LibreOffice Online Project Reopened With New Community Focus

The Document Foundation (TDF) has officially revived LibreOffice Online, reversing its decision from 2022 to suspend development and archive the project. The TDF Board has rescinded the previous votes, re-opened the repository, and invited the community to resume work on the project under upstream governance.

However, it’s important to note that LibreOffice Online is still far from being production-ready. The project requires significant additional work, code reviews, and modernization before it can be considered a stable, fully deployable product.

For context, LibreOffice Online is the web-based version of the popular open-source office suite. Unlike the desktop version, it enables users to access LibreOffice features via a web browser. The documents are rendered on a server, with the interface streamed to the browser. This allows for real-time document editing, collaboration, and file management, all using the same core LibreOffice engine found in the desktop application. Supported applications include Writer, Calc, and Impress, with seamless integration into cloud platforms and self-hosted collaboration environments.

In 2022, the TDF Board decided to freeze the development of LibreOffice Online, archiving the repository and halting active upstream development. While various ecosystem vendors continued to maintain their own versions and solutions, there was no official, Foundation-backed version of LibreOffice Online under active development.

Now, the TDF Board has reversed that decision and is re-establishing LibreOffice Online as an open-source project, once again driven by community contributions and direct Foundation stewardship.

It’s also crucial to clarify that this revival does not mean TDF plans to offer a cloud-based office service akin to Google Docs or Microsoft 365. The Foundation explicitly states it will not host an enterprise-grade SaaS platform or provide commercial support. Instead, the focus is on maintaining a robust, community-driven upstream codebase. Organizations seeking fully hosted or commercial support will need to work with ecosystem partners who offer such services.

For additional details, refer to the TDF’s official announcement.