The open source DOCX editor submitted to HN a few weeks ago has been deleted

39•gcanyon•2h ago

The github repo under eigenpal is gone. The web site at docx-editor is 503. No idea what's going on.

Comments

gcanyon•2h ago

I can't include the links because HN filters dead links.

rolph•1h ago

it is forseeable that MS would be very interested in taking a security stance vs a very possible vector.

conartist6•1h ago

I was going to guess that they accused the author of copying code from Office. Was AI used in the project? Perhaps a model regurgitated copyrighted code leading to a sternly worded notice from legal...?

conartist6•1h ago

Ooooh yeah. Looking through the author's past posts: "got a lot of skepticism because we're developing heavily with AI"

So AI was in use. Then the author says that following the spec alone wasn't enough to get it working, they got "active community feedback" and fed that feedback into the AI until it worked just like Word. I have to think that if there were ANY conditions under which a model might output code that Microsoft legal would threaten to sue you for, these would be them

ForOldHack•33m ago

Clearly, it was the fault of the AI, and it should be thrown in jail.

conartist6•20m ago

I think this (if it is what happened) is a perfect demonstration of the dynamics. If you use AI to do things you couldn't have done on your own, you're copying off someone else's homework and the real risk is that you don't know who you're copying from, but they probably do.

sulam•8m ago

How do you copy code from Office? Is the source code public?

snowwrestler•1h ago

A vector against a standardized XML+ZIP document format?

dofm•1h ago

‘’ <—— li’l Dr Evil air quotes to put around ‘standardized’ ;-)

If anything it’s DOCX itself that was the vector!

rolph•44m ago

IP is not the only issue. BTW this discussion is being chilled so now an exercise in abusive DV harvesting.

Understanding DOCX Malware and Hidden Threats

https://cloudmersive.com/article/Understanding-DOCX-Malware-...

Hackers using Weaponized Office Document to Exploit Windows Search RCE

https://cybersecuritynews.com/office-document-to-exploit-win...

anenefan•1h ago

This link should be enough to work out the relevant links. [1]

I would guess that they have lost access to a resource lately ... I've read there's a lot of that going around atm.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=thisisjedr

refulgentis•42m ago

I clicked through and browsed the comments and clicked links. It does appear the links are not working as described. Is there something you’re throwing and I’m not catching? :)

anenefan•21m ago

The relevant non functional links should be listed in the comments. The OP was complaining they were not able to include links directly. I'm not sure about [1] [2] [3] in the main post but the show hn [A] or [B] thread should afaik have not been an issue.

[A] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46947229

[B] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228411

[1] https://docx-editor.dev/

[2] https://github.com/eigenpal/docx-js-editor

[3] https://github.com/eigenpal/docx-editor

Edit for additional show hn thread

gcanyon•2m ago

darkteflon•1h ago

Oh man, that’s disappointing. We implemented this in a test environment and have been hammering on it. Would love to know what’s going on as it solves a real pain point for us.

d3Xt3r•1h ago

There's plenty of open-source docx editors though? What makes eigenpal's editor so special?

darkteflon•1h ago

Could you recommend your picks in the space?

Edit (since I can’t seem to reply directly) - to the commenter suggesting LibreOffice below: quite different things. This was a library for implementing reasonably high fidelity docx viewing / editing in the browser.

rjsw•1h ago

What is wrong with LibreOffice?

jubilanti•1h ago

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha

How long do you have?

nosioptar•31m ago

The classic UI text is too damned small. You cannot easily increase it last time I checked.

fsckboy•1h ago

what was that item from just a day or so ago where an opensource project had said they developed using AI, and a developer said "take it down, you copied it from us"

I thought of it because this project said they used AI

( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48085993 )

bratao•1h ago

Not affiliated but I been using https://github.com/superdoc-dev/superdoc and it is very good and compatible with many docx features.

tekacs•1h ago

The original source (matching the latest published NPM version) is still at https://github.com/mhurhangee/patrick/tree/main/packages and Apache-2.0, so I imagine that someone who'd like a copy can pick it up from there.

nathanstitt•1h ago

Also not affiliated but my open-source tinycld uses docx as the backend storage for its text package. Supports _most_ of the features (including comments and suggestions) but is still very young. It has a golang backend that reads/writes docx and translates to YJS that the editor reads for multi-user access. Has web/iOS/Android support.

I found docx to be a very well documented format and a surprisingly good fit for this.

https://tinycld.org has a live demo

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The open source DOCX editor submitted to HN a few weeks ago has been deleted

Comments

Previewing GPT‑5.6 Sol: a next-generation model

A C++ implementation of a fast hash map and hash set using hopscotch hashing

US allows Anthropic to release Mythos to 'trusted partners'

Why does kinetic energy increase quadratically, not linearly, with speed? (2011)

U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

MicroVMs: Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control

The gap between open weights LLMs and closed source LLMs

We can still stop California's 3D printer surveillance scheme

A Tiny Compiler for Data-Parallel Kernels

The "Bizarre Headgear" exhibit at the Sam Noble museum

AI in mathematics is forcing big questions

Hightouch (YC S19) Is Hiring

Show HN: Smart model routing directly in Claude, Codex and Cursor

Ultrasound imaging of the brain

What Is a Nomogram and Why Would It Interest Me?

The open source DOCX editor submitted to HN a few weeks ago has been deleted

A human postmortem of the 1996 AOL outage

PlayStation Is Deleting 551 Movies from Customers' Accounts

Gossamer: a Rust-flavoured language with real goroutines and pause-free memory

Long Wave radio era set to end with Droitwich switch-off

Show HN: Autofit2 – End-to-end pipeline for multilingual text classification

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