Microsoft Looking At Office For Linux In 2014

[timothyja]

What I do notice in the linux world and it pisses me off is this attitude that everything that is not open source is somehow evil.

Lol, there is no end to the entertainment you provide. Is this really so surprising that it actually pisses you off? The linux world is where the core operating system, application frameworks, and majority of applications are open source and where the developers and majority of users all subscribe to open computing philosophy's. Yet while reading the forum of a website that is dedicated to following open source operating systems, you are actually getting pissed of that people want more projects to become open source?
What makes me almost fall off my chair in hysterics is that you continually claim to be pragmatic yet you seem unable to make any of these observations on your own. If you were truly pragmatic you would just accept this is the way the majority of people think in the linux world and move on.

But no fact is you are just a troll here to get in the way of passionate people who are trying to have informative discussions about their operating system of choice. How about just trying to make a constructive comment in these forums, come on just once?

[Tinuva]

There's never been an IE for Linux. There was, however, IE for Unix.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX

Thank you, I remember something vaguely like that, at least your url clears it up

[BO$$]

Lol, there is no end to the entertainment you provide. Is this really so surprising that it actually pisses you off? The linux world is where the core operating system, application frameworks, and majority of applications are open source and where the developers and majority of users all subscribe to open computing philosophy's. Yet while reading the forum of a website that is dedicated to following open source operating systems, you are actually getting pissed of that people want more projects to become open source?
What makes me almost fall off my chair in hysterics is that you continually claim to be pragmatic yet you seem unable to make any of these observations on your own. If you were truly pragmatic you would just accept this is the way the majority of people think in the linux world and move on.

But no fact is you are just a troll here to get in the way of passionate people who are trying to have informative discussions about their operating system of choice. How about just trying to make a constructive comment in these forums, come on just once?

You intentionally misread me. Nothing wrong with wanting office to be open source. But something wrong when somebody claims they won't use it because even though they would need it, it isn't free software so it's wrong morally to use it. With those guys I have a problem. Again, luckily here it hasn't happened.

[curaga]

None of this supports your claim office for Mac was written from scratch. There are incompatibilies between different versions on windows this does not mean they do not share code bases. Also just because VB is not supported in mac also does not mean the do not share code bases.

OK; let's say instead that whatever sharing exists is poor and mostly ancient. Better?

[curaga]

In addition, the incompatibilities were within the same product family, not between families like in your Windows comparison. Ie, Office for Windows 97 and Office for Mac 98, or the next revision, Office XP on Windows vs Office 2001 on Mac.

(editing still broken in Opera)

[runrun]

Microsoft's real moneymaker has always been office. If they see linux become viable for the desktop then I could see them doing this, to make sure they lock as many people as possible into their office ecosystem.

At our company, Office isn't a large proportion of the cost - All the CALs for all the services are what cost the money on a Microsoft network.

[DeepDayze]

This has got to be an April fools. Just thinking about it causes a headache.

And its not even April 1st yet dammit

MS seems to always be shooting its mouth off about Linux and all we say now is "ho hum". Right now LibreOffice is getting better and better at being able to handle Office documents without mangling them so that they still can be opened in MS Office without any issues.

[Bernard Swiss]

Seriously, what was so much improved in Vista, 7, and 8? After 12 years since XP, what is the real progress?

1) DRM (as in "Digital Restrictions management", not "Direct Rendering Manager")

2) You can safely leave Windows 7 running all week without a reboot.

3) UAC that kind of works

4?) a built-in guest account template? (I'm not sure -- I don't remember whether XP might have had that, already).

Aside from that...

[bwat47]

1) DRM (as in "Digital Restrictions management", not "Direct Rendering Manager")

2) You can safely leave Windows 7 running all week without a reboot.

3) UAC that kind of works

4?) a built-in guest account template? (I'm not sure -- I don't remember whether XP might have had that, already).

Aside from that...

I can't stand using XP these days compared to 7 or even vista, its a dinasaur. Windows 7 is far improved over XP. Other improvements off of the top of my head:

Start menu that has search and doesn't totally suck, DWM/aero (graphically accelerated, pretty, no tearing and such), Many improvements under the hood to security and performance [better multithreading (for an obvious example putting in a cd no longer freezes every explorer window), better security (UAC, and process integrity levels), Much improved internet explorer, better driver models (drivers in vista/7/8 are much less likely to cause a BSOD, and can often cleanly recover from crashes)].

[Bernard Swiss]

I can't stand using XP these days compared to 7 or even vista, its a dinasaur. Windows 7 is far improved over XP. Other improvements off of the top of my head:

Start menu that has search and doesn't totally suck, DWM/aero (graphically accelerated, pretty, no tearing and such), Many improvements under the hood to security and performance [better multithreading (for an obvious example putting in a cd no longer freezes every explorer window), better security (UAC, and process integrity levels), Much improved internet explorer, better driver models (drivers in vista/7/8 are much less likely to cause a BSOD, and can often cleanly recover from crashes)].

Yes, the security is a lot better than it once was, too.
If Windows had been this much "not that bad" a decade or so ago (and if Microsoft had any sign of some sort of ethical standards) I might not have ended up a confirmed Linux user and FOSS advocate. (Thank you, Microsoft, for giving me that push).