{"id":901376,"date":"2026-04-25T00:23:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T05:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/forking-frenzy-ensues-after-euro-office-launch-sparks-onlyoffice-backlash\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T00:23:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T05:23:54","slug":"forking-frenzy-ensues-after-euro-office-launch-sparks-onlyoffice-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/forking-frenzy-ensues-after-euro-office-launch-sparks-onlyoffice-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"Forking frenzy ensues after Euro-Office launch sparks OnlyOffice backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"
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European outfits Ionos and Nextcloud have launched Euro-Office, a fork of the OnlyOffice cloud-based productivity suite aimed at orgs with qualms around sovereignty, provoking an angry response from the original developer.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, a “coalition of European enterprises and community organizations,” fronted by German self-hosted cloud vendor Nextcloud, together launched Euro-Office<\/a>, a “true sovereign office suite” and “replacement for Microsoft Office with intuitive interface and strong compatibility.”<\/p>\n

So far, Euro-Office is so new that rather than a homepage, its backers are instead sending people to the project page on GitHub<\/a> \u2013 although a few Wikipedians already had time to write a Wikipedia article<\/a> about it.<\/p>\n

Euro-Office is not brand new code that appeared from nowhere. Rather, it is a fork of the existing OnlyOffice suite, which we’ve looked at a couple of times, such as when OnlyOffice 7.2 appeared<\/a> in 2022, and the following year, when we compared OnlyOffice 7.3 with the Chinese freeware suite WPS Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Euro-Office GitHub readme<\/a> specifically mentions the project had problems cooperating with OnlyOffice, saying that the code is GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), and claiming that OnlyOffice is a difficult company to collaborate with.<\/p>\n

Press releases tend to be written in euphemistic marketing-speak. There is some hope that LLM-based machine translation will handle this soon \u2013 there is already a splendid LinkedIn translator<\/a> in case you need a chuckle \u2013 but this feeble fleshling on FOSS desk will use his head meat to translate it.<\/p>\n

‘Intuitive interface’<\/h3>\n

Translation:<\/strong> It has a ribbon.<\/p>\n

Reason:<\/strong> It looks similar to Microsoft Office. Your users are probably technophobes. This won’t freak them out.<\/p>\n

Context:<\/strong> This is a jab at LibreOffice, which defaults to a more traditional menu-and-toolbar UI, although it offers a choice of ribbons<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n

‘Strong compatibility’<\/h3>\n

Translation 1:<\/strong> It defaults to Microsoft file formats.<\/p>\n

Reason:<\/strong> You can keep all your files.<\/p>\n

Context:<\/strong> Another jab at LibreOffice, which defaults to its own formats \u2013 for what its overseers at The Document Foundation consider strong reasons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Translation 2:<\/strong> It runs in a web browser.<\/p>\n

Reason:<\/strong> You don’t need to install anything, and the same tools work the same on Windows, macOS, and Linux clients.<\/p>\n

Context:<\/strong> It doesn’t look like a native app on anything, but it’s close enough for government work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘True sovereign’<\/h3>\n

Translation:<\/strong> This is an EU effort.<\/p>\n

Reason:<\/strong> It’s not American, but more directly, it’s not Russian.<\/p>\n

Context:<\/strong> The OnlyOffice HQ<\/a> is in Latvia, but there are many signs that it was developed in Russia. Meanwhile, Ionos and Nextcloud have said that OnlyOffice’s Russian roots are not a security risk for Euro-Office, with Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek stating<\/a>: “We can vouch for our version.”<\/p>\n

Rivals like Collabora have made a point of highlighting OnlyOffice’s apparent Russian roots, however, and last year published a comparative chart of Collabora Online and OnlyOffice highlighting its own UK base under the heading Origin and Ownership<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Russia, a similar-looking office suite is actively sold under the name \u04207-\u041e\u0444\u0438\u0441<\/a>\/R7-OFIS \u2013 in other words, “R7-Office.” JSC R7, the company that develops and sells R7-Office in Russia, is based in Nizhny Novgorod<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since the Euro-Office announcement, Collabora has published another analysis, this time questioning whether Euro-Office is a truly European Office Suite<\/a>, noting the extensive Russian-language code comments in the codebase Euro-Office inherited from OnlyOffice.<\/p>\n

Latvia, incidentially, has the largest Russian minority<\/a> in the EU, a hefty chunk of whom speak Russian.<\/p>\n

OnlyOffice’s reactions<\/h3>\n

OnlyOffice is extremely unhappy about the fork. It has published an analysis claiming NextCloud and Ionos are guilty of license violations with the Euro-Office project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

OnlyOffice is made available under version 3 of AGPL<\/a>, which is designed to protect Free Software rights for SaaS applications, where the software might never leave its creator’s servers and the users only access it over the network. It obliges the vendor to provide those users with the source code if they want, but it does make the provision for the service provider to protect its logos and trademarks. Specifically, in section 7, headed Additional Terms, the AGPL3 says:<\/p>\n

It notes that this can cover trademarks and so on:<\/p>\n

\u2026 And\u2026<\/p>\n

OnlyOffice added a permission<\/a>, which says:<\/p>\n