France and Germany, in joint collaboration, have developed a Google Docs alternative - and its awesome! (Netherlands are currently onboarded)

Just checked the part about self-hosting. While it's probably possible to handle things with a less heavy approach, their only "easy to use" example right now is to have a full-blown kubernetes cluster at hand or run locally in the source directory. That's a bit much.

In the README there's also instructions for Docker Compose, although it's quite the compose file, with SIXTEEN containers defined. Not something I'd want to self-host.
- it seems to contains development containers and external services containers. So the compose file is more for local dev it seems
  What i do find weird is the choice for Django for the backend. Python is incredibly slow, and django rest framework is even worse.
Honestly, k8s is super easy and very lightweight to run locally if you know the rights tools. There are a few good options but I prefer k3d. I can install Docker/k3d and also build a local cluster running in maybe 2 minutes. It’s excellent for local dev. Even good for production in some niche scenarios
- I don't like the approach of piling more things on top of even more things to achieve the same goal as the base, frankly speaking. A "local" kubernetes cluster serve no purpose other than incredible complexity for little to no gain over a mere docker-compose. And a small cluster would work equally well with docker swarm.
  A service, even made of multiple parts, should always be described that way. It's easy to move "up" the stack of complexity, if you so desire. Having "have a k8s cluster with helm" working as the base requirement sounds insane to me.
- Seconding k3d (and, by extension, k3s). If you're in a market for sth suitable for more upstream-compliant clustering solution (k3s uses SQLite instead of etcd, iirc), RKE2 is also a great choice
- k8s is overkill for a lot of homelabs. Using docker compose is a fraction of that complexity
Please develop this self hosted version using sandstorm
It makes hosting a breeze with one click installation

Surprised they didn't go with cryptpad - aren't they already French?

Cryptpad is French, but they are using OnlyOffice, which is Russian.
- Fuck :( Didn't know that... I got convinced by the company being supposedly Latvian.
- Interesting, thanks for sharing!
- Is there any evidence of any wrongdoing or are we just considering all open source software from Russia a bad actor by default?

What was wrong with libre?

Pretty sure Libre only does local document collaboration, having it online is helpful for teams far from each other or who simply don't have the infrastructure for their own central server of this kind.
- Well this has been running in our Nextcloud and works pretty well collaboratively :) https://github.com/CollaboraOnline/online not sure how it scales, but definitely an alternative that can be built on
The web browser is the future, especially for a crappy document editor and spread sheet.
- Then just use Word online.

Calligra and LibreOffice already exist though. I am not against this in principle but couldn’t they have invested in an existing FOSS project?

While both of those are great software. Unless I'm not aware of something they aren't cloud/network based office suites like Google docs and office 365.
It seems this is an alternative to office software where you can work simultaneously and share documents in the same cloud/network.
I don't think there is an alternative to office 365 and Google docs at this point that is open source. So this seems like a great project and I'll definitely be considering it for our company.
- What about Collabora Online? It integrates nicely into Nextcloud, but I am not sure about pricing for business use.
  https://www.collaboraonline.com/collabora-online/
  Guide for self hosting: https://collabora-online-for-nextcloud.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install/
- There's onlyoffice for cloud based office
- There is nextcloud and others you can self host at least.
- LibreOffice online exists. It’s not mature, but they could have invest half their time in making it so.
  Only Office is natively cloud based, with an optional offline/desktop version.
  Both are open source, if the concern is project governance, create a fork and rebrand.
Can either of those do collaborative editing? I usually think of that feature when I think of Google Docs
- OnlyOffice does for sure, not sure how well it works on LibreOffice Online.
A lot of government programs don't really make sense and are there just to put a name on a CV sadly. Collabora Online does exactly that and is primary licensed under Mozilla Public License.
They could have easily expanded Collabora. But you know, can't stamp your name on it.
- To be fair, though a new project might not be as efficient as improving another, projects learn off each other, and sometimes it's good to have developmental 'competition', and variety.
Wait LibreOffice has a cloud?
- Yes but… https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/

We should actually use an opensource, decentralized and private alternative instead of relying on another centralized service

See Fileverse for example: https://fileverse.io/

I agree but having two major countries using this might be a good move for more efforts from nations. I know Canada still uses all M$FT platforms and recently moved to EXO.
Purpose built projects like this would be easy for public servants to adopt and adapt their workflow.
- I wish we did with more open source and local software. My school in Canada has some agreement with Microsoft so we have to use everything from them.
  The school mail used for all accounts is hosted by outlook
  The databases are all azure
  The 2fa app on our phone to boot the school computer has to be Microsoft (even gave me shit because I am root...)
  Teams
  We had a whole course for a year on how to use word.
  It's a public school. Obviously with this most students will move to the USA for higher pay, we are literally subsidizing the USA education.
Why distributed? Having your data tied to a blockchain seems unnecessarily complicated, and it essentially puts your data at risk if the bulk of the community moves to the next hot thing.
We really need to decouple storage from the apps themselves. Whether you use distributed storage, local storage, or something commercially backed like S3 should be a choice separate from the app you use to view and edit your data.
I self-host Collabora (online version of LibreOffice; OnlyOffice is another option), and my data lives on my NAS, but it could just as easily live on S3 or some distributed data store.
- (Not op) Its distrubuted so you don't lose your content if something happens to one location.
  Just browsing the landing page, it looks like the blockchain part offers proof of ownership and strict access controls without having to use a centralized service, which is needed in some form if it's distrubuted.
  I imagine but haven't seen that it might handle payments for having things be distrubuted as well, which would have meant having to include credit cards otherwise which would complicate things like micro payments to any given person hosting your content.
  Edit: also this is the kind of thing that should use an S3 compatible API so you don't get locked in as you said. It'd let you move the data between providers effortlessly.
- I self-host Collabora (online version of LibreOffice; OnlyOffice is another option), and my data lives on my NAS, but it could just as easily live on S3 or some distributed data store.
  Oh this is interesting. Any pitfalls you could talk about before I go popping this up myself?
Yeah agreed - anything not FOSS is just setting up another bad situation waiting to happen
- It says in one of the first paragraphs, that its open-source
Checked out the site on mobile, and it was unresponsive to any of my clicks.
Well this software is more intended for administrative staff working for the government, so I don't think that decentralisation is their goal here.
What do folks think of cryptpad? ~~Thinking of~~ more like planning on switching from proton after CEO bullshit
- I personally really like Cryptpad. I haven't heard of Fileverse, so I'll check it out. Cryptpad is the closest thing I've found to a drop-in Google Suite replacement.
- I'll look into that one too, I didn't know about it
  Which bullshit are you talking about? I might have missed it and my search didn't bring much on it
  edit: I think i found it: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/40123727/17360792

Yes, that's excellent. We need our own Google suite. Fingers crossed so that it may come eventually.

As someone in and from the US, good. Private companies are far to prevalent in public institutions all over the world. Something as basic and fundamental as word processing should not be controlled by a small select few huge international companies.

Really glad to see the EU adopt more open source software as a way to combat the centralized control some of the american software companies have over the space.

Pretty good project, but is it the future to have mainly web apps?

Bro has been sleeping under a rock for the past 10 years.
It’s definitely been the direction of travel for the last several years. Not because the products are better, but because it’s easier to develop for just the browser than for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
- it’s easier to develop for just the browser than for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
  They also work on android and IOS. You are also not dependent on the different toolkits. Also it is so much more performant.
A bit of both I guess
Web apps have the advantage of not requiring admin permission and being accessible from pretty much everywhere, and they are often less intensive I believe
And I guess cloud storage of documents makes it even better
- I guess I don't mind if I can self host the server. If I can't I have no interest in touching it.
- no office software requires admin eighter unless you want to install it for all users
For offline editing there's already LibreOffice
- LibreOffice does everything I need it to and there's no need for anything else.
A good web app is awesome!
But the big ones usually wants to have a native app so that they can scan your whole computer and so on. This is good news.
- which is fine if you deny network connections for it with a per-process firewall. but with a webapp you can never be sure that they won't snatch your documents.

Really cool. I tried to sign up but you have to be part of an officially recognized organization in France and input their registration number as part of the process.

I definitely don't want the government attached to my personal files, in any country.
Yeah I thought this was open to the general public, I didn't realize that it was not
- I'm sure it will be. This is a government funded thing in the early stages so I can see how they would set it up that way.

Great news!

This is probably the last hump for me before I can completely degoogle.

Nice. Where is the source, on github (I didn't see it but I only skimmed)? Federated? Self-hostable?

From briefly looking over the toot, I think the German version is called openDesk (bad choice as there seems to be some interior design software with the same name) there is a community version you can self host in a docker container. They apparently also have distro packages for Debian and Ubuntu but they seem to have stopped development on those.
Here's a link: https://opendesk.eu/en/
- openDesk is a complete suite of open source software. I guess Docs could at some point become a part of it. But it‘s not the same thing.
Github: https://github.com/suitenumerique/docs
Self-hostable, but it seems like an absolute behemoth of an application if their "non-production-use-only" docker-compose file is to be believed, and I couldn't find any production-ready deployment instructions on a quick skim. No obvious signs of federation and I didn't see anything on their roadmap, not sure it would make a lot of sense for this though.
- Deployment instructions start with the prerequisite that you have a full kubernetes cluster with ingress laying around, so… yeah. It looks like it'll be on the heavy side.
https://github.com/suitenumerique/docs
Self-hostable, needs Minio (or any S3 compatible system).

So FramaSoft is not a thing ?? It's French

I got a kick out of Google Docs alternative since it is trying to be AnyType, AFFiNE, AppFlowy, etc and none of those editors are stupid enough to claim to be Google Docs alternatives nor are they a bloated mess. Proof is in the pudding though... Try putting 1 inch margins on a page & add tab stops with this & printing it out where you get the same results.. oh wait, you can't... Cause it isn't a Google Docs alternative.

I disagree. There's Microsoft Office, and there's everything else. Google is in that second bucket.
- There's Libre office for those who like freedom and open source tech.
- Depends on who you hang with. Pretty much all businesses at this point do collaboration either with Office 365 or with Google Docs, and the same in Academia. Usually it’s a mix of both.
None of those tools are editors, right? They all try to be a notion alternative, which is also not an editor. There is basically 0 focus on typesetting.
- That is what I'm saying this editor is trying to be Notion, not Google Docs.
Google docs is trash.
- That is fine to have that opinion but it is irrelevant to the discussion since no where did I praise Google Docs. I'm just explaining the difference between this & and editor that does descent typesetting.

What does this do over what the collabora tools in Nextcloud do?

NGL I keep forgetting NextCloud has collaboration tools.

Nice, DINUM is doing a lot so great to see go beyond with supra national collaboration!

I'm using NextCloud (Germany and international open source community) hosted on Webo (Slovenia) with data centers in Germany and Helsinki (so I bet on Hetzner). I'm happy with it but I'll keep on eye on https://github.com/suitenumerique/docs

I'd be curious, they use Minio which puts S3 first. Does it mean Docs (the official instance) is relying on AWS?
If so IMHO that's not a great default EU sovereignty.
- I would assume (without having looked at the codebase) that if they use minio they are, by default, not reliant on AWS.
  Minio is its own S3 implementation which can be self-hosted.
  S3, being an AWS protocol originally has AWS environment variables all over the place but that does not necessarily mean a reliance on the service. Rather, they rely on the protocol and you bring your own S3 endpoint I would assume. be that minio, hetzner or what have you.
- FWIW if others are curious https://github.com/suitenumerique/docs/issues/755 opened an issue

Is this just for EU citisens or can Americans like me use it?

Foss, just deploy and enjoy
- Don't know what a Foss is

Now explain this to EU based corporations, which in my opinion needs to be the focus on making the change. They drive the economy. All major assets in software income are being routed to American firms through their licenses.

Dont know why we need another foss office but im certainly not going to complain.

No America's club

It's just for the French civil service, right?

ZenDiS is awesome by the way.

Is there an open source implementation of kDrive as well?
- It is already open-source. All of the source code is on their github and, for docs, they use an implementation of onlyoffice very similar to the one in Nextcloud
Where are you getting that pricing?
https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite/kdrive/prices

It looks closer to the markdown style of formatting though, and I doubt it has page formatting, or other more advanced formatting, or extensions, or a large selection of fonts. Honestly, even though docs has pageless formatting now, most people don't use it when they should, making everything unnecessary harder to read, so this will be better in that regard at least. This is probably good enough for 95% of what people use Docs for, but I wouldn't call it a replacement.

I haven't used it because I don't have a French government account, so correct me if I'm wrong about any of that.

Edit: it looks like it only has 1 font and no page formatting

There is a public demo instance. The link and test credentials are on the GitHub page.

Can the UK get some of that?

Thats great

I love the docs ability to create databases from my docs. That would be super useful for work and research activities.

Oh, you mean a spreadsheet?
- No, because with the above you can have rich objects in databases (for example, a dynamically updated list of medical events, each with all the attributes I want, attachments etc.), and almost arbitrarily deep nesting of databases. The idea to have databases with pages is one of the key features that made notion successful. It allows to structure knowledge without duplication, in addition to provide some other no-code features.
  Spreadsheets are not even close.
- I'm in the engineering business. We have a PDM system that we check-in copies of component 3D models, PDF drawings and DOCs. Once your team has collaborated enough, you have a copy...once a week/day/hour depending on your preference. That way you can collaborate and keep frozen records and rev controlled documents.

If I can copy and paste with thought having to install the offline plugin, then I'm in.

Is there a German-hosted instance? The URL https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/login/ is making me wanna barf and no way I'm clicking it to risk seeing more Fr*nch.

It's okay, you can curse on the internet.
lol what did the French do to you?

and why so?

Living under a rock eh?
- I mean I didn't see any alarming need of a Google doc alternative, so I might actually be under a rock

Yeah, it is called Word. Works on all computers, is free to use the web based version, and is the world standard.

Proprietary bullshit
Word won't install on machine.
LibreOffice does, though.
goFuckYourself(Microsoft)
- Hey, this is a Python project, use underscores.
Maybe I missed something, but since when Word is not only an alternative to an office suite, but also a web-based one?
It does not work on my work-computer, since office macros and some formatting renders differently across versions. Other required software constraints make windows unusable for me.