New bidirectional-text tools, better OOXML round-tripping, and no built-in AI show why LibreOffice is accountable to users rather than product-market calculations.
Posts published in “Standards”
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.
ODF was built in the open, under public standards bodies, to be fully implementable by anyone. OOXML’s “standard” status hides a legacy format that only Microsoft can truly unlock.
Germany’s federal “Deutschland-Stack” puts Open Document Format at the center of its digital infrastructure plans.
Ironically, when the EU asked for feedback on new tech rules, it locked the process to dear old Microsoft. A fast, focused campaign forced officials to add an open format instead.