A published specification is only the beginning. The real test of an open standard is who can implement it — and on whose terms.
Posts published by “Italo Vignoli”
Guest writer Italo Vignoli is a co-founder at The Document Foundation, the organization behind LibreOffice and the Document Liberation projects.
Microsoft’s exit from desktop publishing puts decades of documents at risk. Free software offers a path forward.
The Document Foundation's Italo Vignoli explains how LibreOffice’s support for N’Ko, Adlam, and bidirectional text shows what can happen when software priorities are not dictated solely by market demand.
The new Tabbed interface is an improvement, not a retreat from LibreOffice’s longstanding commitment to offering users multiple ways to work.
Without open standards, organizations cannot freely switch suppliers or independently access and process their own data -- building defeat into the "sovereign" structure.
Redmond once branded Linux the “cancer,” but the real infection was already inside Microsoft Office: proprietary formats designed to keep users and governments dependent forever.
From wall sockets to file formats, our lives depend on shared rules that no one owns. LibreOffice's Italo Vignoli argues that open standards are not just technical details, but civic commitments.
Proprietary formats, rendering choices, and font restrictions don’t just create interoperability failures, they make open alternatives appear unreliable and keep institutions locked in.
The app is easy to replace. The hard part is the years of documents trapped in one company’s format -- especially after that company ceases to exist.
An open letter from the Document Foundation argues that Euro-Office isn’t what it claims—and may reinforce Microsoft’s ecosystem instead.