Why does nextcloud offer FREE opensource OnlyOffice integration and now want money to edit with the mobile app

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Nextcloud prides themselves as offering a "Free version of the software as it is open source, however most recently the integrated office requires a paid subscription to edit files with the mobile app.

Is the integrated office not opensource also? What gives you the right to charge?

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Is the integrated office not opensource also? What gives you the right to charge?

  1. Opensource isn’t about it being free, It’s about the source being available, you can still charge money for open source software.
  2. Even with FOSS (Free open source) you can charge for features, the “free” simply refers to the ability to freely use the code. If users want that feature without paying they just have to modify the freely available source code to allow them to use it and developers have no obligation (legally or morally) to make it easy to do so.
  3. OmlyOffice is a separate company developing the office software, not Nextcloud. They are providing community accessible software with “enterprise” features locked in order to fund said development.
  4. Nextcloud has plenty of integrations with third party software that isn’t Free. Why should there be any issues with integrating paid services? You don’t NEED to use it.
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Because onlyoffice totally flipped out when they realized Nextcloud integrated their product back in 2020 and changed their entire licensing to opencore.

You can avoid this by using Collabora as a built-in app or by integrating collabora as a 3rd party app, but it is what it is. Here are the full details, because unfortunately companies do not want to support fully open source efforts once it enables home users:

Perhaps this is not more publicized to avoid saying anything about the situation, but it doesn’t change what happened. :person_shrugging: Not Nextcloud’s fault beyond the response to the integration being something not expected. :heart:

If Collabora changed their services terms I will re-open this thread, otherwise it only continues to beat a very dead horse.

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