OnlyOffice kills Nextcloud partnership for forking its project without approval | Hacker News Reader

OnlyOffice kills Nextcloud partnership for forking its project without approval

neowin.net

65 pointsbundie94 comments

Seems onlyoffice is "unforkable"? It's AGPL but has extra restrictions: you're required to show their logo but they don't give out rights for others to use their logo.

Yeah, LibreOffice and Nextcloud have both called OnlyOffice out, basically accusing it of being "open source" in name only [1][2]

[1] https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-blasts-fake-open-sou...

[2] https://github.com/Euro-Office#euro-office-liberates-the-onl...

>It's AGPL but has extra restrictions

Doesn't the AGPL specifically disallow that? If I understand correctly, the FSF has even directly threatened legal action against developers who add extra restrictions to the AGPL. The license text is copyrighted, does not allow modifications, and includes terms allowing the user to ignore any additional restrictions, so adding extra restrictions would seem to either be ineffective or a copyright violation.

OnlyOffice claims that additional terms fall under section 7 of AGPLv3, which explicitly allows adding such terms. I think the point of contention arises from the interpretation of section 7 and more specifically this sentence:

> When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of it.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html#section7

OnlyOffice claims:

> In other words, AGPLv3 does not permit selective application: a recipient either accepts AGPLv3 in its entirety, including all additional conditions, or acquires no rights to use the software.

> Any removal, disregard, or unilateral “exclusion” of conditions imposed under Section 7 constitutes use beyond the scope of the granted license and therefore a breach.

https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2026/03/onlyoffice-flags-lic...

To me (IANAL etc) that seems questionable. But I also say that the section 7 in entirety is not particularly clear.

It says that you can add requirement of attribution but also that such additional term can be removed, so it seems rather pointless?

See also this post from 2022: https://opensource.org/blog/modified-agplv3-removes-freedoms...

I think you're confused by the term "permissions". You can give more freedom to the license and a copier can remove them as long as it doesn't remove the freedom that are in AGPLv3. The OnlyOffice team claim comes from the next paragraph of section 7:

> Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, for material you add to a covered work, you may [...] supplement the terms of this License with terms:

> b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it; or c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in reasonable ways as different from the original version; or

This is what they did and what the other part stripped from their blatant copy. So no, removing the logo or the OnlyOffice terms therefore seems forbidden by the license itself, revoking it for the other part, thus they are now making a counterfeit.

the license explicitly defines what "additional permissions" mean in that context:

> "Additional permissions" are terms that supplement the terms of this License by making exceptions from one or more of its conditions

“Making exceptions to conditions” and “adding additional conditions” are literally opposed concepts, and the AGPL explicitly distinguishes between “additional permissions” and “further restrictions”. So, were OpenOffice bound by the original license without its additions, that would be problematic.

That's about adding permissions -- not adding restrictions. There are a list of allowed restrictions in section 7, lettered A-F, and then the statement:

> All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further restrictions" within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

> There are a list of allowed restrictions in section 7, lettered A-F

OnlyOffice claims that their restrictions fall under the items b) and e)

Yeah, b) does provide for attribution, which could be a valid claim here. But b) does not prohibit rebranding, nor does it require the use of branding to be used in any trade capacity as described under e).

Referring to a brand in the capacity of providing attribution is entirely different than using a brand in the capacity of trade. Attributing someone is not the same as using their trademark. Ever write a "works cited" at the end of a report in school? They aren't full of logos, they don't imply that you are the author, (they state the opposite) and they certainly don't violate any trade laws. They are literally just lists of attributions.

e.g. "This software is copyright OnlyOffice", or similar, is an attribution that does not violate any trademarks. It satisfies both b) and e). (although I will note that the license says "or" for each of those, but this probably isn't the intended interpretation)

The FSF just published a whole post on additional restrictions versus additional permissions <https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/gpl-compliant-legal-noti...>.

It's a bit funny to be relying on copyright for a license to work when the copyright will eventually expire.

Licenses are permissions to use a privilege which some legal rule (e.g., copyright) makes exclusive. You don't need a license when a work is out of copyright.

Its funny to be relying on copyright licenses when what people really want to to do is rewrite the law, but that's a different issue.

I'm saying the copyright on the license will expire, at which point the parts of the license that rely on its own copyright will no longer be enforceable.

> Doesn't the AGPL specifically disallow that?

It can disallow downstream licensees from doing things with it, it can't prevent the copyright holder and licensor.

> If I understand correctly, the FSF has even directly threatened legal action against developers who add extra restrictions to the AGPL. The license text is copyrighted, does not allow modifications, and includes terms allowing the user to ignore any additional restrictions, so adding extra restrictions would seem to either be ineffective or a copyright violation.

If it's a copyright violation of a copyright on the license, that has no effect on the effect of the license between the licensor and licensee, though it may result in money being owed by the licensor to the copyright holder on the license.

OTOH, I think any US court would find that a party trying to control the legal effect of licensing arrangements between third parties by leveraging a copyright on license text is, itself, a fairly strong indication that the particular use of the license text at issue is outside of the scope of copyright protection. That's not protecting expression, it is instead creating a roadblock to the freedom of contract.

Then it't not AGPL, because Section 10 of the AGPL explicitly states:

| You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html#section10

Given that it's a Russian company, serious question: does anyone care about violating their license?

If so, why?

if you make an exception to obeying licenses because "that person/company/country are bad" or whatever, exceptions start sneaking in all over the place, and the entire fabric deteriorates quickly afterwards.

edit: did not expect people to be in favor of blatantly ignoring licenses. huh.

anyone want to tell me how we determine who the bad people are that we can ignore their licenses, and who the good people are where we will honor them? what is the criteria?

China has been at this for centuries and is doing just fine. I can imagine Russia has too for a while and this in particular seems to have had very few negative consequences for them.

china also uses child labor, and are doing just fine. shall we adopt that practice as well?

different in severity, but same logic.

Completely irrelevant.

> the entire fabric deteriorates quickly afterwards.

It just disproves this entirely. China has been at it for decades, which entire fabric has detoriated? Have licenses been meaningless for decades because of the existence of China?

>which entire fabric has detoriated?

the moral fabric of not stealing software and ignoring licenses.

>Have licenses been meaningless for decades because of the existence of China?

uh, in china? apparently yes!

if that is how you want the rest of the world to operate too, that is your opinion. i think it will suck, but whatever.

selectively applied law is fun when the laws are selectively applied against people you dont like. just gotta make sure you never get put in the wrong pile.

Adherence to licenses is completely meaningless if it's a one-way street. The whole concept of them is based on reciprocality. Since there's zero chance a Russian court is going to hold up a Western entity's complaint about a Russian entity's violation of their license, reciprocality is dead.

This is a very mainstream concept so I'm not sure why you're so worked up about it.

>This is a very mainstream concept so I'm not sure why you're so worked up about it.

i am not worked up, but that is a good attempt at undermining my point by coming at me personally instead of my words.

I mean, that sort of already did happen quickly in Feb 2022, with contracts a lot more significant than open source software... like when leases for 400 commercial jets were terminated over night, and Russia responded by seizing them. And the US started seizing yachts, real estate, and bank accounts of oligarchs.

I'm not in favor of ignoring licenses, but practically speaking, they require legal nexus to function.

I don't usually buy slippery slope arguments.

It's not like Russia currently respects the Rule of Law.

>It's not like Russia currently respects the Rule of Law.

but... we do?

the argument is apparently that we also should ignore the rule of law. i dont think that would be a great idea for society, but i am just some dude.

The argument is that we should only obey the rule of law with counterparties who reciprocate, rather than voluntarily hamstring ourselves for no benefit other than moral purity.

right, damn pesky morals are always hamstringing human progress.

my thinking is that once you start selectively applying rule of law to "good guys" and "bad guys" (or whatever criteria you pick), you have lost something really important. fingers crossed no one ever alters the criteria such that you fall on the "wrong" side!

>my thinking is that once you start selectively applying rule of law to "good guys" and "bad guys" (or whatever criteria you pick),

This is how the world already works. We do not inhabit an egalitarian utopia. There quite literally are bad guys.

When you treat everyone like good guys, you end up with Donald Trump as the president instead of in jail.

i did not expect people to advocate for ignoring licenses, and further, arguing that the rule of law should be selectively applied. but, i am too old to expend energy trying to convince people that the rule of law loses all meaning if it is selectively applied.

so, sure, fuck licenses. if someone pisses you off, just say they were born in the wrong country and steal their shit. thankfully i am retiring soon, so i probably wont see the winners of this race to the bottom.

I think you're entirely right. I also think that what you're warning about is already in the past, due to the practicalities of globalization.

There are so many laws around the world that apply to "websites", that currently, you can't operate any sort of online presence anymore without at least implicitly picking and choosing which laws on the planet that you're going to follow. Nobody hires hundreds of lawyers in every country of the world to comply with every website law on the planet, and if you did, I bet you'd find you probably can't practically operate one.

For example, the forum that we're on right now, doesn't comply with this law (although I believe HN blocks China anyway): https://www.cac.gov.cn/2022-06/17/c_1657089000974111.htm

In reality, people hire a lawyer in the jurisdictions where they have legal exposure and follow those laws.

This isn't to say that you should ignore software licenses, but rather sometimes, they're toothless instruments.

there is some interesting and nuanced discussion to be had with your main point, but

>This isn't to say that you should ignore software licenses, [...]

the main/only reason that i started this comment chain, and continued it, is that the other commenters are saying you should (if they are from the "wrong" country, anyways).

>i did not expect people to advocate for ignoring licenses

> am too old to expend energy trying to convince people that the rule of law loses all meaning if it is selectively applied.

Again, for what feels like the third or fourth time, this is already happening all over the globe.

It's an open secret, for example, that the AI companies trained their models on pirated textbooks. It's not even an open secret, just the bare-faced truth, that the AI companies trained and continue to train on source-available software without regards for license. It's common knowledge that Russian and Chinese companies (among others) benefit from state-sponsored corporate espionage and sanctioned software piracy. The Rule of Law is dead in many countries, including the United States.

There's literally nothing to be gained by not following suit. You can't pay your rent with ethics.

>Again, for what feels like the third or fourth time, this is already happening all over the globe.

this is weird logic. scams happen every minute of every day all over the globe, i do not advocate for more people to scam.

>It's an open secret, for example, that the AI companies trained their models on pirated textbooks.

yeah, and that was wrong.

>You can't pay your rent with ethics.

this is a sad sentence.

>this is a sad sentence.

I don't disagree, but I'm talking about the real world that we inhabit, not the fictional idealized world we wistfully discuss in classrooms.

The world is a shitty place full of shitty people. Being an idealist is just asking to be taken advantage of.

>fictional idealized world we wistfully discuss in classrooms.

you can live in the real world without stealing software from people and justifying it because they were born in the "wrong" country.

i have done it my entire life.

"two wrongs dont make a right" is a pretty simple rule to live by, even in the real world. perhaps unsurprisingly, it is also good for ones mental health.

The software in question is, IIUC, a bastardized AGPL. You'll have to clarify for me how forking it constitutes stealing. Explain it like I'm in kindergarten.

But that wasn't your point. Your point was that, because Russia, it _didn't matter_ if it did constitute stealing.

No, you seem to have misunderstood my point.

We could have reciprocity laws. If a country won't respect software licences, or permits hacking gangs as long as they don't rob from their own, then they should get the same treatment in return.

Welcome to international law

from my reading, onlyoffice misread AGPL and the restrictions are not what section 7 meant; however that just means it's not really an AGPL licensed code as they are using AGPL wrong, not that NextCloud can just ignore it and treat it as AGPL.

(if OnlyOffice is really all their code and not some other re-forked AGPL code. I haven't looked.)

If "forking without approval" is grounds for some kind of termination, then the project should probably not be considered truly "open source".

1. OnlyOffice is claiming that the license was violated

2. Even if you fork a project in complete compliance with a software license, a software license doesn't grant you an ongoing business partnership

Question being did OnlyOffice terminate the business relationship in a legal way. Just because you dislike a companies trajectory doesn't necessarily immediately allow you to terminate business relations.

> Just because you dislike a companies trajectory doesn't necessarily immediately allow you to terminate business relations.

Usually it does, barring contractual obligations otherwise

>Usually it does, barring contractual obligations otherwise

i assume when they asked "legal way", contractual obligations was what they were referring to.

It doesn't sound like there is any reason for one to exist in this particular situation, so it was a strange insinuation that one might exist.

> 2. Even if you fork a project in complete compliance with a software license, a software license doesn't grant you an ongoing business partnership

That's fair, I'd just argue it's akin to to Red Hat's current model of "All of our code is free and open source...but if any of our business subscribers share it, we will terminate their license."

It's not even that -- OnlyOffice hasn't terminated anyone's license. It's more like: Linus allows me to fork Linux but he's not going to join a Zoom call with one my customers.

> 1. OnlyOffice is claiming that the license was violated

The part of the license violated was the removal of OnlyOffice's trademark and branding. Yet their license does not provide a right to use their trademark and branding. Those rights are still fully reserved by OnlyOffice.

This allows OnlyOffice to use legal means to shut down any fork or changes they are not comfortable with.

I said "OnlyOffice is claiming" intentionally -- if it's BS then it's BS. I don't see anything in AGPLv3 that allows them to require branding, only attribution.

Still, you can (and often will) terminate a business partnership over BS arguments.

I think you're claiming wrong stuff here. AGPLv3 section 7 paragraph b) expressively authorize the author to require an attribution in the derived work or copy. What Nextcloud did was to remove this attribution, so they actually mooted their own right to use the code under that license. There's nothing related to trademark or branding violation here. If OnlyOffice attacked Nextcloud for using their TM or brand for respecting the license, they would be debunked at a trial (if it even reach a trial), since they expressively allowed the use of the attribution in distributing their work with this license. Note: This license doesn't give you the right to use the branding of OnlyOffice on a derived product and claim it's yours or you're acting as them, that's a complete different usage case here.

You're right, the branding claim here is BS but attribution requirements are legit. I only took a cursory glance at their repo, but I don't see any copyright notices for OnlyOffice in EuroOffice. There should be.

OnlyOffice didn't distribute under a pure AGPLv3 license. They made modifications to it.

On line 655 here: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/blob/master/LIC...

> Pursuant to Section 7(b) of the License you must retain the original Product logo when distributing the program. Pursuant to Section 7(e) we decline to grant you any rights under trademark law for use of our trademarks.

And on line 17 here: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DesktopEditors/blob/master/LIC...

> Pursuant to Section 7 § 3(b) of the GNU AGPL you must retain the original ONLYOFFICE logo in the upper left corner of the user interface when distributing the software.

IANAL, but from the wording above it appears that OnlyOffice has modified it in a way that makes it impossible to fork as a new project.

They’re completely wrong about Section 7 § 3(b).

They’re mistakenly conflating “attribution” with “branding” or “trademark”. They’re different things. In the context of a copyright license, attribution is something like “// Copyright 2012 <whoever> Corporation” that you might see in a source file.

This use doesn’t violate trademark because you aren’t pretending to be them, you are attributing them as the source. Just like I can say “the Big Mac is a sandwich at McDonalds” and my comment is completely legal.

Even if “attribution” didn’t already mean something different — this reading of the AGPL is laughably stupid — first of all, you can’t compel someone to break the law in a contract anyway... and second, that’s an illogical interpretation of that section. Why would it be intentionally self contradictory? Clearly that isn’t right.

Requiring specific branding is not provided for in 7 § 3(b) and it is specifically forbidden by the the sentences that immediately follow:

What they should do is make sure they keep all attribution in source files and tell them to pound sand about their bogus branding claims.

The license says:

> you must retain the original Product logo when distributing the program

I understand "retain" in the way that you have to display the logo anywhere where the original OnlyOffice displays it. So I think you actually have to "use the branding of OnlyOffice".

----

> What Nextcloud did was to remove this attribution

Did they? If including the logo anywhere counts as attribution, I don't think they did. The logo is still present in several places:

https://github.com/Euro-Office/core/blob/main/DesktopEditor/...

https://github.com/Euro-Office/desktop-apps/blob/main/win-li...

https://github.com/Euro-Office/server/blob/main/branding/inf...

They changed it here:

https://github.com/Euro-Office/server/blob/main/branding/inf...

AGPL allows for compatibility with a requirement for attribution but it doesn’t not allow (and explicitly says people can ignore) any further requirements beyond that.

The OnlyOffice license is ultimately a terrible crayon license. Those two requirements they wrote in are self contradictory… in consecutive sentences even. I kind of doubt that any court is gonna take that super seriously. It seems to be intentionally misleading or malicious, which is frowned upon.

Shhh! Nobody tell Redhat.

I was wondering about how they came to the conclusion that they violated the copyright, so I went to check if they did the AGPL[1] with some extra clauses in it. Turns out they didn't, but they did change[2] it[3] in an interesting way: All the https urls in the GNU version are http urls.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt

[2]: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/core/blob/master/LICENSE.txt

[3]: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/onlyoffice-nextcloud/blob/mast...

That's just the FSF editing the license text without updating the version number or date.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160114094744/https://www.gnu.o...

For the record, this is the argument ONLYOFFICE's lawyer is making:

- ONLYOFFICE is under AGPLv3 since 2016.

- AGPLv3 requires source disclosure, preserving the license, and keeping copyright notices.

- Section 7 lets ONLYOFFICE add conditions: keep the logo and no trademark use.

- You must follow all license terms, including these extra conditions, to legally use or distribute the software.

- Ignoring these conditions is a license breach and copyright infringement.

> You must follow all license terms, including these extra conditions, to legally use or distribute the software.

Good thing that the license says in section 7: “[…] When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option remove any additional permissions [“terms that supplement the terms of this License by making exceptions from one or more of its conditions”] from that copy, or from any part of it. […]”

That clause doesn't apply because we're talking about an additional restriction, not an additional permission.

But, same result, because it also says:

> If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

A restriction stating "you must keep branding" can be ignored. What you can require, is attribution.

The license contains (section 7):

> [you may] supplement the terms of this License with terms: > >[...] > > b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or > author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal > Notices displayed by works containing it; or > > c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or > requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in > reasonable ways as different from the original version; or > > d) Limiting the use for publicity purposes of names of licensors or > authors of the material; or > > e) Declining to grant rights under trademark law for use of some > trade names, trademarks, or service marks;

So the requirement of branding and attribution aren't "further restriction" (which, in this context, means a restriction that is not in the AGPLv3 license text). It's after section 7's list of allowed restrictions, which, paragraph b, contains "require preservation of [...] legal notices or [...] attributions", paragraph d is made to prevent misuse of the original author reputation, and paragraph e to prevent misuse of trademarks, so they, IMHO, are all legitimate.

Yes, preservation of [...] author attributions --- not branding or logos

These are different things.

However, I did glance at the repo and I don't see any attributions, either.

The branding requirement is a further restriction because that isn’t one of the permitted changes by 7(b) - it is neither an author attribution nor a ALN.

Their lawyer is right about everything except:

> - Section 7 lets ONLYOFFICE add conditions: keep the logo and no trademark use.

Section 7 allows you to add permissions, but it prohibits any restrictions beyond the options listed in section 7.

That's true. And, in my understanding, what OO did, falls exactly in paragraph b and d. The license doesn't describe what is the "Appropriate Legal Notices" and OO provided a description for it: its logo and its trademark.

No, logos and trademarks are neither "legal notices" nor "author attributions". It's simply not what those words mean. A "legal notice" is some sort of legally relevant document. An "author attribution" is a plaintext recognition of the original copyright holder.

If you look at the repo, it looks like the did fail to include author attributions, as far as I can see. The source files need to say they were originally written by OO. That's what author attribution means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_(copyright)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notice

I agree with the posters above that OnlyOffice conflates retaining branding with retaining attribution.

However, AGPL doesn't require retaining attributions other than copyright notices by default. Under section 7b, the copyright holder can specify which attributions to retain.

Under 7b, OnlyOffice specified that forks must "retain the original Product logo". I agree with others that this is not a legitimate way to request attribution, and therefore this could be removed from the license. See section 7:

>If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.

Therefore, I think there is no obligation to attribute OnlyOffice, only to retain the original copyright notices.

----

Additionally, I haven't seen any evidence for the claim that Euro-Office actually removed the logos from their fork. Can anybody find such a commit?

https://github.com/Euro-Office/server/commit/90a473b99f8ca7b...

Important bit of information is further down in the article: OnlyOffice is Russian. I would therefore view any collaboration as a risk. It's not adequate for strategic reasons as well as sovereignty.

If you need Docx compatibility to interface with the rest of the world, are you better off with the at-least open source option or the sign-your-life-in-eula-and-O365-subscription option.

This isn't rhetorical. I don't know which is worse. I lean disliking Microsoft more, because jazz hands at Windows11, and OnlyOffice at least runs on Linux, but it's still not a fun position to be in.

LibreOffice and other alts definitely don't have as good of Docx compat.

Not sure why you were downvoted; it's quite possible that Nextcloud was more concerned about the political independence/potential sanctions aspect.

Isn't the whole idea behind AGPL that you're allowed to fork and modify it as long as you provide your modified source code to the users?

OnlyOffice was trying to implement some extra restrictions on top of the AGPL. Now they seem to be throwing a fit knowing that was not allowed. You can't bake your pie and eat it too.

This is bullshit. Read section 7 paragraph b of the AGPLv3 license, and you'll see that OnlyOffice did what they were allowed to do. The Nextcloud blog here is spreading FUD on their partner which will likely cause more damage to them if OO's lawyer starts to have a look on this. People don't read license text, but they should, because they think AGPL is like GPL which is not the case, they are additional restrictions to the former.

>The Nextcloud blog here is spreading FUD on their partner

are neowin and nextcloud affiliated somehow? or which nextcloud blog are you referring to?

The FSF has specifically stated that 7(b) does not apply to branding and requiring such is a violation of 7(b) that may be removed.

> You can't bake your pie and eat it too.

This seems like a corruption of "you can't have your cake and eat it too." I'm somewhat confused as you can definitely both bake a pie and eat it too. Or are you trying to make some kind of point that I'm missing?

> You can't bake your pie and eat it too.

If you don't, I would advise you to at least attempt doing so.

An example of how european "tech" reacts to threats. 2 european open source projects in litigation with each other and one of them engineered a license to prevent an obvious feature of open source software (forking) while the other is throwing shades at opacity and geopolitical control at the first.

There is a section in the GitHub Readme of Eurooffice with a justification of the fork:

https://github.com/Euro-Office#euro-office-liberates-the-onl...

Only onlyoffice being petty. A good reason to use LibreOffice or Collabora instead.

Of course Collabora is also upset because LibreOffice resurrected their LibreOffice Online project (https://www.neowin.net/news/collabora-clashes-with-libreoffi...).

These projects seem to be really struggling with the Freedom part of Free Software.

Right? Kinda weird; I wonder what tiny pie it is that they think they're fighting over, and what makes any of these individual projects think that they're powerful enough over the others (not saying they might not be)

Corporate dollars are zero sum, is why. It is in fact a real competition in that space.

Hey mods/dang, can you put this back on the front page please? No reason to bounce it. Important licensing discussion and relevant!

They should have used malus.sh instead

Obviously.

Wow, how to alienate everyone.

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