mksaunders2

Great, then do it with extensions. LibreOffice is not blocking anyone from using AI in the software. But it's not being included in the core download package.

That's not true at all. Donations are the biggest source of income for The Document Foundation, the non-profit behind LibreOffice, and have been used to pay developers who've joined the team in recent years:

* Michael Weghorn (accessibility)

* Jonathan Clark (language and scripting support)

* Neil Roberts (scripting improvements)

* Dan Williams (macOS support and general UI improvements)

Just to point out that that this article is a mixture of completely wrong, and misleading:

* There is no such thing as "LibreOffice 26.4 Beta". The next release of LibreOffice will be 26.8, and hasn't gone into beta yet. So the author is seemingly inventing this

* LibreOffice is not "introducing early AI-powered writing capabilities". There are no plans to put AI in LibreOffice. Some people are working on third-party extensions that add AI features, but those are separate. Very misleading.

You can read TDF's position: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-...

Everyone, please also read TDF's side of the story, before speculating: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-...

Please do read TDF's side of the story as well: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-...

LibreOffice developer | Preferably full-time | Remote

Love LibreOffice development? Want to turn your passion into a paid job? We are The Document Foundation (TDF), the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice. We’re passionate about free software, the open source culture and about bringing new companies and people with fresh ideas into our community.

To improve the user interface of LibreOffice, the office productivity suite for over 200 million users around the globe, we’re searching for a developer (m/f/d) to start work (from home) as soon as possible. This is what you’ll do:

* Work on the LibreOffice codebase (mostly C++)

* Focus on LibreOffice’s user interface, in the way it is rendered and laid out

* Fix bugs, implement new features, and improve the quality of the UI code in LibreOffice while working together with the design team and other contributors

* Document what you do, actively share knowledge in public with volunteers and contributors via blog posts, workshops and conference talks, so other developers and users have an easier time learning about your work

Full listing: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/08/07/join-the...

Here's also the Apache Software Foundation's Security Team minutes with "openoffice (Health amber): Three issues in OpenOffice over 365 days old and a number of other open issues not fully triaged":

https://whimsy.apache.org/board/minutes/Security_Team.html

The Git log is also almost entirely two people removing whitespace, changing the case of HTML tags and tweaking comments: https://github.com/apache/openoffice/commits/trunk

BTW, anyone concerned can email apache at apache dot org and ask why they're still distributing OpenOffice despite vulnerabilities. A few people on Mastodon have done that but gotten no answers yet. The more pressure there is to put it in the Attic, the sooner this awful situation will end...

It's extremely risky to keep using OpenOffice. Apache has marked its security status as "Amber" with "three issues in OpenOffice over 365 days old and a number of other open issues not fully triaged."

It's also worrying that The Apache Foundation continues to promote and distribute OpenOffice despite unfixed security issues and zero updates to the software. So many people in the FOSS world have called on them to finally retire it, put it in the Attic and keep up a good reputation for FOSS - but they won't do it. It still gets hundreds of thousands of downloads despite being unfixed.

It's irresponsible of The ASF IMO.

Yes, and now there are unfixed security issues in OpenOffice over a year old, so the ASF really, really should put it in the Attic ASAP. If more people in the FOSS world raise awareness about this, perhaps it will finally happen, so users become aware of maintained, fixed successor projects:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_OpenOffice#Security

> I still don't understand there isn't a supported version of LibreOffice that I can pay for

But there are, and has been for years, such versions: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business...

The Apache Security Team report says it now has "three issues in OpenOffice over 365 days old and a number of other open issues not fully triaged". So it's not just unmaintained, but actively putting users at risk. It's not clear why the ASF won't put it in the Attic.

The "NotebookBar" tabbed user interface is a huge change and was implemented a few years ago. Still needs some refinement (anyone is welcome to help the Design community volunteers!) but there have been some very big changes...

Auto-updates on Windows were implemented in the previous major release :-)

Totally incorrect. LibreOffice had no plans to do a "commercial" version - it's from a non-profit organisation. A few years ago, the version from The Document Foundation was given the label "LibreOffice Community" to make it clear that it's a community-driven project and doesn't provide long-term support or other things that enterprises need. (Because enterprises were getting it from TDF and expecting technical support contracts and other things.)

According to the Apache Security Team, Apache OpenOffice has:

> Three issues in OpenOffice over 365 days old and a number of other open issues not fully triaged.

Do you think it is responsible to keep serving users vulnerable software and misleading them that it's being updated with pointless code commits?

It's vulnerable, there's been no major update since 2014, and now unfixed issues over a year old. Those changing typos in the source code instead of actually fixing the issues should really be ashamed.

According to Apache they still get tens of thousands of downloads of OpenOffice every day (mostly Windows). It's a really bad image for free and open source software when users (who don't know about successor projects) discover that it's ancient, with no major update since 2014, and has unfixed security issues.

The Document Foundation | LibreOffice Developers (two positions) | Full-time | Remote

The Document Foundation (TDF) is the non-profit entity behind the world’s leading free and open-source office suite, LibreOffice. We are truly passionate about free software, the open source culture and about bringing new companies and people with fresh ideas into our community, especially in the second decade of our project.

To improve features in LibreOffice, the office productivity suite for over 200 million users around the globe, we’re searching for two developers (m/f/d) to start work (from home) as soon as possible.

The first role initially focuses on accessibility topics: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2022/12/21/join-the...

While the second initially on right-to-left and complex-text-layout languages: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2022/12/21/join-the...