ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk
46 comments
·November 6, 2025bonyt
Looks like openDesk uses Collabora Online, which is itself based on libreoffice online - web based libreoffice.
https://www.opendesk.eu/en/product#document-management ("Collabora Online powers openDesk with a robust office suite designed for efficient teamwork and secure document editing.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collabora_Online ("Collabora Online (often abbreviated as COOL) is an open-source online office suite developed by Collabora, based on LibreOffice Online, the web-based edition of the LibreOffice office suite.")
velcrovan
Open Desk (since the article doesn't link): https://www.opendesk.eu/en
Does anyone have any experience using it?
clickety_clack
I’d love to see pictures. I’d love to drop MS/Google docs for something I can control myself.
thisislife2
Have you tried LibreOffice ( https://www.libreoffice.org/ ) or OnlyOffice ( https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop )? Both are pretty decent, and free, and also have commercial versions.
juvoly
But would you be willing to pay for it? Would you company/organization be willing to move?
bawolff
I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place.
USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation.
Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.
munk-a
Lobbying - and likely a fair amount of network pressure from legal systems in various nations that lean towards using office for internal documents as a default.
repelsteeltje
That, and it's solid, well supported software most people are familiar with.
From those doing the paperwork with Microsoft procurement for Dutch government I learned there have been legal disputes going on for years about what even constitutes "telemetry". That was a decade ago, and even then there was push to move away from Microsoft in the government. Toward open source, or even Oracle.
I suppose that with the Dutch being Dutch all the lobbying M$ needed was suggesting a discount.
kergonath
> I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place.
There used to be this quaint idea of rule of law and things like that. We can always argue that governments were happy to get dirty and occasionally illegal, and they certainly were. But a) it was universally seen as a bad thing, and b) no country would have done it so blatantly and openly. Perversely, this narrative was important to advance the US’ interests because it opened opportunities for American companies to go deep into foreign administrations. Which they did.
So yeah, the clock ticked and now we’re in a new and exciting era for geopolitics and who knows what system will prevail in the end. What is certain is that the US abdicated their leadership.
> USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation.
There is a difference between hostility as in "we won’t take part and won’t cooperate in any way" and "we’re also going to pressure private companies to steal your stuff". The ICC is also full of NATO countries and allies so any form of hostility has to be calibrated to keep them on your side. If you care about alliances, that is.
> Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.
Indeed. To be fair, it seems like a bad plan for most large companies with anything that looks like industrial secrets, let alone a government or such a supra-national organisation.
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iso1631
No doubt they started using it in the 90s when you bought a copy of software, and Microsoft had no control over your computer.
lysace
USA has been very hostile to the ICC since way before Trump.
The ICC was created in 1998 when Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty.
chvid
No one thought the US would get this insane.
perihelions
> "The American Service-Members' Protection Act, known informally as the Hague Invasion Act[1] [sic] (ASPA, Title 2 of Pub. L. 107–206 (text) (PDF), H.R. 4775, 116 Stat. 820, enacted August 2, 2002) is"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
bawolff
I dont know, when bush threatened to invade the netherlands over the ICC, that was pretty insane, and in some ways worse than sanctions.
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evolve2k
Lawyers historically are notoriously linked to Microsoft and its formats as a somewhat unintentional industry side standard.
Moves like this hearten me as for certain lawyers the formats and standards they now will be expected to follow has just shifted, towards open source no less.
tptacek
Does someone have an English language link for this?
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
perihelions
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/31/international_crimina... ("International Criminal Court kicks Microsoft Office to the curb / "Rough justice? Redmond out as Germany's openDesk judged a better fit" (Oct. 31))
Elfener
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/31/international_crimina...
(was submitted to HN 3 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797515)
pjmlp
After Microsoft left politics mess up with their customer base something like that was to be expected.
bhouston
Microsoft has to follow US sanctions, even if they are misplaced. This isn't a choice on Microsoft's part here.
The ICC was applauded in the US in the when it went after Russia but when it goes after Israel it is sanctioned. It unfortunately hard to be impartial, like the ICC is, when it comes to international war crimes. The big players want you to play towards their favourites and only hold their enemies accountable.
The US is also sanctioning Palestinian human rights groups, and kicking them off of US platforms like YouTube, because they make Israel look bad: https://theintercept.com/2025/11/04/youtube-google-israel-pa...
JumpCrisscross
> Microsoft has to follow US sanctions
Microsoft has to follow US law. If it believes an order has been issued unlawfully, it—and everyone who works there who follows the order—has a civic duty to oppose the order in court.
sdoering
Exactly what the big German corporations (as well as Ford by the way) did in the 1930s.
happymellon
And IBM...
guiriduro
MS could always refocus themselves as a global company (in the legal rather than marketing-only sense), and move their HQ out of the US, then there could be no Trump tantrums affecting other countries, the worse that could happen would be some sanctions on what would then be their in-country US affiliate, with no ability to affect their other global operations whatsoever. Why haven't they followed this approach? Haven't lost enough customers yet?
bawolff
> the worse that could happen would be some sanctions on what would then be their in-country US affiliate
So what you are saying is the worst that could happen is they lose the entire US market, us based datacenters, and us based employees?
I think the question answers itself.
SllX
That approach is also insane.
You’re always going to be vulnerable somewhere and there isn’t a better country to be if you’re in software, cloud services or AI.
Not to mention it’s not like Microsoft Execs want to pickup and leave the States either.
munk-a
MS lives by corporate contracts and there are a lot of very powerful US companies that will roll over if Trump barks - if MS had already fled the US in a legal sense they'd definitely be in a better place but trying to leave during this administration would cause Trump's ire to focus on them and likely cost them an immense amount of money. I don't particularly like MS and both office and windows are declining in quality quickly so I wouldn't be opposed to the move but... nothing would sink that ship faster than losing a bunch of large US contracts as Trump toadies demonstrate their loyalty by bravely switching to alternatives.
reubenmorais
Nobody has to do anything, least of all massive corporations with country-sized revenues. It's /always/ a choice to comply or to put up a fight and deal with the consequences.
petepete
I can't see any links to repos on the website, is it actually open?
magicalhippo
A bit convoluted but there was an openCode link at the bottom which eventually leads you to the repository:
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namegulf
Thanks for the link, looks like they offer the whole stack of features and more.
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Elfener
It's actually not called Microsoft 365, but "the Microsoft 365 Copilot app" (not to be confused with Microsoft Copilot (a slop generator with the same logo))
bix6
No Excel replacement? :/
dybber
From openDesk website:
> Create, edit and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations with full support for all major file formats
opencl
The document editing portion just uses Collabora which is based on Libreoffice.
erk__
The Excel replacement they use is this one: https://www.collaboraonline.com/calc/
The lack of anything at all on the roadmap page [1] and lack of a link to their code repository on a blog post touting their open-source cred [2] does not build confidence. I found their code repo link in the comments here, after not finding it easily on their site.
EDIT: to be clear, I'm all for open source software, and for more options to tools from big tech firms.
[1] https://www.opendesk.eu/en/roadmap
[2] https://www.opendesk.eu/en/blog/open-source-software-trust