The Document Foundation, the folks behind LibreOffice, has voted to revoke previous decisions and revive its long-dormant LibreOffice Online project for those who want to self-host their own alternative to Google Docs or Microsoft 365.
LibreOffice Online used to be a thing in the past, but it was a casualty of a bitter internal struggle over cloud strategy before the freeze in 2022. Collabora, the corporate muscle that actually built most of LibreOffice Online, forked the original code and developed a polished commercial product called Collabora Online. This strategic move effectively drained the original TDF repository of its main engineering talent, leaving it to wither.
In a community post, chairperson Eliane Domingos claimed that past boards made the decision to freeze the repository while members were acting with a "Conflict of Interest on all stages of the processes." The goal now is to start a journey that will lead to having "an online version by the community and for the community."
As many in our community are aware, LibreOffice Online started thanks to substantial funding provided by The Document Foundation. Code contributions were made largely by ecosystem companies while community volunteers contributed with documentation, localization and the help system.
LibreOffice Online was well-known globally thanks to the LibreOffice brand allowing it to thrive - and thanks to contributions from the community and companies of the ecosystem until it was forked by a member of the commercial ecosystem in October 2020.
Michael Meeks, a member of the TDF board who is also a high-ranking figure at Collabora, in reaction to the proposal, argued that a free, fully-supported online version already thrives as Collabora Online, complete with an open bug tracker, public developer calls, and an active community.
He called the claim that TDF had "substantially funded" the original online project "just incorrect," asserting that Collabora"s multi-million Euro investment did the real work. Meeks" position is that TDF is ignoring the practical reasons its developers left years ago, which included a need for branding that could drive sales and fund future work. He also questioned the logic of resurrecting a dead repository when a functional, friendly, and open community already exists for anyone who wants to contribute.
The Document Foundation says developers plan to reopen the repository for contributions but will "provide warnings" about the underlying state of the code, and that users should stay away from deploying the software on live infrastructure until the team agrees the environment is safe and usable.