Mastodawn

Christiane Viatte 22h ago

Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post. However, the articles and comments published in response to Collabora’s and Michael Meeks’ biased posts compel us to provide this background information on the events that led to the current situation.

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/05/lets-put-an-end-to-the-speculation/

Let's put an end to the speculation - TDF Community Blog

Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post. However, the articles and comments published in response to Collabora’s and Michael Meeks’ biased posts compel us to provide this background information on the events that led to the current situation. Unfortunately, we have to start from the very beginning, but we’ll try to keep it brief. The launch of the LibreOffice project and The Document Foundation was handled with great enthusiasm by the founding group. They were driven by a noble goal, but also by a bit of healthy recklessness. After all, it was impossible to imagine what would happen after September 28, 2010, the date of the announcement. At the time, nobody could imagine that the companies that had supported OpenOffice.org until then would create a project to kill LibreOffice. Also, if the project were to be successful, it would require resources greater than those available, and above all, a deep management experience. Fortunately, the project grew quite rapidly. However, the founders’ different backgrounds and opinions were at the same time the reason for some bold decisions – many of which right – as well as a few mistakes, which are the root cause of some of the current

TDF Community Blog

retrolasered 21h ago

@libreoffice "nobody could imagine that the companies that had supported OpenOffice.org until then would create a project to kill LibreOffice". What project is this reference to? Is this referring to the TDC? It's not clear in the article

Netraven 21h ago

@retrolasered @libreoffice

What it’s trying to say is:

“We at TDF think some old arrangements with companies around LibreOffice were legally improper for a nonprofit. We think Collabora benefited from that setup and resisted changing it. So we tightened governance and pushed them out. Now Collabora is angry and telling its side.”

That’s basically it.

Why it feels incoherent:

It never clearly separates commercial use of open source from nonprofit conflict-of-interest rules.
It keeps hinting at old internal grudges like TDC without stopping to explain them.
It is written like a legal-political rebuttal, not an explanation.

So your confusion is not a reading failure. The article is doing politics, not communication.

@Netraven
the weird thing is that your reading of it, which I think is right, if perfectly fine: there's nothing wrong with pushing out collabora under the circumstances.

@retrolasered @libreoffice

Netraven 9h ago

@iinavpov @retrolasered @libreoffice
supposedly, yes, however bare in mind that I performed an analytical interpretation of the text as given.

I didn't attempt to import anything more that was left unsaid in this message. So there could be more to the story than just what the dominant side is saying. I don't endorse any views the author stated, merely attempted to make sense of them as I was having a difficult time of the legal diction.

@Netraven
it's very poorly written.
@retrolasered @libreoffice

Netraven 9h ago

@iinavpov @retrolasered @libreoffice It is optimized for liability avoidance.

@Netraven
I don't think so. Ambiguity doesn't help for that, it makes it worse.
@retrolasered @libreoffice

Netraven 9h ago

@iinavpov @retrolasered @libreoffice ah well, I won't disagree with that. I'm not a lawyer, but I can't fathom why someone would write so abstrusely if not for legal purposes.

@retrolasered @libreoffice I think they are talking about Oracle, which bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. Sun was the main company maintaining OpenOffice. When Oracle bought Sun, the developers left and founded TDF, with the hope of getting an arrangement with Oracle to get the OpenOffice brand (that Oracle did not want to invest in), LibreOffice was to be a temporary name. But Oracle wanted more to kill LibreOffice and maintained a confusion by giving/selling (I don't know the details) of OpenOffice to the Apache Foundation and not to TDF. So even today there is still OpenOffice, which is more or less abandoned, and LibreOffice that continues to be developed.

the.contrarian 20h ago

@catnux I don't think so. This is an accusation against Collabora which has had to move its development outside TDF because of all the hostility, phrased to avoid a libel lawsuit.

@retrolasered @libreoffice

@contrarian @retrolasered @libreoffice Do you think so ? It apppeared to me that they were talking about the beginning of the LO journée, not specifically about the current situation ?
Did Collabora exist before TDF ? Since they are talking about the forks of OpenOffice ?
Indeed the article on TDF's blog is not very clear about that 😊

the.contrarian 17h ago

@catnux
Whoever wrote it is skilled at lawsuit-avoiding innuendo for sure!

@retrolasered @libreoffice

Might be on me, because I've only been following the broad strokes of all the current office software beef, but this article is barely comprehensible to me.

Thomas Randolph

@frog_reborn @libreoffice same here. I know even less: basically my knowledge is "something is going on." This post is staying so legally "safe" that it is essentially saying nothing.

It's also poorly worded

"When this fact was brought to the attention of the Board of Directors by the foundation’s legal counsels, the companies that had benefited from these errors sought to maintain the status quo rather than finding a solution. At the time – from the end of 2021 to the middle of 2022 – this could have been achieved swiftly and with minimal difficulty."

I assume "this" is fixing the legal issues, but there's a whole sentence between "this" and what it refers to.

karlggest 21h ago

@libreoffice 😂

the.contrarian 20h ago

@libreoffice Reckless revisionist spin.

* "the companies that had supported OpenOffice.org until then would create a project to kill LibreOffice" is ridiculous.
* "One reason given for setting up the parallel organisation was the “alleged inefficiency” of the TDF team" It was all about using app stores.
* "the decision to forfeit TDF membership status of Collabora employees ... has resulted in a positive outcome for the third audit." It only just happened, how could it affect any audit.

ForrestGrump 20h ago

@libreoffice Different view:

https://forum.linuxguides.de/core/index.php?article/54-libreoffice-am-abgrund-wie-die-document-foundation-ihre-eigenen-gr%C3%BCnder-vor-die/

LibreOffice am Abgrund: Wie die Document Foundation ihre eigenen Gründer vor die Tür setzte - Linux Guides Community

LibreOffice steckt in der schwersten Krise seit seiner Gründung. Die Document Foundation hat im April 2026 über 30 Kernentwickler aus ihren Gremien ausgeschlossen - darunter die Leute, die fast die Hälfte des gesamten Codes geschrieben haben. Der Trick: Erst verklagt man den Partner, dann schliesst man seine Mitarbeiter mit Verweis auf die laufende Klage aus. Collabora, das Unternehmen hinter den ausgeschlossenen Entwicklern, schlägt mit einem eigenen Desktop-Produkt zurück, das technologisch einen klaren Bruch mit dem alten LibreOffice darstellt. Droht LibreOffice das gleiche Schicksal wie Apache OpenOffice? Eine Analyse der Eskalationsspirale - vom gescheiterten Branding-Experiment 2020 über den Krieg um die Cloud bis zum endgültigen Bruch im April 2026.

Linux Guides Community

Lasse Gismo (Friendica Antifa)19h ago

@MichaelimOdenwald @libreoffice

🥴
Wo Menschen sind da menschelt's.
🤷‍♂️

Marianne 19h ago

@MichaelimOdenwald @libreoffice #AI:dr

T. Körner • LSA • ☑️9h ago

@MichaelimOdenwald @libreoffice Ist ja nervig. Ok, wenn der Kindergarten sich geeinigt hat, komme ich wieder. @collabora ist eh grottig auf dem iPad. Da genieße ich lieber Pages&Co. Bis denn dann. 🤯

ArdentArchivist 19h ago

All I want to know is that LibreOffice - fully installable on the desktop for the individual - isn’t going away any time soon.

Tara L. Campbell 19h ago

An established organization does not get bogged down in "setting the record straight" activities, it aims higher.

Instead, the org focuses on what it can control: the narrative it owns, one that is only recognized through actions, not words.

The organization doesn't:
-Waste time writing white papers defending itself; it takes a hard look and doubles down on improvement.
-Worry about its ideas being stolen; it builds community and trust by offering what others do not.

Tara L. Campbell 19h ago

The org also doesn't:

-Let those who feel wounded, unheard, or misunderstood near its PR; it cleans up blog posts and forums, removing any hint of techbro behaviors, and enlists a communicator who understands what is required to help the interested-but-overwhelmed on the path of resistance against the bigger threat to technological sovereignty.

Martin Vogel 18h ago

@libreoffice
So, getting rid of active developers helps the project in exactly which way?

RealGene ☣️17h ago

@libreoffice
Anyone who begins an acronym with "The" is a navel-gazer who shouldn't be in charge of anything.

Patrick Laimbock 🇳🇱 🇪🇺17h ago

@libreoffice About "The origins of TDC are controversial.". I had to search what 'TDC' is. Maybe replace 'TDC' with 'The Document Collective (TDC)'?

bbbhltz 17h ago

@libreoffice I think this post needs some footnotes or context. There are one or two syntax/punctuation/phrasing choices that make things unclear.

Is this what you are replying to?

https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/

Dmitri Ravinoff 11h ago

@bbbhltz
Omitting this link speaks for itself. Looks like TDF just set itself up for decay into insignificance by loosing touch with reality through arrogance.

Collabora on the other hand could maybe look at - very longterm - bring its software back into the true Open Source realm by fostering a new community run nonprofit org as steward.

@libreoffice
@CollaboraOffice

bbbhltz 11h ago

@toxomat @libreoffice @CollaboraOffice

Either way, I was very out-of-the-loop on this. I did see a post the other day that I now realize is related.

It is very important to make a statement rather than wait.

Протест и сопротивление 16h ago

@libreoffice Good! Getting rid of corporate influence in your org is the way to go however painful it might seem.

Oracle promised to keep developing MySQL when they took over. Instead, MySQL has been slowly dying ever since because Oracle wants to sell their main product.

Red Hat promised to leave CentOS alone. They killed CentOS immediately. It's pretty tricky to be more evil than Oracle, but they managed somehow.

Corporate rot forced the Firefox team to abandon privacy guarantees.

Протест и сопротивление 16h ago

@libreoffice It's always the same: wherever corporations are allowed to interfere, the Free/Libre part is gone, even if OSS formally remains.

Vlad Didenko 9h ago

@libreoffice Interesting, how for those who understand that a non-compliant organisation gets dissolved, this post is obvious and is not worth commenting.

It is mostly those with "other" agendas who pretend not to understand or ignore the simple legal issue and pound sand here. Their creating negativity is not a debate. It is an attempt at continued undue pressure.