Could an African peep use this “Euro” Office free of worries?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Imagine somebody from an African country who suffered for centuries because of European colonization an slave trade. I would not be enthusiastic about using “Euro” office.
Even if they wanted to signal their European affiliation, the could choose other names, like Socrates Office, Plato Office, Hegel Office, Dante Office, Copernicus Office, etc.
I’m more worried about the hazard that Europeans represent in this very moment to the African continent.
They even have their own “Ziohell” called Ukraine doing terrorism there.
Besides the drama with OnlyOffice, the name Euro-Office is really pathetic! Gosh… this is so southern-European from the 90s!! Unless, and probably is the only reason, they are looking for funds from the EU, yet , a pathetic name. Could be something more universal, more creative?
I also wish they had come to terms with OnlyOffice too, don’t know if was possible, but I have a big hunch they did not even try, or worse yet, they really wanted to hurt OnlyOffice just for being “Russian”. I still side with the Euro-Office legal case, but gosh, I don’t like it already how it started.
I just hope now, all open suites reinforce from each other’s development. Remember, the market to go after is in the 85% with billions in revenue, not with hostile cannibalization among the 15% that barely make ends meet.
What is it based on? LibreOffice? OnlyOffice?
It is an OnlyOffice fork. They are not happy about it.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Euro-Office-OnlyOffice-accuses-of-license-violations-11241334.html
OnlyOffice also used to have an artificial limit of 20 users simultaneously connected, you had to purchase the Enterprise edition for more. Euro-Office essentially removed the lock for free… and that basically forced OnlyOffice to remove the limit too, so I expect they are pissed :P
For the record, this was the response from the FSF regarding the licensing: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/agpl-is-not-a-tool-for-taking-freedom-away
In summary, you can add additional terms to disclaim warranties, include some extra notice/attribution, etc. but the terms can’t really require something that effectively limits the rights explicitly granted in the AGPL (like… you can’t require the inclusion of a trademarked logo, since it would effectively restrict anyone who doesn’t have trademark rights), the license explicitly allows licensees to ignore/remove any terms that impose additional restrictions like those.
In the end, OnlyOffice changed the license headers, removing the contradictory restriction.
They also added additional terms section in the license file, with some things that were not explicitly requested before (and that it’s still contested whether they fit what the AGPL allows as additional terms). But they only did that later, Euro-Office is still using the previous version of the license that did not have those new additional terms.
Thanks for the info… and yep, competition is good!
Yet, you have to recognize this feels like it was not handled appropriately by either party, I sense there was toxicity all around. Actually both suites could potentially be instantly benefiting from eachother but now I am afraid both will work to undermine the other, while both are in the same boat. No inspiring either if a third company (mainly Russian or Chinese) is thinking in financing a FOSS product.
