[HN Gopher] LibreOffice: Request to the European Commission to a...
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LibreOffice: Request to the European Commission to adhere to its
own guidances
Author : maxloh
Score : 261 points
Date : 2026-03-08 14:09 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.documentfoundation.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.documentfoundation.org)
| _fat_santa wrote:
| > This is not a minor procedural oversight. It is a structural
| bias built into the process which sends out a clear message: full
| participation in EU policymaking requires a Microsoft licence.
|
| Im gonna be honest it sounds more like a procedural oversight.
| wiz21c wrote:
| they are activists, everything make them nervous. _however_ I
| 'm sure there are tons of past reasons to make them nervous...
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| That text reads like AI output, where I commonly see two short
| sentences that describe a dichotomy in the "This is not... This
| is..." pattern.
|
| Therefore, that these sentences don't describe the situation
| great could be due to poorly vetted copy-paste of AI text.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| LibreOffice using AI against Microslop/anything related to it
| doesn't feel very Libreoffice of it to me.
|
| I know that this pattern is used by AI but it only said this
| is, one time not two times and then continued with It is
| rather than the pattern that you mention. An AI would've
| probably used "This" second time instead of "It" most likely
| given that its probably really trained on it.
|
| I mean, we do use "this is" in a sentence atleast once like
| they did.
|
| How else do you want them to write this point :/
|
| I don't think that Libreoffice team is using AI to write
| their messages.
| braiamp wrote:
| When the policy is that X happens, procedural oversight can't
| be claimed when X doesn't happen. If X doesn't happen, then the
| policy is being rejected or ignored. No matter which, it allows
| the executing agent bias to be on full display and set the
| tone. There's a reason why a compliance office becomes the
| norm.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > it sounds more like a procedural oversight.
|
| But the "oversight" is likely due to the fact that those
| policy-makers only see MS Excel used around them, and only
| expect people to use MS-Excel - which is why they did not think
| there might be any problem with requiring its use in a
| procedure. So, the people doing policymaking, and other related
| technical work, at the EU do actually need their MS license to
| work.
| EGreg wrote:
| Im also gonna be honest
|
| Ever since LLM generated content proliferated we now have "This
| isn't X. It's Y" shibboleths EVRYWHERE!
|
| A person doesn't normally start a sentence with "This isn't a
| silly minor thing that you wouldn't think it was but I had to
| say it out of the blue as a set up for the next sentence." only
| to be followed by "This is a major deal worthy of you resharing
| and liking!"
|
| They might do the clauses in the other order, though. "This is
| a huge deal! Not just business as usual."
| st_goliath wrote:
| > Ever since LLM generated content proliferated we now
| have...
|
| Or maybe, ever since you became aware of it, you started
| increasingly becoming aware of it?
|
| See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
| EGreg wrote:
| Nope. It is generated by LLMs, and a few people got
| influenced by it now.
|
| It isn't like em-dashes
| raverbashing wrote:
| Also sounds like an LLM wrote it (the original message)
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Combined with their rapid acquiescence to the request, it
| sounds to me like a procedural oversight _due to_ a structural
| bias.
| dtj1123 wrote:
| It sounds like a procedural oversight which demonstrates the
| structural bias built into the process.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Nope: they have signed a contract with Microsoft, it is not
| oversight, there was a clear decission by the specific
| committee to buy Microsoft Products and Support, and it is
| costing us (EU taxpayers) lots of money just to interact with
| the EU.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean it's a small thing but this seems like the bureaucracy
| equivalent of seeing your friend get up for a smoke break out of
| habit and reminding them that they're trying to quit.
| jfengel wrote:
| Cool, but why does feedback come in the form of a spreadsheet at
| all?
| analog31 wrote:
| I see this frequently. People want data that are organized in
| some fashion, so they start with a spreadsheet.
|
| The drawback is that spreadsheet cells are a terrible way to
| convey narrative information. I've seen detailed product
| requirements in spreadsheets with thousands of cells, that
| failed to capture what the team actually wanted to build, and
| were never read.
| whirlwin wrote:
| This is likely a matter of poor competence by the author of the
| spreadsheet, and an oversight after all.
|
| From my experience, unfortunately, people who manage policies are
| much less competent that those who implement them.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Most of governance is a fight between policy and
| implementation. Even the best science based policy decisions
| fail when faced with the real world.
|
| And its not just competency, its also consumption based or its
| the highway road inducement problem.
|
| The reality is if we want science back policy decisions, you
| need to involve stakeholders through every step.
| KronisLV wrote:
| This might seem quite pedantic but I like the fact that they're
| calling stuff like that out - over here office documents are more
| or less synonymous with MS Office, despite me having used
| LibreOffice for years with no significant issues (aside from
| their bibliography being broken while writing my thesis, super
| annoying but I found a workaround).
|
| I've never actually had anyone complain about me sending them ODT
| or ODS files since even the said MS Office doesn't have a big
| issue with those.
|
| Oddly enough, if you ever also see a CSV, LibreOffice Calc will
| give you a nice import dialog whereas by default MS Excel will
| happily open it wrong and fuck everything up for you.
|
| Edit: oh wait there was a case in university where I did a
| presentation in front of like 60 people and it referenced fonts
| that weren't on the other machine and they didn't get embedded in
| the presentation file. It fucked up all of the font layouts.
| Since, I do presentations in PDFs (the archival kind). Except
| recently I also wrote my own presentation tool that outputs HTML
| pages and can also serve everything from a folder, or I might
| just put them on my server. I think I reinvented worse Google
| Docs.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| 100%, the file format compatibility drama is long over. I have
| no issues at home using Excel files with LibreOffice. Microsoft
| has not meaningfully changed any Office file format in fifteen
| years, you can go all the way back to Office 2007 (with the
| compatibility pack) and open modern documents.
|
| Office has no issues with ODS formats either. This is a purely
| performative exercise.
| hobofan wrote:
| > you can go all the way back to Office 2007 (with the
| compatibility pack) and open modern documents
|
| Great, I can open proprietary document formats with
| proprietary software. I think you are missing the point of
| this "performative exercise".
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| You can also open all of those documents with LibreOffice.
| My point is the support LibreOffice has for Office
| documents is fine and not at all a problem, because Office
| formats have not meaningfully changed over time and they
| have been supported in LibreOffice for all of that time.
| hobofan wrote:
| The comission has themselves made the commitment to
| reduce the reliance on exactly such standards. You are
| arguing for a position that they themselves aren't even
| arguing for as they recognize the importance of the
| problem.
|
| By your logic, it would have been fine for Apple to stick
| with the Lightning port for charging because
| USB->Lightning charging ports are widely available so
| "it's not a problem at all".
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| No, because Lightning is not an open standard. OOXML has
| been an open standard for nearly two decades.
|
| And a big issue for me is this blog post _hurts
| LibreOffice_ because the largest reason enterprises won
| 't touch it is that it is perceived as incompatible even
| when that compatibility works just fine.
|
| If success and good marketing was the focus, LibreOffice
| would happily promote that it will take any file format
| they get because they have robust interoperable software
| that doesn't actually mind handling XLSX!
| s_dev wrote:
| Compatibility isn't the problem it's requiring proprietary
| tech when you've specified requiring open tech.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Office formats have also, as mentioned in the source link,
| been an open standard for fifteen years. It may not be the
| better open standard, but it is an open standard, and it
| works fine, including with LibreOffice's software, for many
| years.
|
| This is like if Google was whining someone sent them a JPG
| instead of a WebP. Not invented here syndrome more than an
| actual openness complaint.
|
| It's also stupid and self-defeating: The top reason people
| disregard LibreOffice as an option at work is because
| people believe it's incompatible with the Office everyone
| else uses. And it's NOT! But if LibreOffice itself keeps
| promoting misinformation about its own software, it's going
| to continue to be obscure in business.
|
| LibreOffice is better software and deserves better
| marketing than this incredibly dumb claim made above.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| The only time compatibility falls apart is spreadsheets with
| macros don't work in libre office
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I get why libreoffice has the file open dialog, but it
| irritates me. 99% of the time I just want the file open to see
| the shape of the data, not make a bunch of parsing decisions
| for a file I've never seen before with unknown idiosyncrasies.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| > I've never actually had anyone complain about me sending them
| ODT or ODS files since even the said MS Office doesn't have a
| big issue with those.
|
| On a Mac, I can read .doc(x), .xls(x) and .rtf without
| installing any additional software. I can't do that with ODT/S.
|
| 90% of open data spreadsheet downloads could just as easily be
| provided in CSV format (looking at you, gov.uk).
| Pxtl wrote:
| It's frustrating how we're still fighting over this stuff when
| 99% of documents and spreadsheets (the data, not the formulas)
| could be zipped html except if not that spreadsheet editors and
| document editors don't have a standardized subset of html to
| support.
| Ekaros wrote:
| That sounds rather bad idea. HTML is really not designed for
| proper data storage. It can display something, but I don't
| think it is right tool for the job. Just because html can
| present something like tables doesn't mean it is right tool for
| tabular data.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| ODF is just XML.
| pluc wrote:
| Why do you _have_ to allow cookies to see this website?
| danmaz74 wrote:
| The current article says that the Commission already accepted the
| request.
| skrebbel wrote:
| That was impressively fast! Over the weekend, no less.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Finally, our tax euros at work.
| dchest wrote:
| I just downloaded the ODS version and it comes with .pdf
| extension, had to rename it. It also uses Aptos Narrow font (from
| MS Office), which gets substituted.
| zoobab wrote:
| If i have one regret over the OOXML corruption scandal was to not
| bring the whole thing to court. We had some many evidences of
| Microsoft captureing the whole process.
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