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An open letter from the Document Foundation warns that Euro-Office, which is being โ€œmarketedโ€ as the first open-source office suite developed in Europe, isn't what it seems - and may reinforce Microsoftโ€™s closed source technology instead.

... Microsoft ... developed and controls the horrible proprietary OOXML format, designed precisely to prevent Digital Sovereignty by maintaining content lock-in. It is far less understandable on the part of companies that claim to advocate open source, such as those promoting Euro-Office.

Euro-Office defaults to the fully proprietary OOXML document format, developed and controlled solely by Microsoft. This makes it a de facto ally of Microsoft in its content lock-in strategy, with control remaining firmly in Redmond and far from Europe.

So, despite what is being written in support of Euro-Office โ€” the latest of the office suites developed in Europe, and not the first โ€” the announcement is not against Microsoft. On the contrary, it strengthens Microsoftโ€™s strategy against European Digital Sovereignty, or, if you prefer, against the freedom of European users to control and manage their own content.

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[โ€“] 31 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Euro-Office could always pull a reverse-enshittification by offering full compatibility for the OOXML format and defaulting to it initially, then once the software has a loyal userbase, publish tools making it simple to convert existing documents to open formats as well as arguing for doing so. It would be a fight with Microsoft but they have to start somewhere realistic, and the world still uses Microsoft.

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  • [โ€“] 24 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Wouldn't that tool be called "Save As..."? If the suite supports both formats, converting a document is as simple as opening and saving it.

    And they could absolutely just default to OpenDocument and also support OOXML, just like LibreOffice does.

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