On August 3rd, IT Home reported that as Microsoft Office LTSC 2021 is about to reach the end of its lifecycle (EOL) on October 13, 2026, the developer of the open-source office suite LibreOffice, the Document Foundation (TDF), has publicly spoken out, emphasizing the "genuine and long-lasting authorization" advantage of its office software and questioning Microsoft's software licensing mechanism.

It is reported that Office LTSC 2021 is a "perpetual license" version that uses a buyout sales model and does not undergo feature updates after release, only maintaining basic stability and security support. This design is mainly aimed at enterprises and some users, allowing them to use verified stable versions for a long time, avoiding compatibility issues or workflow interruptions caused by frequent updates.

However, as the Office LTSC 2021 version is about to be discontinued, Microsoft requires users to pay again to upgrade to Office LTSC 2024 or subscribe to Microsoft 365 services to continue receiving security protection.

In response, the LibreOffice development team pointed out that Microsoft's so-called "buyout system" is essentially a disguised form of periodic subscription, where users must repeatedly pay in order to maintain software usability and face the risk of unilateral price adjustments by software vendors.

In contrast, the open-source software LibreOffice is not limited by the lifecycle of any single commercial company. When the old version is no longer supported, both individuals and businesses can obtain the latest version for free and seamlessly without paying any additional licensing fees. Even if enterprises incur one-time costs when migrating to open source software, this expenditure is clear and controllable.

In addition to the authorization mode of the software itself, the Document Foundation has also expressed concerns about the security and long-term readability of document formats. At present, the OOXML format used by Microsoft Office by default is a proprietary standard. Once the software version is out of service or the manufacturer's policy is adjusted, users may face the risk of historical files not being able to be read properly; LibreOffice is based on open standards (ODF), which ensures long-term autonomy of documents and frees users from dependence on a single software vendor.

The Document Foundation reminds users and businesses in its statement that major vendors are gradually transitioning users from local installations to cloud services by setting support deadlines. This shift will directly affect document storage locations, compliance regulations, and office capabilities in a network free environment.

Faced with the upcoming shutdown of Office 2021, LibreOffice calls on users to reassess the potential risks of long-term reliance on a single commercial software and consider switching to open, free, and indefinite open-source alternatives.

The Document Foundation emphasizes that LibreOffice will always adhere to local operation, support multiple platforms such as Windows, macOS, and Linux, and provide browser based online solutions, and will never make cloudification a mandatory prerequisite for receiving software updates.

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