LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation • Hacker News Board

LibreOffice almost seemed irrelevant; with cheap to free (*included) tools in abundance, such as MS Office, Google Workspace, Apple Pages/Numbers/Keynote, the need for LibreOffice is not what it once was, back when StarOffice and OpenOffice were liberating people from the tyranny of Microsoft.

Now it's worse than irrelevant, it's a liability.

Re: LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation

#7

Post by eisa01 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

chadash wrote: post #3

For those of us with zero context, what's the story here?

Not sure myself, it seems like some of the founders were kicked out in 2025 for "misuse of funds" according to the auditor of TDF / or the Foundation authorities?

https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/well-known-high-c...

Also found this in the annual report, sounds quite serious:

> In 2023, following a request by the Foundation Authorities in Berlin, given the size our foundation has grown into over the last decade, TDF was audited, and a report was sent back to Berlin. The Board of Directors is working with the authorities to implement the improvements suggested by the audit

https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/fsqeJZrAtXeR7JD?d...

Would be helpful if the blog post was more clear about this

Re: LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation

#8

Post by allenrb » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 7:02 PM UTC

As a person who refuses to use “free” cloud products, and won’t even consider Office on Windows, I’m a big fan of LibreOffice. I’ve donated a few times over the years but probably not enough.

I’ll be sad if there’s not a free & local “office” solution available.

That said, my eyes crossed trying to read this. Do I need to ask an LLM to read the various messages and tell me what’s going on? ;-)

Re: LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation

#9

Post by SilverElfin » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

I have no idea what this drama is about, but it feels a lot like the kind of thing no one has time to even be interested in. OpenOffice and LibreOffice already feel irrelevant and dated to begin with. What’s the point of people paying attention to this battle if they’re not insiders? There are so many other options, although none truly open source I guess.

Re: LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation

#10

Post by queenkjuul » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 7:04 PM UTC

psim1 wrote: post #6

LibreOffice almost seemed irrelevant; with cheap to free (*included) tools in abundance, such as MS Office, Google Workspace, Apple Pages/Numbers/Keynote, the need for LibreOffice is not what it once was, back when StarOffice and OpenOffice were liberating people from the tyranny of Microsoft. Now it's worse than irrelevant, it's a liability.

MS office has never been cheap or included