able to edit a single document with collaboratively with multiple people, and have decent reliability in changes being preserved and getting updated asynchronously.
At the moment, only Microsoft Office and Google Docs allow that. The browser is just a side-effect/perk of using web technologies to facilitate the above, and the fact that Google does everything in the browser as far as possible.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
At the moment, only Microsoft Office and Google Docs allow that.
It's a much longer list than that. Hell, even the products in TFS can do it (OnlyOffice and EuroOffice)!
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
At the moment, only Microsoft Office and Google Docs allow that.
False, Both of the products mentioned in TFS have this capability, as do forks of the usual darling: LibreOffice's Online and Collabera.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
I notice that many people still point to openoffice... they should not! :)
OpenOffice is mostly abandoned, the latest Apache OpenOffice is v4.1.16, from November 2025, but 4.1 was released in 2014 !! 12 years and you only got minor bug fixes. There are almost no developers and changes in OpenOffice. Everything moved to LibreOffice! Oracle killed the OpenOffice by being oracle and when it was dead already, dump it to Apache Foundation that little could do. The brand is still in the mind of many people but everyone should really move to libreoffice already
check this timeline: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So people still in OpenOffice should migrate to LibreOffice, that i suspect will solve many of the problems compatibility they have in OpenOffice and get lot more new features and performance. OnlyOffice is also good and lets see the Euro-Office
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
they could not use openoffice as Oracle had the trademark for the name when acquired sun and did changed the license of openoffice from GPL to a more restrictive one... so getting a new name was required and libre was a good option as to say that libreoffice was still GPL, openoffice was just open source, but with many restrictions that didn't existed before
The best thing that apache could do would offer openoffice name to libreoffice, so it could be renamed back to openoffice. I do agree that openoffice is
Re: (Score:3)
To add to that. LibreOffice itself is not remotely feature comparable to MS Office in a corporate environment. For that you want LibreOffice Online or Collabora Office which a both based on LibreOffice (the former run by the same developers) and actually offer proper enterprise collaboration functionality.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Just recently there was an editorial from a tech author who prefers OpenOffice precisely because it isn't changing. It is stable and works, and the UI won't get redone.
That is great if you want a desktop client that just works. Not as great for the EuroOffice folks who want it in a web browser.
LibreOffice only just recently restarted their online version, though they only provide the software and not a hosting mechanism. Perhaps that software could've been a base for EuroOffice, but it isn't in production state yet. OnlyOffice is quite a bit ahead there.
I think one of the reasons LibreOffice hadn't been working on their online version before is that Collabora is a major contributor to LibreOffice and they already have a product that does what LibreOffice online will do.
Re: (Score:1)
At some point it just seems less exhausting to just use Office.
Which one?
Since you apparently think everyone knows the answer already, you have illustrated the problem that OnlyOffice, Euro-Office, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and other freeware office suites are trying to address.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft Office if Microsoft Office compatibility is what you are going for, which it seems these groups are.
Re: (Score:3)
My experience with Microsoft Office is that often it is not even compatible with itself. Documents not looking the same after reloading, font sizes changing on their own, printed copies not looking like what's on the screen, and so on.
Re: (Score:2)
There was one major break in formats in 2007, when the XML-compatible formats were introduced. Were there any others?
Do font sizes change on their own, or is that a function of the size of a view?
Re: (Score:2)
"Exhausting"? Not sure what you are talking about. How does this in any way affect you using a product?
Re: (Score:2)
At some point it just seems less exhausting to just use Office.
"Hi, James Woburn of 23 Acacia Avenue, Minneapolis, SSN 776-04-1120, this is Copilot! I heard you wanted to install Office with Copilot. Let me help you with that. First, we'll get your Microsoft account set up for you..."
OnlyOffice (Score:5, Funny)
For people who like OnlyFans and/or The Office, you're going to be disappointed. :-)
"European digital sovereignty?" (Score:2)
This makes no sense. OnlyOffice appears to be Latvian which is part of the EU. Something here smells.
Re: "European digital sovereignty?" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The owner Dev Barrov is a Russian citizen, and there have been claims that most of the staff are Russian who live and work at Nizhny Novgorod. That seems to be the sticking point
Re: (Score:3)
A Russian citizen sitting in an EU country is subject to EU laws. This doesn't sound like a sovereignty issue, it sounds like a potential espionage issue so you may have a point. Still I would have thought it would be sufficient to backup a fork of the code base for good measure, I don't see how the dev being a Russian citizen presents a risk.
Office Peoples Front (Score:2)
Splitters!
IMO: NextCloud is not ready for prime time (Score:2)
I can hardly believe any sizable establishment would use NextCloud.
NextCloud might be okay for home use, or a very small business.
Re: (Score:2)
I have to say I'm enjoying it for home use.
I added Talk, and now I don't need Microsoft or Zoom to make a video call. It's adding calendar support to MailInABox. I use the SMB connection ability to backdoor my way into my NGINX-hosted web pages for ease of editing.
Re: (Score:2)
I can hardly believe any sizable establishment would use NextCloud.
NextCloud might be okay for home use, or a very small business.
Well, if we operate under your assessment, what would be your recommended alternative for an open source (any license) file sync / collaboration suite? Owncloud? Pydio? Seafile?
Or are you suggesting OneDrive or Google Drive or Dropbox?
No seriously, I'm aware that Nextcloud has its faults and shortcomings...but if you can "hardly believe any sizeable establishment would use [it]", I'm interested in what you'd recommend as your preferred alternative.
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly an answer to your question, though I've found Stalwart e-mail server has most of what "homelab" users would actually find useful which is modern email (with JMAP), calendaring, and contacts. Give Stalwart a look especially if trying to ween oneself off of Google Mail.
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly an answer to your question, though I've found Stalwart e-mail server has most of what "homelab" users would actually find useful which is modern email (with JMAP), calendaring, and contacts. Give Stalwart a look especially if trying to ween oneself off of Google Mail.
Agreed; Stalwart isn't a bad mail solution...but Nextcloud isn't a mail solution. The GP's unsubstantiated statement was that Nextcloud was not viable for a business of any meaningful size. Since the claim was unsubstantiated, however, it was unclear what the recommended alternative would be. GP hasn't indicated why Nextcloud isn't viable, or what would be viable for a company with a need for browser-based file access and syncing.
In fairness to the GP, a large-enough company is going to prefer Google or Mic
Re: (Score:2)
Seafile would probably work. Simple and fast. Not overloaded with useless, often broken, plugins.
Re: (Score:2)
Most people can't believe a sizeable establishment would use Sharepoint. That buggy horrendous piece of shit none the less managed documents for Fortune 500 the world over.
It's amazing what companies put up with.
Online collab (Score:3)
Let's face it, we now have four products:
- Then we have LibeOffice Online (resurrected)
- Collabora which originaed as a LO online fork.
- OnlyOffice , the Russians stranded in the Baltics
and
- Euro-Office - a fork of onlyoffice
plus from the public sector french La suite includes Cryptpad an no proper office suite
- Open desk is the German alternative at ZenDIS and includes Collabora.
I think Euro-Office will just be fine but the crucial question is how much staff they are able to amass to bring it up to speed.
AGPL doesn't block forking, or using a fork (Score:3)
As long as the source is made available to users (including those accessing the code as a service), there is nothing in the AGPL that blocks the creation or use of a fork. And publishing the fork under a new name is the correct thing to do so as to not encroach on trademarks on the original (see: Waterfox vs. Firefox as an example). So Nextcloud are entirely within their rights, and in compliance with the AGPL license, to make and maintain this fork. They are also not trying to pass it off as the original.
OnlyOffice might not be happy about it, and they may object to the loss of commercial license sales, but as their software is released under the AGPL (which doesn't bar commercial use) they really don't have a leg to stand on. You can't be Open Source, then try to restrict who actually uses that source.
Re: (Score:2)
Does AGPL allow a fork to remove the credits of the original creators of whatever they are forking? That would look like brazen theft
Re:AGPL doesn't block forking, or using a fork (Score:4, Informative)
I'll Admit My Fear (Score:2)
I feel uncomfortable using software that could be linked to the Russian government. I also feel uncomfortable using Nextcloud.
I'm quite happy to avoid them both.
Meh... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've run NextCloud for quite some time, and my frustration with it has more to do with the project not seeming interested in pursuing some of the things that could really increase its adoption and usefulness.
I'm not denying they need to find a workable solution for an open-source Office suite that integrates with it. Don't really care if they move to LibreOffice or they settle this dispute w/OpenOffice instead.
But why can't they support message boards? If you think about it, NextCloud has all the other pieces to work like a computer bulletin board system for the Internet era (as opposed to the modem dial-up days). But with no public message forums integrated, where you could control people's access by security level? It's just a non-starter.
doa (Score:2)
Mumbleoffice is gonna die, mark my words.
Absurdity (Score:2)
Anyone recognize the absurdity of a European OSS project intended to address 'digital sovereignty' relying on a Russian software project, even just as a source for a fork?
Does no one in Europe pay attention to declared enemies?
Need to retain OnlyOffice branding? (Score:2)