Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.

“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.

LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.

There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.

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66 points

Nice. Maybe now Microsoft will respond by offering non-subscription options inventing a new proprietary industry-standard file format so their bloated ransomware remains mandatory.

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33 points

Fortunately platforms like docs are providing sufficient competition that I don’t think they’d be able to lock it down as effectively as they once could.

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18 points

They’ll have to settle for “warning” the user if they detect a file that was made by libreoffice.

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1 point

The warning can be disabled from the settings

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