Wigbert Lindenbauer wrote:

Fred A. Miller wrote:

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MickySoft IS porting Office to Linux......talking to someone who's beta with it now.

Fred

Hello Fred,

will this be opensource like OpenOffice ?

will it be for free on Linux ??

Probably not. If they don't use GPL to build it, there's no need to release the source. Somehow I don't see MS giving it away, as that would create an incentive to move away from Windows.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Mon September 4 2006 20:57, M Harris wrote:

On Monday 04 September 2006 22:30, Fred A. Miller wrote:

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MickySoft IS porting Office to Linux......

    blah blah blah... who cares?

    Talk about a day late and about 12 billion dollars short....   ;-)

    Frankly, I don't believe it. But, even if its true... who cares?

The suits at most major corporations. This is the in I've been waiting for. First: M$ ports office to linux - linux gets critical mass on the desktop in certain key corporations. Then they find the LOTD actually works and saves a load of money - all but for the license cost of M$ Office. Then other major ISV's take note and start porting other apps to Linux (and if this happens with games all the better - an M$ death tome). Then the "suits" start considering OOo - tell their CTO's/CIO's are told to start testing and give the board a roll out plan - the IT dept may very well be ahead of the curve in this arena. Then OOo is opted over M$ and no new licenses for M$ at major players in the corp sector (where M$ makes the bulk of their money). Linux reaches critical mass in the corp sector and the move to home arena is on it's way - for Ma and Pa Q. Public (what people use at work ends up at home). Maybe a pipe dream - but the significance of M$ capitulating to Linux in attempts to cap on that market sector should not be underestimated. It may not goes as my above scenario is laid out but it does suggests much about the market position that Linux is getting. And the greedy don't want to miss out. If M$ tries the classic triple E (embrace, extend, extinguish) they will simply become mired in a no win situation - and don't forget the DOJ is looking to extend the M$ anti-monopoly oversight for another 2 years. Pair this with the fact that the basic requirements for Vista will mandate for many and upgrade in hardware the are ready to commit to - along with mass upgrades and the enevitable never ending patch cycle and M$ office and Linux is a desperate and telling tale of M$ needing as many revenue streams as it can get its' hands on. Just MHO, Curtis. - -- Spammers Beware: Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again! Like the song say: "Everything's 'Zen'... I don't think so"! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFE/R3L7CQBg4DqqCwRAt0eAKCRZYd6kBDa/gZrXXDPNs/DB+P+jQCfV2EG auLMKtbDRC9qGFxIyZ4/LqU= =FyH1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Am Dienstag, 5. September 2006 09:33 schrieb Basil Chupin:

Curtis Rey wrote:

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On Mon September 4 2006 20:57, M Harris wrote:

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On Monday 04 September 2006 22:30, Fred A. Miller wrote:

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MickySoft IS porting Office to Linux......

blah blah blah... who cares?

Talk about a day late and about 12 billion dollars short.... ;-)

Frankly, I don't believe it. But, even if its true... who cares?

The suits at most major corporations. This is the in I've been waiting for. First: M$ ports office to linux - linux gets critical mass on the desktop in certain key corporations.

[pruned]

My apologies but I missed the beginning of this thread.

Is M$ actually porting their Office to Linux or just making it capable of outputting files in Open Document Format (ODF) which is what M$ did agree that they will be doing?

Cheers.

I have heard various rumours, but haven't seen any proof... Here's hoping. The only reason I keep a Windows installation around these days is for MS Office... I use OpenOffice 80% of the time, but final formatting and actual powerpoint presentations I still give in MS Office, along with mark-up duties. OpenOffice is very good, but some of my work involves sharing documents and marking up changes for the original author to contemplate and incorporate. This is a major area where OO.o is lacking at the moment. If OO.o incorporates the sharing and mark-up tools I'd be very happy, much more important than WordArt type things. I spend a lot of time adding comments and making changes to other peoples documents (as a lecturer for my students, and on document translations), but I've never used WordArt, apart from to try it out, in 20 years of using MS Word. -- David Wright Wright Information Services Europa "I got to go figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

On 05/09/06, Stephen Boddy wrote:

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 07:48, Curtis Rey wrote:

...

On Mon September 4 2006 20:57, M Harris wrote:

...

On Monday 04 September 2006 22:30, Fred A. Miller wrote:

...

MickySoft IS porting Office to Linux......

blah blah blah... who cares?

Talk about a day late and about 12 billion dollars short.... ;-)

Frankly, I don't believe it. But, even if its true... who cares?

The suits at most major corporations. This is the in I've been waiting for. First: M$ ports office to linux - linux gets critical mass on the desktop in certain key corporations. Then they find the LOTD actually works and saves a load of money - all but for the license cost of M$ Office.

Do you really think that MS haven't anticipated that scenario? Here's what will happen, if indeed MS Office for Linux does happen:

1. Microsoft make a big song and dance about how they run on Linux. 2. Six months to a year later, corporates get to play with it. (Good chance MS won't consider it for the consumer market, think how MCE started as OEM only.) 3. It'll be a horribly buggy piece of rubbish, that will (by design?) do everything possible to cause Linux to crash/fail/corrupt files/lose data/generally make people upset. 4. The software will (obviously) be closed source, so Linux community will have no facility or opportunity (nor desire I suspect) to fix issues. 5. MS will shrug and point to how much better it runs on Windows, and obviously there's something wrong with Linux! 6. Community cries "Foul!", MS puts on it's "Who? Me?" face, and proclaims innocence. 7. Any company daft enough to buy into this limps back to Windows, swearing blind that Linux is dreadful, and then write MS a blank cheque.

If you do not expect this, then I suggest you lay off the super-weed. There are far too many examples of MS doing this sort of thing for me to bother going into them, but even as just a trivial example: The ODF plugin they announced. Written by someone else; the "not our code, not our fault" defence. But most insidious is the location of the option. It's in amongst PDF and that MS XML NIH paper format. It's not where it should be, in the load/save dialogues. It also cannot be set as a default. ODF is a working format, not a final presentation format, and should be treated as such. And finally I guarantee there'll be fifteen "Are you sure?" dialogues to get through every time you use it.

MS is a large powerful company with one objective: make lot's of money for it's shareholders. Everything else is just a means to that end. They absolutely do not want large swathes of companies/users leaving Windows+Office for Linux+Office, and they will use every strategy available to them to ensure that. As a company they are amorally in pursuit of wealth, and I expect those type of tactics. -- Steve Boddy

Well said, and almost exactly 100% right, BUT: 1. There is no way an application on Linux can make the OS crash. Just doesn't happen. Despite worries from various quarters over the quality of Linux, I have Never, and I mean NEVER, seen a kernel panic that wasn't caused by passing incorrect boot parameters to GRUB or LILO. Besides, businesses using Linux aren't just going to be using an office suit, whether it's OOo, MS Office or WordPerfect Office - they will see that it's Office that's unstable, not Linux. 2. Everyone who KNOWS what Linux is like will call bullshit on MS's claims that Linux is the problem - if OOo and the Internet can be stable on Linux, then so can MS Office, thankyou. My 2p. Jeff.

On 05/09/06, Stephen Boddy wrote:

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 16:13, Jeff Rollin wrote:

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Well said, and almost exactly 100% right, BUT:

:-( I never get 100%. Best I ever did was 98%. Ah well ;-)

...

1. There is no way an application on Linux can make the OS crash. Just doesn't happen. Despite worries from various quarters over the quality of Linux, I have Never, and I mean NEVER, seen a kernel panic that wasn't caused by passing incorrect boot parameters to GRUB or LILO. Besides, businesses using Linux aren't just going to be using an office suit, whether it's OOo, MS Office or WordPerfect Office - they will see that it's Office that's unstable, not Linux.

Whilst I'll agree that it is very difficult, I would hesitate to say "no way". In any substantially complex system it is impossible to completely rule out unexpected behaviour and interactions. (Yes, there are those ones where they can mathematically prove the correcness of the algos, but they are unusual.) There are numerous bug fixes for potential exploits that give elevated privledges in the course of a year. Once you've got root it's easier to wreak havoc. I would not be gobsmacked to find people directly or indirectly locating and exploiting these for MS.

Well yes, if you factor exploits into the equation, you're right.

2. Everyone who KNOWS what Linux is like will call bullshit on MS's claims

...

that Linux is the problem - if OOo and the Internet can be stable on Linux, then so can MS Office, thankyou.

No offence, but a "bunch of hippies" versus a massive and well financed media spin campaign? You know, and I know, what the real score is, but advertising and media campaigns work. If they didn't, I'd be wearing no-brand clothes, drinking no-brand-tea while I type this.

None taken on my part; I'd happily be called a hippy. The problem with that argument is that some of the people who use and promote Linux aren't justifiably classed as hippies at all, or, if they are, they are hippies with a LOT of industry credibility (I'm thinking of Jon Maddog Hall). On one level, I can't understand why

I started using Linux all those years ago. It was very niche, and the corporate world hadn't even registered it's presence. (Of course the real reason I switched was that I was used to a slow but reliable Amiga. Tried Windows for a year or two, but I got so damn frustrated with the damn thing. Never worked right, clogged up over time, and generally p'd me off one time too many. Now I have a fast and reliable system)

Indeed. I always found it laughable that a "hobby OS, not big and professional like GNU" and a system which (unfairly, imao) got relegated to being a souped-up games machine could beat The World's Standard OS on reliability, even all those years ago. Of course, the problem is that whilst MS Office (on Windows, and maybe Mac) is an enterprise-class office suite, the only thing that's enterprise-class about Windows is its marketing. I'm not trying to be a doom spouting soothsayer regarding Linux's future

prospects. I'm trying to get across that MS Office is not a good thing for Linux. It'll muddy the waters with regards the slowly gathering momentum with ODF take up. Do not fall into the trap that MS is laying, because that is exactly what it is.

--

On that point I agree completely. Jeff Rollin

On 05/09/06, Stephen Boddy wrote:

...

On 05/09/06, Stephen Boddy wrote:

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No offence, but a "bunch of hippies" versus a massive and well financed media spin campaign? You know, and I know, what the real score is, but advertising and media campaigns work. If they didn't, I'd be wearing no-brand clothes, drinking no-brand-tea while I type this.

None taken on my part; I'd happily be called a hippy. The problem with

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 17:20, Jeff Rollin wrote: that

...

argument is that some of the people who use and promote Linux aren't justifiably classed as hippies at all, or, if they are, they are hippies with a LOT of industry credibility (I'm thinking of Jon Maddog Hall).

The hippy comment was a reference to some bigwig being derogatory to the Linux community. Can't remember who right now. But yes, that perception is changing, what with the commercial backing that Linux is attracting these days, with no disrespect to the long haired, burlap wearing, tree huggers that use Linux as well. Me, I'not hirsuite enough to be a hippy ;-)

BTW Jeff, at the risk of starting another 3K long thread on posting practices, is it not possible for you to prevent the dups I'm seeing? I don't know what client you're using, but a good one should handle lists properly.

"IS THAT BETTER?!" btw, I'm using Gmail. Jeff Rollin

On 05/09/06, Stephen Boddy wrote:

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 17:39, Jeff Rollin wrote:

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"IS THAT BETTER?!"

Yes. --

Heh. Sorry, maybe you didn't get the joke or don't go in for Blackadder. I have a strange sense of humour even for geeks. Jeff Rollin -- Proud Linux user since 1998

Stephen Boddy wrote:

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 18:44, Jeff Rollin wrote:

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On 05/09/06, Stephen Boddy wrote:

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On Tuesday 05 September 2006 17:39, Jeff Rollin wrote:

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"IS THAT BETTER?!" Yes. -- Heh. Sorry, maybe you didn't get the joke or don't go in for Blackadder.

I have a strange sense of humour even for geeks.

That whooshing noise is the sound of your joke zooming over my head ;-)

I did watch some of BA, but I wasn't religious about it.

Anything after series 1 is OK; series 1 I thought was a tad mediocre. Cheers. PS Naturally, BA has a lot to do with M$ Office :-) . -- This computer is environment-friendly and is running on OpenSuSE 10.1

Hello, no-name, On Tuesday 05 September 2006 09:39, suse@rio.vg wrote:

All they need to get it to do is crash X. Doesn't matter if the whole system comes down if they can just convince X to crash. X is a whole heck of a lot easier to bring down than the kernel.

Well, all you need is a bit of this and the X server will be suitably bomb-proofed.

Personally, I don't buy the claim. Windows is MS's cash cow, porting their apps to linux at this point seems backwards to me. But then, it's MS, so who knows what goes on through those greedy little minds?

I think one factor to consider is that MS is at least considering, if not actively planning, to take the Office suite to the Web. The stand-alone application could eventually be abandoned. E.g.: http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/index.php?p=41

...

Randall Schulz

Jeff Rollin wrote:

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I think one factor to consider is that MS is at least considering, if not actively planning, to take the Office suite to the Web. The stand-alone application could eventually be abandoned.

E.g.: http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/index.php?p=41

Even in most of the West, web and wifi connections are just too slow and unreliable to make these practicable, imao. (And this coming from a guy who's connected via broadband, in a country with supposedly higher broadband adoption, percentage-wise, than the US.) Besides, who wants their vital data on somebody *else's* servers?

The CIA, Home Security, Blair's (?)Home Office. et alia? Cheers. -- This computer is environment-friendly and is running on OpenSuSE 10.1

Jos, On Wednesday 06 September 2006 15:10, Jos van Kan wrote:

Randall R Schulz schreef:

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...

Randall,

This whole issue strongly reminds me of the Peanut strip where Lucy holds a football and when Charlie wants to punt she suddenly takes it away, making him fall flat on his back. And no matter how often that happens he believes every time that this time she won't pull that trick. Surely Microsoft is going to port Office to Linux, they even have a project name already. Vapor Office.

Which part, the web-based Office suite or the Linux-based Office suite? Or both?

Jos van Kan

Randall Schulz

On Thu, 7 Sep 2006 05:50 pm, Jos van Kan wrote:

But I see no way Microsoft could possibly benefit from porting Office to Linux, since if successful it would push the user away from MS Windows. Office works fine in Crossover already, it's the bugs in Windows that does the pushing...

-- Michael James michael.james@csiro.au System Administrator voice: 02 6246 5040 CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility fax: 02 6246 5166 No matter how much you pay for software, you always get less than you hoped. Unless you pay nothing, then you get more.

I was saying years ago, that MS, if it really wanted to dominate, would create MS/Linux. For a long time, their standing policy was "embrace and extend". If MS were to "embrace" the linux kernel, but write their own X to run on it, which would be the only version that ran their apps, they could dump a significant support and r&d cost (by having Linux do it for them), but still maintain their proprietary nature by keeping everything in their version of X in house.

MS Linux I don't see happening: they have staked their reputation too much on the "GPL is a viral communist cancer" crap (despite having actually scaled it down since the early days). MS BSD, however: now THAT I can see. They can tout "compatibility" with Linux (which would be neither entirely true nor entirely false, especially if they offered, say, Exceed's X server), AND lead ISV's and customers down the garden path by putting COM and .NET and Win32 and whatever else on top of it. Plus they'll be able to say, "Look! Linux isn't any less resource heavy than Windows." Of course it wouldn't be, with all those droppings all over it. Jeff Rollin

On 05/09/06, John E. Perry wrote:

suse@rio.vg wrote:

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Personally, I don't buy the claim. Windows is MS's cash cow, porting their apps to linux at this point seems backwards to me. But then, it's MS, so who knows what goes on through those greedy little minds?

Bear in mind that they ported Office to the Mac, thus killing a couple of good suites that had been keeping Mac users happy. Why not try the same with linux?

Is it me, or have they taken steps to make sure that the Mac version of Office is not as capable as the Windows version? And haven't they done this just when it looks like Mac market share might creep up to nearer 10%? Also, since to run Mac OS and compatible software you (still!) have to purchase Apple hardware, arguably they aren't in exactly the same market. Linux and Windows, by comparison, both run on generic x86 hardware (and any hardware the developers choose to port them to). Someone said MS Office was an enterprise-class suite. My experience has

been that it had several defects that would have kept me from using it except that it was required by the suits at my employers. It's full of features, some nice, but also bugs, some irritating. And, of course, until Word 97, you couldn't stop buying new versions because they broke your old documents unless you used the converters, which _usually_ worked ok, with only a bit of repair needed. But all the other suits were "upgrading", so yours had to...

<holds head in shame> Twas I. Anyway, the fact that enterprises use it a lot more than anything else is probably nearer the mark. I wonder why MS stopped making new versions incompatible with old versions? Good question. Jeff Rollin Proud Linux user since 1998