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/

@libreoffice

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
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