Mike Kaginski, a LibreOffice developer (who works for Collabora), has had his Microsoft-hosted email account, which he uses for open source development, locked for “activity that violates our Microsoft Services Agreement”.

 

Kaginski discovered this when attempting to send an email to the LibreOffice development mailing list (hosted by FreeDesktop). It remains unclear if that specific email (which he sent via another address and was rather bland and technical) was the reason for the ban… or if attempting to send the email was simply the first time the ban was noticed by him.

This happened just days after LibreOffice officially accused Microsoft of engaging in a “Lock-in” strategy by creating “artificially complex”, XML-based office documents.

Are the two events related? Hard to say with any certainty.

To make matters worse, Kaginski has had no success in getting Microsoft to lift his locked email account — with the company making him jump through numerous, impossible hoops (such as requiring him to sign in to submit an appeal for his account being locked… but not allowing him to sign in… because his account is locked).

You got that? Sign in to fix the account you can’t sign in with.

Gotta love a good Catch-22.

Good job, Microsoft.

The Lunduke Journal reached out to a contact, within Microsoft, who made it clear that their group was not aware of the LibreOffice Developer’s locked account, but they were aware of the LibreOffice complaint article regarding “artificially complex” XML lock-in. Adding, “wow that looks bad”.

The Lunduke Journal’s Analysis

The odds of locking a LibreOffice developer’s email account being an official Microsoft corporate decision seems highly unlikely.

Microsoft, as a company, makes a lot of bad decisions — but this would just be too stupid for words. A massive PR blunder.

But could a single employee, feeling grumpy, have done it on an impulse? As some sort of revenge for LibreOffice’s “harsh” words about Microsoft? Sure. That seems entirely plausible?

Though, it’s also entirely plausible that some poorly designed AI-driven “naughty activity” detection bot flagged his account. Or, perhaps, the developer was reported by some random Open Source hooligan who likes to cause chaos (there’s a lot of those).

Either way, the fact that Microsoft requires people to log in — on accounts which cannot log in — in order to file an “appeal” is incredibly amusing. And is very, very typical Microsoft.

Over the last year, we’ve seen a couple of high profile forks, of large Open Source projects, which were inspired — in part — by a desire to move away from the political discrimination and Leftist Extremism within the original projects.

• Back at the beginning of June, the Xorg X11 server was forked, creating XLibre.

• Last October, the Godot Game Engine was forked, creating Redot.

At the time, when each of these forked projects were started, many predicted that they would go nowhere. That they were nothing more than “political protest forks” — and they would die out quickly.

Let’s check in on both of those project to see if that has happened.

XLibre - The Xorg Fork

Since officially launching, at the end of June (last month), the XLibre project has published a handful of official releases (now up to version 25.0.0.5)… with a significant number of changes and fixes.

 

In fact, considering the significant new features (such as XNamespace Extensions), the first release of XLibre is larger (in every way I can think to measure) than any Xorg release in the last decade. With the number of contributors growing.

How about Operating System support? Many predicted that XLibre would be ignored by every Linux distribution on the planet. That it would go nowhere and nobody would use it.

According to the “Are we XLibre yet?” wiki, a number of systems have already (officially) adopted XLibre. Including: Devuan, Artix, GhostBSD, and (my personal favorite) OpenMandriva.

 

This is important to note: All of that support has occurred even though XLibre has only existed for one month. Several systems already officially supporting it is nothing short of “crazy impressive”. Borderline unprecedented.

In addition, a number of systems have 3rd party repositories which allow users to install and use XLibre. Including: Arch, FreeBSD, Gentoo, NixOS, Slackware, and (seriously) macOS.

 

In short: Growing group of developers. Rapidly growing platform support. New releases which put the original project (Xorg) to shame.

Redot - The Godot Game Engine Fork

The Redot project — which forked off of Godot back in October of 2024 — had a stable release (4.3.1) back in June, and just had a new test release (4.4 Alpha 2). Both with both new features and fixes.

 

In fact, Redot has had 13 releases since the project started late last year.

With an absolutely massive number of commits since then.

 

In short: Steady, new releases. New features and bug fixes. Both stable and testing releases.

These Projects are Thriving

It’s hard to look at either of these projects and come to any conclusion other than they are absolutely thriving.

At this point, it’s looking like those who predicted rapid failure for these “Political Forks” were not only wrong… but wildly, obscenely wrong.

There’s a lesson in there.

If my audience always agrees with me — 100% of the time — I’m probably doing something wrong.

That’s core to the ethos of The Lunduke Journal.

Any Brand X Tech Journalist can publish articles and shows filled with ideas, and facts, which their audience is known to already approve of. It’s easy to play it safe. To tell people — and corporations — what they want to hear. To pander.

We have enough Tech Journalists who do exactly that. Heck, we’re lousy with ‘em.

Put another way: The Lunduke Journal is not here to make friends. Not here to win some “Tech Reporter Popularity Contest”(tm).

Why The Lunduke Journal Exists

The Lunduke Journal exists to tell the truth about the Tech Industry (and world of Computing) — as I see it — no matter what. To tell the stories the other Tech Journalists are terrified of touching, for fear of losing that afore mentioned popularity contest.

The Lunduke Journal publishes leaks from major corporations — royally ticking off all of Big Tech in the process.

The Lunduke Journal shines a light on the discriminatory, DEI, & woke practices of Tech — causing nearly every Tech Industry person, with a Left-leaning political stance, to label me enemy number one (often attacking me, with wildly vulgar statements, in a desperate attempt to discredit me).

The Lunduke Journal investigates the shady business practices of Open Source Foundations and organizations — resulting in nearly every leader within the Free and Open Source world to either fear or despise me (often both).

In fact, The Lunduke Journal publishes stories — ranging from investigative pieces to pure opinion and analysis — which will, undoubtedly, infuriate (or at least annoy) every single nerd on this green Earth of ours.

Prefer Linux, Windows, or Mac? Left, Center, or Right politically? Pro or Anti-Government control over Tech? Star Wars or Star Trek?

Never fear. There will surely be a Lunduke Journal story which you will strongly disagree with. Just give it a little time.

Let me tell you why.

The Tenth Man Principle

Groupthink can be a very dangerous thing. Especially when you already agree with the consensus of the group.

There is a concept where, if 9 men all agree on something — an idea, a fact, a strategy — it is the duty of the 10th man to take a different approach. To pursue a contrary idea or strategy.

In some ways this is a variation on “Playing Devil’s Advocate”, but I prefer the “10th Man Principle” — it is more focused on challenging an entrenched consensus.

Which is where The Lunduke Journal comes in.

When I sit down and read Tech News — and listen to Tech Podcasts or Videos — and 90% of the coverage is all repeating the same position… whenever an extreme consensus has been reached… a red flag is raised. The 10th Man Principle is triggered.

My job is then to take whatever that topic is — a piece of breaking Tech news, a historical fact, an opinion on how Tech should be governed, etc. — and spin it around. Look at it from a completely different angle — and pursue that new line of thinking.

This isn’t about simply being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian.

I must investigate that topic rigorously. Focus on known, verifiable facts. Challenge any assumptions made (by myself or others) in whatever that consensus is. Dig deep. Dig where others have not. See where that investigation leads.

Sometimes that investigation leads to nothing overly interesting or worth publishing. Other times… the results are illuminating and profoundly valuable.

If you’ve followed The Lunduke Journal for any length of time, you’ve seen the results of this ethos. Over and over again.

And I Love It

There are, obviously, some challenges with this approach. To put it mildly.

Corporate sponsorship is — for reasons I clearly do not need to explain — impossible.

Luckily, The Lunduke Journal has an amazing (and generous) audience which keeps the lights on, making corporate sponsorship completely unnecessary. So Big Tech can kiss my tuchus.

On that note, getting employees of any Corporation or Foundation to talk “on the record” is simply not going to happen. In fact, many organizations have firm (and, often, stated) policies of “Don’t talk to Lunduke… ever”.

But, you know what? The brave whistleblowers within those companies have proven far more enlightening than any official statement from an executive could hope to be.

Oh, and that “Tech Journalism Popularity Contest”(tm)? Pshht. Forget about it. Not a chance. Not as long as I continue with the “10th Man Principle”.

If I’m doing my job right, the list of people who consider me an enemy of whatever entrenched, consensus position they hold… will continue to grow.

While, at the same time, the rag-tag group of Lunduke Journal supporters — those amazing nerds who see the need for this work (even though, on occasion, I publish something which challenges one of their deeply held convictions… or, perhaps, because of it) — will also continue to grow.

You know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.