A LibreOffice developer has shared his experience of having his Microsoft account banned, and how the company has been uncooperative in helping him recover it.

Recently, we reported on LibreOffice, accusing Microsoft of intentionally using complex file formats as a tactic to lock in users to Microsoft Office, hindering open source alternatives like LibreOffice. Now, Microsoft has banned LibreOffice developer, Mike Kaganski, from using its services, citing an “activity that violates [its] Services Agreement”.

According to Mike, this happened last Monday when he tried to send a technical email to the LibreOffice dev mailing list, which is a normal part of his routine, but Thunderbird returned an error saying the message couldn’t be sent. His account was blocked upon retry, and he found himself completely logged out of his Microsoft account…

    • UnculturedSwine@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      211·
      2 days ago

      I ditched the latter

      The connection between OnlyOffice and Russia has caused some controversy. The company has moved headquarters and attempted to hide its Russian ties through shell companies[21]. The company develops its product in Russia[22] and presents itself in the Russian market as a Russian company[23]. For this reason some Ukrainian businesses have moved away from OnlyOffice[24].

      • Spaniard@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        2 days ago

        Is everything Russian bad? I understand Ukraine not using anything Russian but the rest of the world?

        • UnculturedSwine@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          4 hours ago

          I didn’t say that necessarily. The reason I dropped it is because I don’t trust the developers to protect the software from the Russian government if they’re based out of Russia.

      • Allero@lemmy.todayEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        If I would run a global company based in Russia, I’d also try to hide it, even if no malice is taking place.

        This kind of reaction is exactly why.

        As long as it’s open source, it should be fine, though.

          • Niquarl@lemmy.mlEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            I’mbusing it and I haven’t donated to them and probably won’t after reading that bit so not sure how they are making money through me? So yeah it’s different to paying a subscription for something else

            • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              3·
              2 days ago

              You using this thing helps boost metrics and alert search engines and shit. That boosts their visibility. Just using the thing helps the project.

              Frankly, if libreoffice made a cleaner looking UI that wasn’t stuck in the 90s more people would take it seriously. It’s functional, but curb appeal helps to attract people, to convince them to give it a chance.

              • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                4·
                1 day ago

                While it doesn’t bring it up to current standards, it does have a tabbed UI that you can enable by going to View --> User Interface

                Personally, I don’t fully understand why they don’t make that the default and keep supporting the toolbar design as they’ve always done. I can’t imagine there would be a big backlash from existing users who prefer the toolbar UI