Mastodawn

Jona Azizaj Apr 11

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 like IBM would create Apache OpenOffice 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

TDF Community Blog

retrolasered Apr 5

@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

@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

@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.

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 Apr 5

@libreoffice 😂

ArdentArchivist Apr 5

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 Apr 5

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 Apr 5

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 Apr 5

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

RealGene ☣️Apr 5

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

Patrick Laimbock 🇳🇱 🇪🇺Apr 5

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

🆘Bill Cole 🇺🇦Apr 6

@plaimbock @libreoffice I read the “C” as “Corporation” so that they’d have a Mozilla-like mixed-mode organization.

Patrick Laimbock 🇳🇱 🇪🇺Apr 6

@grumpybozo @libreoffice I just found "creation of The Document Collective (TDC)" at https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/creation-of-the-document-collective-tdc/8656 and it indeed looks like a mixed-mode organization.

creation of The Document Collective (TDC)

Hello, during today's LibreOffice Conference opening session, the board's resolution to create The Document Collective (TDC) has been announced, which is hereby published to the general public for feedback and discussion. (Please use the public [email protected] list for any discusisons related on this topic.) The resolution taken during the board meeting on Monday, September 9, is as follows: The Board RESOLVES to start creation of The Document Collective (TDC) by taking ...

The Document Foundation Community

@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/

Протест и сопротивление Apr 5

@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 Apr 5

@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 Apr 5

@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.

@libreoffice thank you!!

nicole mikołajczyk ☎️ 7312 @ gpn 🔜 cebulacamp Apr 6

@libreoffice could you please make the blog not require javascript just to remove the useless loader?

@libreoffice Announcing you'd rather not communicate is a -really- weird position to have for @tdforg

TDF didn't deal with administration properly, and on time, and now you have hurt developers who have been working diligently for the very software product you're trying to hoist up. Where's your honest apology to the contributors for that?

TDF treats transparency as being very bothersome, and well, good luck with your aspirations with #LibreOffice because to me both the actions and blogposts scream amateurism. Quite ironic considering the goals you described.

I hope you've read this reaction by a contributor but if not, here you can read it: https://mikekaganski.wordpress.com/2026/04/05/the-post-they-managed-to-avoid/

The Post They Managed to Avoid

“Ideally, we would have preferred to avoid this post.” When I read those opening words in Italo’s recent statement, “Let’s put an end to the speculation,” they stung. I don&…

Mike Kaganski's blog

@libreoffice Would love to read your blog post carefully. But your blinking advertising for donating is very, very annoying. I cannot read an article when there is a moving picture just beside.