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LibreOffice and the art of overreacting

A donation banner is not an attack to users The announcement that LibreOffice 26.8 will feature a donation banner in the Start Centre has prompted a flood of responses, ranging from positive from many FOSS supporters, who understand the need for funding, to mild apprehension to extreme alarm from others. Some articles have described the change as an “aggressive fundraising campaign” and suggested that it is part of a dangerous trend towards “freemium” models and paid features. However, it is worth taking a step back to analyse what is actually being introduced and the broader context that many of these comments have ignored. The banner will appear in the Start Centre – the screen that greets users when they launch LibreOffice without opening a specific document – and will occupy roughly the bottom quarter of the screen. It will not block any functionality, nor will it restrict access to any features. According to the implementation plan, it will appear periodically, but not at every launch. That is all that is changing. It is a request that is certainly not intrusive, given that the Start Centre is a screen that many users – at best – glance at for a few

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