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WMCH Nextcloud: activate OnlyOffice or Euro-Office if available (together with Collabora Office) as requested by the Education programme
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ValerioBoz-WMCH
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ValerioBoz-WMCH
Jun 4 2026, 3:47 PM
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F88256990: image.png
Jun 13 2026, 5:24 AM
F88166131: visible_hidden_bug.odp
Jun 12 2026, 4:43 PM
F88166134: onlyoffice-works.png
Jun 12 2026, 4:43 PM
F88166133: collaboraonline-bug.png
Jun 12 2026, 4:43 PM
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valerio.bozzolan
ValerioBoz-WMCH

Description

In our Nextcloud we already have Collabora Office activated to manage all kinds of documents (Open Document format and also Office XML). This is really good since Collabora Office is endorsed by the LibreOffice community (for example by the opinionated LibreOffice activist Italo Vignoli - source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61PuTOIAJu0 ).

The problem is, especially from macOS users, we received some techical complaints about the opening of documents with Collabora Online. For example, since Collabora Online is a kind of "tile viewer" of the LibreOffice backend, I've seen that some "normal" presentations are not rendered correctly in Chrome on macOS. Literally you see blank tiles, and you do not see your contents, especially after interacting with the mouse scroll.

While we have all the commitment to create a proper bug report to upstream in Collabora Office so to improve the situation, and while this bug is not always easily reproducible to me,

we still need to unblock our users, so that they will not use anymore Microsoft Office 365 at all costs but could use "more" Free Software. That is why the Education program proposed to adopt OnlyOffice (or Euro-Office).

So we take the best of the two. So we are trying to survive both situations and make everybody happy.

The challenge is that OnlyOffice brings some known concerns, mainly because newspapers describe it as a software with «Russian roots» which is leading some organizations to extra attention https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/04/02/forking-frenzy-ensues-after-launch-of-euro-office/5221537 . So, while it's supposed to be open source software and while we should have pretty much control over the software is deployed in our infrastructure by our European service providers, this is still something to be kept in mind. Not talking about this would be strange. Just to say that we should keep an eye over the fork Euro-Office (EuroOffice repository) (the slogan literally is: «Euro-Office liberates the ONLYOFFICE code base») or similar forks - since they exist since 2026.

Thanks to everybody for extra comments.

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ValerioBoz-WMCH created this task.Jun 4 2026, 3:47 PM
ValerioBoz-WMCH changed the task status from Open to Stalled.
ValerioBoz-WMCH triaged this task as High priority.

This is tracked in the ticket bug 17467.

ValerioBoz-WMCH updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 4 2026, 3:53 PM
ValerioBoz-WMCH updated the task description. (Show Details)Jun 4 2026, 3:59 PM
ValerioBoz-WMCH added a comment.Jun 4 2026, 4:04 PM

Noting down what I'm reading here in https://github.com/Euro-Office

  • Contributing is impossible or greatly discouraged. ONLYOFFICE typically does not review or accept pull requests. Build instructions are unreliable, outdated or just plain broken.
  • The company regularly makes controversial decisions like closing off features in the mobile apps like mobile editing, and the removal of an administrator panel. Lacking transparency. Commit messages, when visible, often just refer to an issue number in an internal issue tracker. There are quite a number of binary blobs and compiled or obfuscated code blobs. Most internal code comments are Russian which makes is hard to work with.
  • The mobile apps are not really open source but just wrappers. Example. The apps have extensive proprietary sections which will need to be re-implemented. Work on this is underway.
  • ONLYOFFICE is a Russian company (despite many attempts to hide this), and nearly all developers reside in Russia. Open Source is a global effort, but current political situation makes collaboration hard and trust difficult to earn. Especially when development is not transparent and open. A lot of users and customers require software that is not potentially influenced or controlled by the Russian government.

This ↑ is the literal quoting of the README.md file.

I have to say that I'm a direct testimony of this specific phrase:

The company regularly makes controversial decisions like closing off features in the mobile apps like mobile editing

I remember when the feature was dropped from the Docker. I may find a GitHub issue somewhere.

Also probably I also know Italo Vignoli was confirming this phrase, talking about the "open core" strategy of OnlyOffice:

The mobile apps are not really open source but just wrappers. Example. The apps have extensive proprietary sections which will need to be re-implemented. Work on this is underway.

So, again, just to say that it may be good to keep an eye on this fork.

ValerioBoz-WMCH renamed this task from WMCH Nextcloud: activate OnlyOffice (together with Collabora Office) as requested by the Education programme to WMCH Nextcloud: activate OnlyOffice or Euro-Office if available (together with Collabora Office) as requested by the Education programme.Jun 4 2026, 4:04 PM
ValerioBoz-WMCH updated the task description. (Show Details)
ValerioBoz-WMCH added a parent task: T365342: Evaluate Collabora VS OnlyOffice - deploy Collabora - WMCH Nextcloud.Jun 4 2026, 4:07 PM
ValerioBoz-WMCH added a comment.EditedJun 4 2026, 4:11 PM

Ah, in Wikimedia Italy, as volunteer, I've experienced similar technical difficulties with Collabora Online OnlyOffice:

T313322: WMI NextCloud: problem on OnlyOffice when scrolling using Firefox/Safari on macOS

And I've noticed a similar decision, so, the board tried Collabora Online but failed in adopting it for technical difficulties (September 2025):

T331298: Evaluate the integration between Nextcloud and Collabora, instead of Nextcloud and OnlyOffice

So, I think my personal goal is to do not deactivate Collabora Online, even if bugged in some situations. Instead, keeping it activated, and produce an actual bug report.

ValerioBoz-WMCH closed this task as Resolved.Jun 12 2026, 4:43 PM

Activation completed.

Also interestingly, using OnlyOffice (or EuroOffice) at the moment is the only way to see if a presentation slide is "hidden" or not.

collaboraonline-bug.png (1,267×706 px, 363 KB)

onlyoffice-works.png (1,260×672 px, 437 KB)

visible_hidden_bug.odp13 KBDownload

Attaching a proof of concept ODP.

At the moment I have not found an upstream bug about this, but it may be interesting to report this in CollaboraOnline, to improve this great open source software, which is supposed to have maximum Open Document (ODP) support.

valerio.bozzolan subscribed.Jun 13 2026, 5:24 AM

The above bug has been resolved in Collabora Online, at least since 25.04.9.4. See the hidden slide:

image.png (1,600×790 px, 114 KB)

While the numbered slides are still not shown in Collabora, as you can see. So, reported here:

https://github.com/CollaboraOnline/online/issues/10356

ValerioBoz-WMCH created subtask T429571: Nextcloud: be able to customize the creation menu, when Collabora Online and OnlyOffice are installed together.Thu, Jun 18, 8:20 AM
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