The latest semi-annual release of LibreOffice, the cross-platform FOSS office suite, is out – and it’s gleefully throwing some shade. The Document Foundation released LibreOffice 26.8 – and sent The Register a press pack before it did so. We’re not going to go through it in great depth: it’s a mature suite, and most Linux distros bundle it by default, even some of the slightly strange ones. We do like some of the sly notes in the launch materials, though, starting with the headline: “LibreOffice 26.8 brings professional typography, deeper support for the world’s writing systems, and no artificial intelligence” No artificial intelligence. In 2026, this is a bold position statement, but it is merited. In the last six months, we have reported on The Document Foundation distancing itself from Collabora. We spoke to some representatives of TDF – and Collabora – at considerable length about this, but we came away unconvinced by TDF’s arguments. Collabora developers contribute much of the code in LibreOffice. For instance, the last time we covered a new release of LibreOffice, we mentioned its rich Markdown support. Collabora told us that its engineers developed this. And yet, TDF decided to restart development of its own cloud-based office suite, in direct competition with Collabora Office. Later we covered the release of Collabora CODE 26.04 – which is Collabora’s local office suite, based on LibreOffice FOSS code, but rendered inside the browser using web technologies. Collabora’s announcement places AI integration front and centre. That caused us some dismay, and we told the company’s representatives that. They replied that Collabora’s partners and users were requesting this, and it felt it had to comply. As such, we are pleased by TDF’s stance with LibreOffice. It is a native app, with separate ports for Windows, and Linux, and macOS. All run as native local apps, they do so entirely on your machine, and they do not attempt to save anything into “cloud storage” for you. Your software, your data, on your computer, on your premises. For us, that is how it should be. As The Register has also reported recently, TDF is also firmly against using MS Office file formats by default. We do see its point here, but there are pragmatic reasons for this. Despite this strong ideological stance, the LibreOffice 26.8 press kit included both LibreOffice’s native .ODT files, and also MS Office .DOCX files. We do keep a decade-old and unsupported copy of MS Word around on our Mac, although we rarely use it. So, from curiosity, we opened both – and this is what it looked like. In our personal subjective judgement, the MS Word version looks a lot better. Our copy of LibreOffice 26.02 was configured with a Microsoft-style Ribbon, and to be fair, the screenshot shows that older version, before we upgraded. It doesn’t look much different in the newer version, though. We like and recommend LibreOffice. There are alternatives for Linux users: we compared OnlyOffice and WPS Office a few years ago. WPS Office is freeware, rather than FOSS, but it works. The Chinese edition of Ubuntu Kylin included it in place of LibreOffice. OnlyOffice is based on cloud tech, but you can run it locally… and for cloud-based stuff, as well as OnlyOffice and Collabora Online, there’s the new EuroOffice from Nextcloud. If you don’t mind paying, or if you’d prefer a European-made office suite, then there’s Softmaker Office. But LibreOffice is right here, it’s completely free, and it works well. We like the local-first stance and we like the AI-free stance. Version 26.8 has multiple improvements: improved internationalization, and support for different alphabets and writing systems. It’s available in 120 different languages. It has better paragraph and formatting handling, ARIA support for better screen-reader handling to improve accessibility, and much more. It really is all good. We regularly write that it’s a very good idea for Microsoft Office users to keep it installed just in case – it is much better at recovering damaged Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files than their native apps. As we also regularly point out, anyone who still has OpenOffice installed should remove it and replace it with LibreOffice as soon as possible. OpenOffice is still available, but as Dedoimedo found on 26.8’s day of release, you really should not use it any more. Saying that, we’re concerned about TDF positioning itself as a rival to Collabora, rather than – well – collaborating with the company which provides more LibreOffice developers than any other external contributor. TDF has long offered two branches of LibreOffice: an older stable branch, for business users, and the current version, which gets relatively frequent minor updates. For us, the pragmatic position would have been for TDF to offer the current version, and direct business users to Collabora for the slower-moving stable release… but when we suggested this idea to TDF’s representatives, they treated the idea with scorn. The future remains uncertain. In a business world embracing “AI”, focusing on cloud apps, plus the lucrative new sovereign cloud movement, LibreOffice looks a bit old and dowdy. But it’s a vital tool.Traditional local-first tools like LibreOffice aid reusing old computers rather than replacing them. Ignore the “thought leaders” – the world needs LibreOffice more than ever. ®

The Green Party of England and Wales wants the government to end the blanket designation of new bit barns as “critical infrastructure” and change planning rules to stop such facilities taking precedence over households for water and energy. The current UK government designated datacenters as critical national infrastructure (CNI) back in 2024, putting them on the same footing as essential services such as water and power. This made them eligible for special protection, but may also make it easier for developers to overcome any local objections to their construction, as The Register pointed out. The Green Party claims that CNI status means that server farms are prioritized for access to water and energy, even when ordinary households are hit with drought restrictions, as over 27 million people currently are in England. It wants to see planning permission for new facilities granted only when the developer can show it will meet the highest environmental standards, and there has been full community consultation. “We need to slam the brakes on the rampant building of new datacenters which could put our communities at risk of water shortages and drive up energy bills – and yet are currently being waved through by our government,” said Green Party leader Zack Polanski. “Data should serve people, not the other way around – but right now, because datacenters are designated as critical infrastructure, people come a poor second, with datacenters even being given priority for water and electricity.” “We need clear criteria to distinguish between datacenters vital to national security or public services, and those that simply serve private tech companies and private profit,” Polanski added.  There was certainly talk earlier this year of prioritizing "strategically important" grid connections, which would include data campuses, and a report published by the London Assembly late last year highlighted the pressure on the power supply in the capital, with some areas of West London having to put a hold on new housing developments. On the water side, MPs were warned earlier this year that official forecasts of England's future water needs excluded datacenters, despite the growing number of them, and that they could end up competing with homes and businesses for supply. The Green Party claims that a single large-scale datacenter can use around 1.5 million liters (396,258 US gallons) of water per day, comparable to the daily water needs of a town of around 10,000 people. Yet bit barn construction is projected to expand rapidly, with growth often concentrated in areas already classified as water-stressed, like London and the South East. But water consumption can vary, depending on the cooling systems in use at specific facilities. In theory, newer campuses should require less water, especially if they are deploying AI infrastructure that uses so-called direct-to-chip cooling, where fluid is circulated through a closed-loop system. A government spokesperson told us: “A pause on building new datacenters would simply send investment and good jobs abroad, while leaving Britain dependent on overseas computing for the processing of sensitive health and defense data. Put simply, it would be a disaster for jobs and national security.” However, the spokesperson added: “This does not mean a blank cheque for Big Tech or that every datacenter should be approved. Developers should prioritize clean power, use water responsibly, create British jobs and supply chains, and provide investment to the communities in which they are built." The Green Party is also calling on the government to urgently develop a comprehensive national strategy for AI infrastructure, as the country is currently dependent on foreign-owned infrastructure for critical services, from healthcare to public safety – something the Institute for Public Policy Research was warning about just this week. ®

ARAMÓN VALDELINARE (ANP) - Andreas Leknessund heeft de zevende etappe van de Vuelta gewonnen. De Noorse klimmer kwam alleen over de finish in het skioord Aramón Valdelinare. Dat gebeurde op de dag dat de Noorse koning Harald op 89-jarige leeftijd overleed.

De 27-jarige Leknessund droeg een zwarte rouwband om zijn linkerarm. Hij was bijna te moe om te juichen. Zijn ploeg- en landgenoot Tobias Halland Johannessen vierde zijn tweede plaats met een vinger in de lucht. De Belg Wout van Aert eindigde als derde.

Leknessund hield voor de start samen met zijn ploeggenoten van de Noorse ploeg het Noorse Uno-X Mobility een minuut stilte voor koning Harald, die een groot sportliefhebber was. Hij maakte deel uit van een kopgroep met Johannessen, Van Aert, Aleksej Loetsenko uit Kazachstan en de Ier Eddie Dunbar.

Tadej Pogačar blijft na een rit over 149,8 kilometer van Vall d'Alba naar Aramón Valdelinare het algemeen klassement van de Vuelta aanvoeren.

Bij Feyenoord groeit de zorg over het gedrag van een deel van de achterban. Na nieuwe incidenten wordt gevreesd dat supporters van de Rotterdammers uiteindelijk helemaal niet meer welkom zijn bij Europese uitwedstrijden. “Ze stevenen erop af dat ze straks helemaal nooit meer mee mogen”, waarschuwt Harry van der Laan in FC Rijnmond.

Veel Nederlanders starten het weekend vandaag met een VrijMiBui. Dat blijkt uit een grote rondgang door het land. Mensen kozen er na de werkweek voor om na kantoor vol door de regen naar huis te fietsen en kletsnat thuis aan te komen.

“Voor mij was het al even geleden”, zegt Joost. “Ik had even een tijdje een droge periode. Maar ik moet zeggen: het valt wel goed. Dit is toch wel echt een lekkere Nederlandse traditie en het brengt samenhorigheid bij iedereen om je heen.”

Maar zoals wel vaker op vrijdagmiddag was iedereen voor 18.00 uur alweer thuis.

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In de ggz raak je soms „eerder beschadigd” dan dat je er beter uitkomt, schrijft psychiater Jim van Os in zijn nieuwe boek. „In de westerse wereld willen we dat alles meetbaar en maakbaar is. Maar wij zijn ervarende, spirituele wezens.”

wyatt.crothersps5 has added a photo to the pool:

Pacific National’s 9320, 9211 & 9410 roll through Beresfield with BE938 loaded export coal from Boggabri East, bound for the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group (NCIG) terminal at Kooragang Island on Saturday, 22 August 2026.

9320 9211 9410 | BE938 | Beresfield, NSW | 22/08/2026

FAIWU has added a photo to the pool:

Laibach

Rules of play - Jacob Adler's A.I.-generated shorts.

More: The Organ. Cat Couture. The Golems of Ostrołęka. Pearls. Previously on Metafilter. His website.