LibreOffice and Collabora situation Q&A ā Most important topics
Posted by themikeosguy@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 25 comments
Posted by themikeosguy@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 25 comments
northett@reddit
In the interests of balance, since Mike Saunders from TDF has posted their Q&A post here, I'll add Collabora Productivity's. It's just an update to Michael's orginal 'TDF Ejects its Core Developers' dev blog written in his own words:
https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/#update-2026-04-11
I'm assuming the trigger for this new TDF blog is the piece on Linux Guides Community: https://forum.linuxguides.de/core/index.php?article/54-libreoffice-am-abgrund-wie-die-document-foundation-ihre-eigenen-gr%C3%BCnder-vor-die/
For anyone who cares, Collabora had nothing to do with this (very long) article.
Unfortunately, it prompted a response by Italo from the TDF here posted on GNU/Linux.ch:
https://gnulinux.ch/libreoffice-am-abgrund (also very long, in German), where he replies to various things in the original piece.
Interestingly, the afterword in the GNU/Linux.ch piece says (translated):
"I'm glad we were able to bring together these different opinions in one article, instead of scattering them across numerous posts."
I'm glad too, except Collabora Productivity wasn't asked to contribute, but, frankly, that article is huge already.
And, in turn, that seems to have led to the TDF Q&A, which republishes some of Italo's responses.
To make it abundantly clear, statements in the response to the Linux Guides Community article, and some statements which are repeated in TDF's Q&A are defamatory and inaccurate, and especially concerning as Collabora Productivity is, and has been for some time, trying to push towards a mediation--as Michael mentions at the end of his update--and we are doing so in good faith.
Disclaimer: My name is Chris Thornett and work at Collabora. I'm now going to spend some time with my kids on a Saturday afternoon. I may have an ice cream, it will not be vanilla flavour.
northett@reddit
As a quick update: GNU/Linux.ch added a response from Thorsten Behrens, MD of Collabora Productivity (Germany). Thanks.
Natural_Night9957@reddit
Corpos ARE evil.
finbarrgalloway@reddit
Frankly what I've got from this situation is that Collabora -
Tried to kill a TDF proposal exclusively because it would have led to competition against their business
Used TDF funds in a way that legitimately endangered their nonprofit status
It seems pretty obvious why the TDF wouldn't trust these guys in leadership positions anymore. Plus it's not like they can't still contribute to the project.
mrtruthiness@reddit
That's not true at all. Where did you come to that conclusion?
From what I understand, the issue is that TDF has realized that for legal reasons (if it is to remain a charitable organization in Germany) it must change how it manages its Trademarks. In particular it can no longer grant free use of its trademarks to for-profit companies such as Collabora. In changing those terms, it created new Bylaws in Jan 2026 that stated that it would remove from membership anybody with with whom TDF had a legal dispute. That change enabled TDF to remove as a member everyone who works for Collabora ---> membership went from approximately 150 to 120 at the end of March 2026.
mocket_ponsters@reddit
I'm not sure why you think it's not true. TDF put out a statement saying as much.
You're right that the trademark issue is also a factor, but the person you're responding to is also correct. Collabora, who had employees who were on the board at the time, were being awarded contracts, which was paid using donations that TDF raised. This was flagged by the German Foundations Authority. There's more details here but it's a very long post.
The "tried to kill a TDF proposal" (which I'm assuming was Collabora's vote against the Libreoffice Online project) seems a bit more iffy, but Collabora has made it fairly clear that they viewed it as competition so the conflict of interest to shut it down is there.
So you have the trademark issues, the conflict of interest issues in regards to contacts, the conflict of interest in regards to Libreoffice Online, and much more broadly the argument about whether for-profit individuals should be allowed on TDF at all. Lots of moving parts here and a lot of bad framing of the issues are going on.
One thing to note is that TDF never actually published the audit findings. Nobody actually knows specifically what was objected to legally. But from what I can tell there's a lot of disagreements happening...
mrtruthiness@reddit
I read that statement. And it doesn't say anything of the sort. The previous poster said:
As you note ... you're guessing about what that means. Furthermore the document you attached where you said "TDF put out a statement ..." doesn't refer to that at all. In fact, I've never seen the vote count. Furthermore it's my understanding:
Collabora built the "online" version within LO. It was called LOOL.
TDF voted to shelve that.
So Collabora separated that from LO ... creating COOL and CODE.
Furthermore, the license for Collabora Online (both COOL and CODE) is currently Free. If I understand correctly the "Enterprise Version" is dealt with in a similar way to how RHEL handles CentOSStream these days ---> the code is available and licensed correctly, but you have to put it together yourself. If TDF wanted to they could absolutely incorporate all/any of that into LO.
The previous poster also said:
That's also not in the link you attached saying "TDF put out a statement saying as much".
Which is a TDF issue that needs to be handled without dictates that resulted in no representation. The ongoing problem that wasn't going to be solved ever was the lack of free access to trademarks and branding and the lack of representation in product direction.
quikee_LO@reddit
Regarding LOOL it was more like:
- Collabora build LOOL with help from a sponsor
- Collabora put LOOL in good faith under the TDF stewardship
- TDF presented plans for LOOL, which would harm Collabora in the long run and wasn't willing to compromise
- As a result, Collabora moved the code to github and renamed to COOL, all developers moved to working in that repository
- LOOL development stopped at this point
- TDF atticisation rules state if there is no active development, the project will be put into the attic
- The board decided based on data presented by the ESC to put the project into "attic"
Since the new board reversed the rule, so now LOOL is out of the attic, not 1 single commit landed in that repository.
mocket_ponsters@reddit
The article I linked specifically identifies two decisions that TDF says violated German nonprofit law, and contract awards to board-affiliated companies is one of them, in the article's own words:
That's not me inferring anything. It's TDF plainly stating that this was one of the two violations, alongside the trademark licensing issue. Both were flagged by their own legal counsel. I'm not sure how you read the article and concluded the contract issue isn't in there. It's a few paragraphs above the audit discussion.
On the Libreoffice Online issue, I was clear in my original reply that the details are less documented and the framing is far iffier. I didn't claim the TDF post I linked discussed this, but only that it's undeniable that Collabora has a real commercial conflict of interest on that subject. I also was pretty clear that both things can be true. Collabora raised legitimate objections, but they also have an obvious business reason to oppose the revival. That's what "iffy" meant in my original post.
Kindly-Position8822@reddit
It's a difficult position to be in, but the number of people I've seen that believe this will "kill LibreOffice" is crazy, especially with there still being dedicated developers to work on highly requested improvement areas
redundant78@reddit
people said the same thing when Oracle killed OpenOffice and look what happened. LibreOffice literally exists because the community proved it can survive corporate drama.
mrtruthiness@reddit
If the group responsible for 50% or more of the code contributions no longer has free access to LO trademarks and no longer has a voice into the product direction, why shouldn't they just create their own fork and trademarks? Of course TDF can use Collabora's contributions --- but then TDF will need to do the work to apply those patches.
KnowZeroX@reddit
Just out of curiosity, where did you get over 50% from? Article says:
mrtruthiness@reddit
I was looking at Collabora vs The Document Foundation: 4733 vs 4077. And if you consider "code contributions" rather than documentation/translations/etc ... it will be even higher.
LvS@reddit
And why wouldn't the people who work on Libreoffice stop doing that and go work on Collabora's office instead?
That's basically the same kind of Open Source project, just with a different leadership and more developers.
mrtruthiness@reddit
Some might. That's not a problem for Collabora, that's a problem for TDF. A problem of their own making in my mind.
However, there are those who view for-profit corporations as evil despite the Free licensing.
But speaking of that, the current project license is MPLv2. We're getting to the point with Collabora Online where people might be concerned whether the license should be AGPLv3. Maybe they've addressed it already. I don't know, but if not, it's about time to address that.
mrlinkwii@reddit
kinda makes sense when they effectively stopping 40-50% of future contributions ( why should Collabora spend money opn dev file when effectivilty got spat at for existing ) ,
linuxhiker@reddit
As someone who has been involved with multiple Open Source NPOs and the engineers that run them, this is zero surprise.
It is not a surprise it happened , how it was handled or that it was all done wrong .
Kevin_Kofler@reddit
As I see it, according to the article, the problem is with a for-profit corporation essentially wanting to control the non-profit and endangering its non-profit status. The article points out several conflicts of interest caused by that corporation to support that claim. So I do not see why the blame is being put on the victim.
MetaTrombonist@reddit
Another great day for the open source circular firing squad division!
VisualPadding7@reddit
Now, which office survived Libre? Back to OpenOffice.org?šššš
dswhite85@reddit
Man, people love jumping onto any new news topic this is such a nothing burger oh my goodness
mrlinkwii@reddit
honestly this seem just very bad from teh TDF , their was 2 ways you could of handled it
A) a way that works constructively with people and burned no bridges
B) the way the acted in this timeline effectively banning 40-50% of all future contribution
snake_on_the_case@reddit
Iām sorry, I just have to:
*the, not teh
*there, not their
*were, not was
*they, not the
MatchingTurret@reddit
TL;DR: It's all a big mess, but we'll sort it out.