Dear office suite users, In recent days you will have read various articles announcing the arrival of Euro-Office, which is being “marketed” as the first open-source office suite developed in Europe. We feel compelled — reluctantly, since open source should rest on transparency, not deception — to correct this claim. The first open-source office suite developed in Europe was OpenOffice.org in 2001, based on StarOffice’s source code, followed by LibreOffice from 2010. These are two genuine open-source office suites, built from source code that originated in Europe. They are not a freeware clone of MS Office whose code provenance is undisclosed, nor a product that has rebranded itself out of pure opportunism to ride today’s wave of Digital Sovereignty. It is worth remembering that many of those who champion Digital Sovereignty today were silent back in 2006, when the open ISO/IEC ODF standard — the pillar of Digital Sovereignty — was announced: not only did they not listen to us during all these years, but in some cases they greeted us with a condescending smile. If we can speak of Digital Sovereignty in Europe today, it is thanks to The Document Foundation and LibreOffice community members at large, who kept
Why is “digital sovereignty” the current buzzword? That word can clearly mean both good things and bad things. It’s a good thing when it means giving people and organizations control over their own computing (instead of some cloud provider or proprietary software company).
But there’s no inherent value in insisting on “European software”; proprietary software doesn’t become any better because it was developed in Europe, nor is free software bad because it wasn’t developed in Europe.
The term can even mean things I would consider bad, such as: extending the application of laws to foreign entities on the Internet, which usually leads to censorship. I certainly don’t want digital sovereignty like the People’s Republic of China does it!
Why is “digital sovereignty” the current buzzword?
You surely have noticed that the US government and most big US companies have been stealing our data for years?
European software is a “branding” around free software that is trying to say away from Trump, Microsoft, and all the other idiots. It took 20 years for the governments to do something about it, and I agree they have been too slow, but at least they are doing something.
Why is “digital sovereignty” the current buzzword? That word can clearly mean both good things and bad things. It’s a good thing when it means giving people and organizations control over their own computing (instead of some cloud provider or proprietary software company).
But there’s no inherent value in insisting on “European software”; proprietary software doesn’t become any better because it was developed in Europe, nor is free software bad because it wasn’t developed in Europe.
The term can even mean things I would consider bad, such as: extending the application of laws to foreign entities on the Internet, which usually leads to censorship. I certainly don’t want digital sovereignty like the People’s Republic of China does it!
You surely have noticed that the US government and most big US companies have been stealing our data for years?
European software is a “branding” around free software that is trying to say away from Trump, Microsoft, and all the other idiots. It took 20 years for the governments to do something about it, and I agree they have been too slow, but at least they are doing something.
except, it’s not, they are entirely separate concepts; if people want to promote free software, they should say that
You forgot: around free software that is trying to say away from Trump, Microsoft, and all the other idiots