I've read the Euro-Office pre-announcement coverage, and The Document Foundation just posted the single most important clarification you'll see all week: Euro-Office is not the first European open source office suite. That framing emerged from launch-day speed, not from the coalition's own text. LibreOffice, built by this Foundation and a worldwide community, has been European, mature, and actively developed for years. Precedence isn't the point — accuracy is.
What the Announcement Gets Right — and What It Must Still Deliver
The Euro-Office commitment to improve OpenDocument Format support is genuinely welcome. European free software advocates have asked for this for years, and I take that promise in good faith. But improved support is a start, not the destination. A format you can read and write as a courtesy is not a format you own. Digital sovereignty lives in the native format — the one where documents are created, stored, and trusted across decades.
Native ODF Is the Only Endgame for Sovereignty
The Document Foundation's expectation is blunt and correct: Euro-Office must make ODF its native document format. Not a secondary export option, not a compatibility layer, not "support." Sovereignty begins with the format, not with the logo on the application. A genuinely sovereign European office suite has to speak ODF as its mother tongue — treating the open standard as a concession to outsiders defeats the entire purpose.
When Euro-Office ships with ODF as its native format, I'll be glad to acknowledge it. Until then, this is a welcome step on a road that still has a long way to go.
Source: Euro-Office, open standards, and native ODF
Domain: blog.documentfoundation.org
Comments load interactively on the live page.