MS Office on Linux

Microsoft Office for Linux 'inevitable'

Vnunet wrote:

Microsoft will release a version of Office to run on Linux within the "next couple of years", according to the chief executive of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL).

You cannot believe how upsetting this is. This totally wrecked my Monday afternoon.

DarthVista wrote:

You cannot believe how upsetting this is. This totally wrecked my Monday afternoon.

Why?

PaoloM wrote:



DarthVista wrote: You cannot believe how upsetting this is. This totally wrecked my Monday afternoon.

Why?

WHY are you compromising with these people? What possible gain could there be? By doing this, you will make Linux seem like a legitimate OS for the average user. This is self-destructive.

DarthVista wrote:



PaoloM wrote:  DarthVista wrote: You cannot believe how upsetting this is. This totally wrecked my Monday afternoon. Why?

WHY are you compromising with these people? What possible gain could there be? By doing this, you will make Linux seem like a legitimate OS for the average user. This is self-destructive.

Maybe I wasn't clear. Why are you upset? What happened, exactly?

PaoloM wrote:

Maybe I wasn't clear. Why are you upset? What happened, exactly?

The article talks about how it is inevitable that MS Office will have a Linux version (similiar to how there is an Apple version of Office right now). I thought we weren't going to cooperate with the Linux crowd. Is this a legit article or wishful thinking on the author's part?

Hmmm, Microsoft are not allergic to making money.

Writing a version of their software for a popular platform makes business sense.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but the idea that it's inevitable seems pretty naive on the part of Mr. Cohen. The first GUI version of Word was released on the Mac, and the first versions of Excel and Powerpoint were Mac-only. In other words, there are significant historical investments, one which hasn't carried over with newer applications--Publisher, Infopath, OneNote, etc. The only new MacOffice program I'm aware of is Entourage. Microsoft's commitment to the Mac seem to motivated by the facts that it's already there, (b) it's profitable, and (c) it could be interpreted as anticompetitive if they pulled out.

There's also an obvious yet unanswered question about Offce on Linux: if they did it, would anyone buy it? Whatever the TOC difference between Linux and Windows desktops is, I can't imagine it being significantly enough skewed towards Linux such that anyone who wanted to run Microsoft Office simply wouldn't do so on Windows. Also among Linux users, as with many Mac users, there's a cultural aversion to Microsoft. I can't see them expending the energy to bring their product to a market which really isn't that receptive.

BTW, DarthVista: I hope you don't honestly get upset over this kind of news. If it were to happen, it certainly wouldn't be the end of the world; it might even be healthy for Microsoft.

Where in this article does a Microsoft representative say they will be porting Office? All I saw was a chief from OSDL spouting hearsay slanted with his own ideals. It is inevitable ... according to whom at Microsoft?

I dont think we'll see a native port of Microsoft Office on Linux or Unix. The reason is pretty evident. Microsoft has been using the platform specific Win32 API (I think). If Microsoft used a cross-platform library like wxWidgets or GTK+ then it would be far more feasible.

However it is possible to install Office 2003 on Linux with the latest WINE but some hacking is needed. A "How to" is located here and reading the coments would be useful too. You can probably skip the hacking though if you purchase a copy of CrossOver Office by CodeWeavers.


Regards,
Vincent

Xaero_Vincent wrote:

I dont think we'll see a native port of Microsoft Office on Linux or Unix. The reason is pretty evident. Microsoft has been using the platform specific Win32 API (I think).

.. and yet they ported Office (and even COM) to OSX.

Rossj wrote:

.. and yet they ported Office (and even COM) to OSX.

Office on OSX is not a port (AFAIK)

PaoloM wrote:



Rossj wrote:.. and yet they ported Office (and even COM) to OSX.

Office on OSX is not a port (AFAIK)

They must have ported some of the code in order to make the file handling consistent, if I remember correctly Office OSX is written in Carbon ( C ) rather than Cocoa so making a 'port' more feasible.  I obviously don't mean a direct port of *all* of the code, but if you guys ported COM there must have been a reason.

Convince someone to send me a freebie OSX Office and I'll take a look and tell you

Here is the question (no I didn't read the article)....

Why would anyone on Linux even want Office for Linux? I thought the whole benefit of OO.org was it's support for the ODF?, maybe I'm wrong?

Rossj wrote:



PaoloM wrote: Rossj wrote:.. and yet they ported Office (and even COM) to OSX. Office on OSX is not a port (AFAIK)

They must have ported some of the code in order to make the file handling consistent, if I remember correctly Office OSX is written in Carbon ( C ) rather than Cocoa so making a 'port' more feasible.  I obviously don't mean a direct port of *all* of the code, but if you guys ported COM there must have been a reason.

Convince someone to send me a freebie OSX Office and I'll take a look and tell you

Well Cocoa is the standard Objective C API while Carbon in an alternative C API. I guess thats easier since Microsoft employees didnt have to learn the Objective C language but I doubt that Carbon's APIs are anyway compatable with Win32. So that would mean that Office for OSX had to be largely rewritten, if not in its entirety.

Right?


Regards,
Vincent

Rossj wrote:

They must have ported some of the code in order to make the file handling consistent, if I remember correctly Office OSX is written in Carbon ( C ) rather than Cocoa so making a 'port' more feasible. 

Again, AFAIK, the Carbon decision was made in order to support both OS9 and OSX during the transition period. Regarding the file format, once you have the format spec, it's probably easier to just write your handlers from scratch. I can't even begin to imagine the horrors they had to go thru with the endian issues between PPC and x86

Rossj wrote:

I obviously don't mean a direct port of *all* of the code, but if you guys ported COM there must have been a reason.

What do you mean? COM is an open standard after all, available on many Unix flavours 

Microsoft could make a net-profit from corporations switching to Linux desktops, but Office-for-Linux, provided the license cost of a Office-for-Linux is about $60 more, to make up for the loss of a Windows XP license.

That makes perfect sense, especially with foreign governments moving to Linux desktops, but who can't cope with the unripened state of OpenOffice.

W3bbo wrote:

That makes perfect sense, especially with foreign governments moving to Linux desktops, but who can't cope with the unripened state of OpenOffice.

I'm not quite sure it does, since it would enable other organizations to make the same switch. Sure, they might make a profit, but it's akin to selling your seed stock. I would think Linux would have to make some serious inroads before it would be seriously considered.