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on
Which general topic do you have
Please no flame thread; total respect to all. I want to make a suggestion, assuming Euro Office is an AGPL-compliant fork from before OnlyOffice removed mobile editing from DocumentServer back in 5.5.0
Suggestion: Nextcloud Should Consider a Formal Governance Model for Office Integrations
(EuroOffice, OnlyOffice, Collabora, etc.)
- The Document Foundation is in conflict with Collabora, despite Collabora maintaining most of LibreOffice Online for many years.
- OnlyOffice is in conflict with Nextcloud and Euro Office, despite Euro Office being a legitimate AGPL fork and Nextcloud being a long‑time partner.
Both cases show the same underlying issue:
When a project steward and a major contributor have no shared governance framework, conflict is inevitable.
To avoid repeating these failures, Euro Office could benefit from a more formal governance model. Nextcloud relies on external office software for collaborative editing. When upstream projects experience licensing changes, branding disputes, or governance conflicts, it directly affects:
- stability for users
- long‑term support
- compatibility
- trust
Adding structure now would allow for a predictable, vendor‑neutral foundation for future integrations, collaboration and forks. Yes, I absolutely asked CoPilot to help with explicit suggestions based on past OnlyOffice changes in addition to both current situations, because this is complex. I hope this at least inspires further suggestions and ideas, whatever those are.
Suggested Governance Principles
1. Clear Trademark & Branding Rules
Define explicit expectations for:
- how forks (like EuroOffice) must handle branding
- how integrations should refer to upstream projects
- how vendors may present themselves within the Nextcloud ecosystem
This protects both Nextcloud and vendors from trademark disputes.
2. A Committee Based on Actual Code Contributions
Representation should be tied to real work:
- integration maintenance
- bug fixes
- security patches
- documentation
- API compatibility
This prevents a foundation from “reclaiming” a project without the maintainers, and prevents a vendor from dominating branding or direction.
3. Public Roadmaps
Require all integrated office vendors to publish:
- a 12‑month roadmap
- deprecation notices
- licensing changes
- major feature plans
This eliminates surprises like sudden feature removals or licensing shifts.
4. Public Comment Periods for Major Changes
Before any major integration or governance change:
- publish a proposal
- allow a defined comment period (e.g., 30–90 days)
- gather community and vendor feedback
This ensures transparency and avoids abrupt decisions.
What This Achieves
A governance model like this would:
- stabilize the Nextcloud office ecosystem
- protect users from upstream conflicts
- ensure fair influence for contributors
- support AGPL‑compliant forks like EuroOffice
- prevent vendor lock‑in
- avoid the governance failures seen in both TDF/Collabora and ONLYOFFICE/Nextcloud
I hope this at least inspires further conversation. Best to all of you.