OnlyOffice Suspends Nextcloud Partnership For Forking Its Project Without Approval (neowin.net)
- Reference: 0181200696
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/04/01/1516246/onlyoffice-suspends-nextcloud-partnership-for-forking-its-project-without-approval
- Source link: https://www.neowin.net/news/onlyoffice-suspends-nextcloud-partnership-over-unapproved-euro-office-fork/
> OnlyOffice has [2]suspended its partnership with Nextcloud after the latter forked its editors into a new project [3]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.
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> As a result, its [4]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 [5]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.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~darwinmac
[2] https://www.neowin.net/news/onlyoffice-suspends-nextcloud-partnership-over-unapproved-euro-office-fork/
[3] https://slashdot.org/story/26/03/31/0438235/euro-office-wants-to-replace-google-docs-and-microsoft-office
[4] https://nextcloud.com/blog/onlyoffice-and-nextcloud-partnering-up/
[5] https://github.com/Euro-Office#euro-office-liberates-the-OnlyOffice-code-base
hmm (Score:4, Funny)
At some point it just seems less exhausting to just use Office.
Re: (Score:2)
This, however, is far from that point. ... But I *do* prefer LibreOffice. However my use case is different.
Re: (Score:2)
Or just use open office. I don't get this need to edit docs inside your web browser.
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: (Score:2)
> 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: (Score:3)
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 ev
Re: (Score:2)
I do use LibreOffice, but generically call it OpenOffice cause it rolls off the tongue easier. Quite frankly LibreOffice is kinda retarded name.
Re: (Score:2)
> 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:1)
I'm sticking with StarOffice on my Ross-upgraded Sparc 20.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft Office if Microsoft Office compatibility is what you are going for, which it seems these groups are.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
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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?
OnlyOffice (Score:3)
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)
Probably a case of aiming to monetise it via being a one stop shop for all EU tech needs. Otherwise I cannot see the need for them to fork it in house.
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
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.
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:2)
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.
O
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
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Isn't that (at least partially) covered by their [1]Attribution [github.com] file that they're working on right now?
[1] https://github.com/Euro-Office/DocumentServer/blob/chore/attributions/ATTRIBUTION
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.