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States Filing Alternate Remedy Proposal for MS Anti-Trust Case
cbull writes: "News.com reports that 9 states and the District of Columbia will be filing an alternate remedy proposal in the Microsoft case later today. This would close some of the loopholes, better define middleware, require Microsoft to continue Office development for Macintosh and to develop a version of Office for Linux, among other things." There's also a Cringely column about the case. Somehow the phrase "Microsoft Office for Linux" has gotten people all fired up. Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?
Why would we force them to make a product for Linux? We know it won't be open source, how will this help the community, a community built on ideals which Microsoft doesn't share.
If that what it takes to get people to shut up about file compatibility problems, yes.
It's all Hood
Yes, this is exactly what we need: a government mandate to MS that they make their office file formats even more prolific than they already are, reducing even further the possibility that alternate formats will stand a chance against MS' government created/enforced monopoly.
If MS is staying out of the Linux market on its own, for pete's sake, let them.
For this article...
l
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/like/like20011206.htm
How to Download YouTube Videos
go here
This could have some real teeth in it and is not riddled with the loopholes that plague the M$/DoJ crafted settlement
YES!! Gawd, don't be such a dumbass. Corporate buyers (remember them? the ones who buy millions of PCs a year?) have STANDARDIZED on Microsoft Office for all their documents. Availability of Office for Linux would very substantially accelerate deployment of Linux desktops in business locations, which is precisely why Micros~1 hasn't done it! Forcing them to develop it would be a damn good idea.
Note: The Justice Department, nine of 18 states and Microsoft cut a deal last month in the landmark antitrust case against the company. The settlement is going through a 60-day period of public comment as required by the Tunney Act.
So, how are we supposed to comment? Anyone know of an address (e- or snail-mail) or website where comments can/should be sent?
Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested. The page might use standard HTML or CSS.
StarOffice and OpenOffice are simply not there at the moment. But I have at least one client who would switch *today* if there was a verstion of MS Office that just worked right. And several others who would follow them. So while I don't yes it would help the desktop market a lot. Of course the other thing I wish we had was a *good* terminal server client for Linux...
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Apparently they are also suggesting that Microsoft should
open source Internet Explorer.
It would be nice to have IE on Linux. I wonder what kind of
issues this would raise w.r.t. Windows Media and ActiveX...
No I don't really want a version for linux. And wtf.. they are still getting off by giving software to schools. How does this end their monopoly?
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I'll agree that as a monopoly MS should have to play fair in the OS field (allowing competing products and such), but it strikes me as downright wrong to make MS develop Linux versions of a product.
Not that I think it would matter since Open/Star Office would own them in that area anyway, as most Linux users are not the sort of people that like to pay hundreds of dollars for a closed source which probably wouldn't work very well anyway. (remember MS doesn't have the advantage in controlling the system from the ground up).
Start using "Office for Linux" and you buy into the sinister upgrade cycle. Your computer will never be fast enough for the latest version of Office.
I'd rather have Microsoft be forced to completely specify the Microsoft file formats for Office applications.
That way, Star Office, KOffice, Gnumeric, and the rest can get the import filters 100% correct.
That's really where Microsoft's monopoly is - many businesses would happily switch to Linux if they could be 100% sure that they could still reliably read and edit the thousands of documents they have already created.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Yes!
Staroffice may be okay, Wordperfect acceptable, and VIM popular, but until a 100% office replacement exists, most places are going to continue to snub Linux as an alternative on the desktop.
Besides, I like Office. MS may have had mega-crappy OS's, but Office always worked right.
.sig: Now legally binding!
but what would be nice was FILE TYPE standards for say 5 years. Give someone else a chance to break into the market. With 5 years lead time a big enough customer base would develop to make M$ think twice about arbitrarily changing it and forcing upgrade, there-by losing LOTS of customers.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I happen to think Microsoft has put a lot of effort into determining what customers want in an application, and if they get a version for Linux, it will certainly make it a much more office friendly environment.
However, it will put a damper on the free software creators... (Why should I make a PP duplicate, why not just use PP?), and you wonder what will happen to the distributor of Linux that they side with... will there be "closed" RPMs, or even worse, a completely proprietary way of distributing executables? Will everyone who wants to run the code be expected to have a "/ms" directory?
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Interesting.
I suppose the judges' next call will be that DeCSS should really be available on Windows, and be able to decrypt the latest WMF too.
Rather than force Microsoft to develop bloated software for linux, which will probably only work with a single distribution anyway, why not force them to open their file formats? Projects like OpenOffice and AppleWorks could then really compete. MS wouldn't have quite the same stranglehold that they currently enjoy with opened file formats. This would include, of course, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and interchange capabilities with Outlook. I suppose you could add Access into that, but it's such worthless crap anyway, why bother?
And make them open every aspect of the file formats, not just make them compatible. My understanding is that the way things currently are, most non-MS Office Suites can still read MOST MS office files, but not ALL MS Office files, which keeps a lot of shops from converting. Especially those that rely on specialized macros and whatnot.
My other computer is your Windows box
What we really want is M$ to open their Office file formats so other programs can read and write MS files with ease. Fully publishing their OS API's would help a lot also. These two things available as a free download to anyone that wants them would go a long way to helping out.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
No, I would rather have something less bloated like AppleWorks.
Having Office on Linux would make it easier to convince the suits to use Linux in their business.
From what I have read, this seems like a better deal for everyone.
Except MS.
photosMy Photostream
Enforcing a truly Open File Format for Office would be a better idea than Office for Linux... Or maybe enforcing Everyone to stop buying bloatware like Office in the first place....
'Coz I'm sure the jerks at M$ will have some subversive script that keeps popping up windows prompting you to sign up for M$'s free Passport services. The fall of Man...
Im quite happy with Star Office, thanks! ;)
/Nick
Office for Linux, Yeah I think its called open office. Look at what microsoft did to java, now imagine the incompatiblites and compromises the MS install would be to the kernal. I like the shipping java with XP deal though, however WTF is a special master? Sounds like the DOJ likes playing S&M with MS XP.
"Get them before they get....
I'm a Mac and Linux zealot, hate Windows, but respect their Office and IE work (outlook sucks, but what can I say).
.NET business.
But I work in an all PC environment. My Mac saves me with Intra-Office crap, but it means that I have to have a Mac and Linux box...
Go for it. I hope that is part of the solution. Heck it did wonders for the Mac I think.
Have any of you actually used IE5 on OSX ?
It is glorious.
As for making them ship Java on XP, I think that is nice - actually I would go further and make them can any inroads into C# and the whole
Winton
if and when the ISO images of Office is available for download, can someone let me know.
Isn't that the distribution way for Linux OS and apps?
I hope Micro$oft would adopt the distribution method.
Off course, you need MS Office for Linux. You need it as much as you need an HTML browser.
Not so long ago, our HR department asked for a copy of my resume. Boycotting Micro$oft as usual, I sent it in PDF and PS format... They couldn't read it of course and had no idea what to do with my files.
My resume had been created through StarOffice, but I was not going to tell them to download StarOffice when they were not even able to visit Adobe's web site and download Acrobat Reader. I eventually sent them a RTF version and all worked well. But I can't start to imagine them sending me a RTF version of any document they create. Without a doubt, they (and others) will always send me native Word document, inconsciously assuming that MS Office is oblivious. That's why I/we need MS Office for Linux.
Good Joke!! Really amusing. Next what will they suggest, Linus, Gates and Job start a new company? Seriously, we don't need bad blood polluting the Linux community
Numaan Mehryar Huq
is that Microsoft would have to sell, by auction, a minimum of three licenses to enable third parties to produce versions for other operating systems "such as Linux."
It does not mean that Microsoft has to produce a Linux version. Nor does it mean that the third parties have to produce a Linux version. What it means is that at least three companies will have the right to produce a version of Office for whatever other environment they want to.
Office for Linux wouldn't be for the hardcore anti-Microsoft /. reading "GUIs are for losers" old-school Linux geek, it would be for the people who want an alternative to Windows that runs on the same hardware and can still run Office. These are the people who aren't running Linux but would be inclined to switch if Office were available for it. Not all Linux enhancements (I use the term loosely) are designed to appeal to current users...
Ensuring 'Office for Linux' just worked right is the problem. Enforcing performance/functionality on a recalcitrant company is very difficult. When the first version behaves nothing like the latest version of Office for Windows the OS would be blamed... 'well if Linux supported this new MS Buzzword Technology then we could make them run the same, but without it the best we can do is Word for Windows v1 equivalency.'
Sure, Open Source tho :o)
Seriously, I'd see that as a "Great Corruptor" as if many commercial interests got into proprietary formats, interfaces, etc., Linux would lose a lot of lustre. It's convenient to have Windows as a whipping boy. Having Linus tempted by billions of dollars, and corporate goons dictating the next kernal would just be awful.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
StarOffice compatibility just isn't good enough to be relied upon in a commercial enterprise. At my previous company, we resorted to Acrobat whenever Office files had to be read under FreeBSD.
Changing Office files under FreeBSD meant running Citrix. Office for FreeBSD would remove the need for Windows to appear on a large number of desktops.
Actually, I don't think a MS Office for Linux would be that bad of an idea. I realize posting any thing anti-anti-Microsoft here on /. is usually considered a sin, but think about it. When a friend attempts to send you a word processed document, or a table, it's usually a MS Office document. Now I realize you can import and export using StarOffice, but it isn't the same... just try a PowerPoint presentation, the last time I did, there were many discrepancies. I've used Linux for years now, and it IS lacking on this area. StarOffice just doesn't cut it all the time (and it's not the best for slower machines), and Red Hat's Applixware is missing things... just my opinion... Oh yeah, do you think they could wage total war against an OS they sell $400 software for?
I imagine that for a lot of people, the only reason they run Windows is because they need to be able to run Microsoft Office or at least be able to read Microsoft Office files. It's never a bad thing to have more choices, and it's highly unlikely that Microsoft could remove choices on the Linux platform since there are very few competing companies (Sun's the only one I can think of) for them to drive out of business.
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Porting Office to Linux would just be helping to enforce the MS Office monopoly on even more systems (assuming anybody on Linux would buy/use it, anyway). The remedy should encourage competition, and not necessarily more widespread use of a monopolistic piece of software. Open up the .doc, .xls, etc. formats and that will allow more fair competition. That's what this is supposed to be about, isn't it?
Mozilla's a nice operating system, but it needs a better browser.
Actually ... I would really appreciate a copy of Office for Linux as I would prefer to use Linux at work and the only reason I can't is because of the Access Database I can't open in Unix! A version of MS Office would allow me to run FreeBSD or Linux on my work system and that is something I would love!!
Sure we wang, can.
Here's an interesting article on Reason on antitrust workings through the ages. It gives me sort of a different perspective on MS's antitrust woes.
I think the solution to the MS problem is to regulate their real problem behavior. Don't let them do illegal things. Don't let them sign crazy exclusive deals. Don't let them control (down to a single icon) exactly what's installed on a machine.
Making MS release Office for Linux is a step down the wrong road. And what do you do when it's crappy? Force them to make it better?
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Yes.
Do I have any intention of using it?
No.
The thing that really really made Java take of big style way back in 96 was when Microsoft announced they'd support it in their browser. When MS announced support EVERYONE else did within the next few weeks.
If there is an official MS Office for Linux then Linux will officially have "made it" on the desktop. It is the rubber stamp that will boost support for the desktop beyond anything else. When MS support Linux with a version of Office then we will suddenly see hundreds of other apps and drivers pop-up in the me-too rush.
DWR is Ajax for Java
I hate being the first person to make a paranoid post. But could the community *really* trust Microsoft to make a safe port of Office to Linux? With all the hidden hatred (as well as public FUD) that they have for Linux, I'd honestly be scared to run a closed source microsoft product on any of my machines.
No this is not flamebait, nor a troll, it's a legit concern I've had ever since I heard someone mention IE5 for linux a while back.
we do want an office version for linux,
but it must go by the linux rules:
it must be open source
What would be really nice would be if they could force M$ to release their file type definitions (or *cough* adopt some open standard). This would allow existing office/productivity software (e.g. Abiword, GNUmbers) to easily interoperate with Word, Excel, et al.
This would let me work with clients who are M$ based much easier than I do now.
Howard Dean for president
Outlook. Even though I hate it, everywhere I have worked has had an exchange server, which I do not have control of. I want to get windows off my pc like nobodys business, and the only thing holding me back is Outlook.
2. Dont run suid
3. Run Tripwire before installing, since theres no way you are gonna get to compile it yourself, and no way you're gonna get to untar the binary distributions.
4. chroot(1) if you feel really paranoid.
I think this would be a good thing, since I could leave MS (the operating system) forever, and at the same time, it would be a fairly humbling punishment for MS, forcing Linux into their own shop, and forcing them to devote resources to it.
For that matter, as someone who is (primarily) a Mac user, I don't even want it for Mac, though I can see how it has some business value (convincing PHB's that the Mac is a "real" computer, etc.) Cringely is right -- the settlement is a sham, and even with the states' proposed changes, it's still pretty toothless. The real problem, unfortunately, is that there is no conduct remedy that will do a damned bit of good. Breakup is the only solution ...
... and since that's not going to happen, my next preferred remedy would be one something like the one Steve Jobs is asking for: a big cash fine (not a "donation" to schools designed to ensure that future generations of developers will use all Microsoft all the time). But the proposed $1 billion is nothing, pocket change for Bill Gates. Make it $10 billion per year for ten years, and you're maybe talking about real money.
Where should the money go? Although my first impulse is to say "to Microsoft's competitors and/or to free software," I don't think that's quite right in the long run, because it puts the government in the position of deciding who's worthy. Better, I think, would be to parcel the money out for public math and comp. sci. education according to some simple, objective formula (primary/secondary schools get money based on the number of students in the district, colleges get it based on the current size of their math and CS departments, say.)
Is this ideal? No, because Microsoft will still be there, as one company. But it will seriously limit their ability to crush innovation in the industry for a decade (by which time things will no doubt have changed in all kinds of ways) and produce a generation of well-educated computer scientists, and hopefully be politically acceptable to all sides.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Two things I'll never use my money on: Microsoft products and sex but now I am rethinking the sex part! There are a host of other options in Linux; AbiWord, Koffice...
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
...at a time.
If MS makes a Linux version of Office, getting linux on the desktop become easier. As we gain momentum in the battle, the ability to create a competitive Office product become easier.
I would be even happier if the had to make all the Office component open source for 10 years, but this will help just as well.
They clearly understand how MS is using Office to become entrenched in the work place, then leverage that into forced upgrades.
now if they would do the same thing for Direct X, MS would Have to start putting out quality products which would allow market forces to decide where the money goes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Damn straight, they'll distribute their own version of linux to work with Linux MS Office.
$700 for the package!
I think a better remedy would be to make MS contribute to WINE and open up their contributions - the acid test being able run ALL MS productivity apps under WINE as flawlessly as under Windows. This way, they don't just get to talk about opening their API's, they actually have to demonstrate that the API information they've provided is accurate and complete.
Glenn
Think savings of $300 or more PER PC with hundreds or thousands PC's. Not chump change is it? Because the thing is that Office, NOT WINDOWS, is the environment of the typical office drone. As long as the apps stay the same who cares what the OS is.
/sigh
Thanks a lot though. I'll be fantisizing about never seeing WinNT/9x/ME at work all weekend long now...
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
Gods, you
Office is one of the precious few things MS has done well! The suite is amazingly powerful, amazingly flexible, and as long as you avoid the VBA scripting, works very well!
The Linux community hasn't produced anything comparable to date, and in fact, they never will, because the Linux community is missing the Machiavellian organization that it needs to effectively compete with MS (RMS's deluded efforts notwithstanding).
If you're going to be anti-MS, which is a laudable opinion to be sure, at least sound intelligent and educated about it. Stop acting like ignorant bigots.
S.
try doing a search on MSDN. They're all there. It's time to put this old dog to sleep, becuase I'm past tired of reading people endlessly regurgitating it on fucking every open source forum. The Open Source office suite's barriers to import/export perfection (and believe me, export is as important as import) lie solely with the programmers on the projects either not having the motivation or time to get it right/ do more than cursory research.
Then they have to have these brainwashed programmers develop for Linux. A clean OS, where they can get at *ALL* the code, where the system doesn't crash every five seconds and the OS doesn't use 99.9999% of available memory, making your program run in about five kilobytes.
Without programmers, they are nothing! They will all defect, and MS will be no more! YEAH, BABY, YEAH! DO IT, JUSTICE!
Pain(n): when you're telnetting into a box doing somethin cool, and some luser calls for help with a 'critical error' ad
The very lawsuit meant to bring Microsoft into their place will make Microsoft even bigger. Microsoft for Linux! How is that going to make the market more competitive? Next thing you know Microsoft will have their own Linux distro too (probably required by the Government). They will take over the world, one way or another.
You might as well get on the MS train now, because you will be run over and killed if you don't.
that's another lawsuit. this is about the doj/state case against ms. you're talking about the class action thing.
What I want is simple. I want good, solid software, and the possibility to toss something "good-enough" together when I find myself without. This is how I goa long my everyday business (that is, when I'm not geeking around, doing stuff for fun, of course).
If the same, or similar software, *or* possibilities to create it, exists on the platforms/OS's/whatever that I encounter, my life is also so much easier.
Take perl for instance. Thank heavens for ActiveState that has brought a solid version to W32, so I can create my fast but simple tools. This goes for a lot of things.
Diversity is a strength of a kind, but conformity can also be one. The best of both worlds is what I want. We need diversity to have evolution, but we also need conformity to be able to do anything at all.
So where am I going with this?
Well, my wishes and requests in the context of MS and Linux and Apple and whatever is that all should do what they do best, but be open about the way you let endusers use your product.
Those two things would go such a long way it is unbeleivable.
As someone elsewhere said, what we need is the details of the format so that other software can use it. I'd much rather have Star/OpenOffice be able to use MS format documents than have to use Office to work on them. Especially if Explorer for Solaris is any indication of their ability to write software for other platforms...
Yes, I want ms office on Linux. That's the only thing they do that is decent. It would definitely increase the number of Linux desktops. Who knows, maybe Microsoft would have to cut thier product line down to just mostly user apps in a few years, hence, the decline of an empire(monopoly). That is the whole idea, right? If you like open source software, then write it, contribute to it, and use it.
Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?
More than anything, I'd like to see an alternative/stable desktop OS. Running a popular, fat, bloated application on Linux that people love (for better or worse) and are familiar with would help Linux desktop adoption immensely.
You're mixing two cases here. The private anti-trust case is the one where the proposed settlement involves MS giving software to schools. This is the government (fed and state) case that is being dealt with here.
Personally, I am happy using Gnumeric and Abiword, but I do not do particularly heavy-duty work (some might argue that Office is also unsuitable for such work) . And regardless of how capable open-source programs are, corporations are generally conservative in adopting new software; by using Office, they avoid the problems with file type conversions and the occasional missing capability.
Last summer, I was supervising the installation of GNU/Linux in a previously all-Windows shop (a certain simulation software they used required Linux). To the people who ran the simulations they ended up giving two computers, one for Windows and one for Linux. This was not the original nor the ideal plan, but Outlook is necessary to interface with MS Exchange mail servers (particularly calendars and address books), and MS Office is necessary to share files effectively with other Office users. While office alternatives on Linux are certainly viable and I personally would not need MS Office for Linux, management policies and practical realities make it a necessity for Linux to gain further inroads at corporations.
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
Id rather see exchange transport opened up, and a linux client for exchange. This is the only piece missing in open office suite.
BTW, I wouldnt mind seeing directx opened up also, so more games could be ported to linux.
if the Linux version of Office would be as good as the Windows / Macintosh version.
/. thinking I'm going soft).
I have a sneaking suspicion that it would not be. Then again, I've always been more fond of Office for MacOS than Office for Windows. I know plenty of users who claim that Office for Mac is pretty darned good. I'm inclined to say that MS Software for the Mac is pretty good overall. Even Outlook Express for Mac is liveable.
That being said, MS is bad. M-kay? Long live vi / emacs and LaTeX (don't want
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?
Do you want any x86-based OS besides Windows to get a foothold in the office desktop space, you trolling bastard?
No Office, no PHBs following your Linux Pied Piper. It would be nice if everyone could get money from the "fucking around with Perl" aspect of computers, but that doesn't seem too feasible these days.
--saint
I would hate to see MSFT Office show up on Linux for the simple reason of what Linux stands for philosophically.
Putting Office on Linux wouldn't be that hard to do. After all, everything they have runs off of a layer of libraries that could be simply modified to emulate the W32 environment on Linux. In essence, all they would be doing is putting all the proprietaries into what would replace WINE. Wine looses and you still have to pay MSFT for everything.
It would be far better if MSFT was required to make the File formats either Open Source (public domain XML?) or publish every nuance of the current, all all future, formats (as if it were an RFC document). That would help everyone more than Office on Linux ever could.
So no, I don't want Office for Linux. It'd be useless. Instead, they should be forced to open the document format, as some other posters have suggested, so that GNOME/K/Star/OpenOffice will be able to get good import filters.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Unfortunately, the Open Source Movement has shot itself in the foot by providing lots of alternative office solutions with non-interchangable file formats. One of the most well documented formats seems to be Open Office's new XML-based one. If Open Source Advocates agreed on a single format, then Microsoft could either be forced to use this format, or to provide filters. Without such an agreement, the only thing that can be asked for are 100% specifications of all Office formats, now and in the future -- this will be harder to verify since there would be no open source reference implementation.
One of the biggest threats to open source is open source itself. The fragmentation of different solutions makes migration hard or impossible.
No administration, no loopholes.
The real question is, when do we start trying MS executives for perjury?
Office for Linux; there's a good idea. Microsoft can start writing LOTS of code that people will use on Linux. Especially code with ridiculous scripting languages. THEN, (amazingly) there will be a lot of viruses that are no longer limited to Windows, so Microsoft can say "Hey, look, LINUX has Viruses TOO! It's not just us!" and, because they are marketing behemoths, people will not notice the obvious logical fallacies, and they will ooh and ahh and, well, it's all downhill from there.
Unfortunately, the enormous problems with this are inherently connected to the necessities. They're not merely married; they're joined at the hip like "Siamese twins." Further aspects of that as metaphor work:
If they play in a sandbox filled with PCBs with toys made from plutonium, you can hardly expect the results to be joy and happiness...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Hi!
:)
I think we have to balance.
1. MS Office is not Open Source so it is against
our ideals
2. MS Office will allow to increase hugely
Linux user base - I know many people
for whom Word/Excel/PowerPoint are the
reason for keeping Windows.
3. There will be no need for buying Windows
anymore - huge savings both in trouble and
in money
4. Imagine PCs with Linux with preinstalled
MS Office from Dell
So my final answer is: I want it!
I would phrase it this way:
I want Microsoft to be forced to develop
Office for the two-three most common non-MS
dektop PC OSes. This would mean:
Macs, Linux and BEOS or BSD.
For me it is the same problem as unbundling
local loop access with telecoms: one should
be able to use different long distance
provider (OS provider).
Regards,
Kubus
We're the people who obviously don't mind not having MS-Office. We already work without it!
You're right, we don't care. I won't use Office if it is ported to Linux, but I'd love to see more people switch to using Linux and if a port of MS Office to Linux will get people to switch I'm all for it.
This certainly would help break MS's monopoly--as would them having to document their file formats. A version of office for Linux would be what a lot of people have been waiting for to switch to Linux.
I think these lawyers are smoking crack... the newest "solution" is to have m$ extend its reach to other popular platforms? Great! I don't get it... nor do I find the idea of "Office for Linux" pleasant to think about.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
User: Yes, I got a copy of Office, and my computer hasn't acted the same ever since.
M$: Okay, what operating system are you running?
User: Linux-Mandrake 8.1, with Gnome for m-
M$: (breaking in) Excuse me sir, but did you say Linux?
User: Yeah...
M$: I'm sorry sir, but I can't give you support.
User:
M$: I can't help you.
User: But it says I have support on the box! I called the number that was there, and got you!
M$: Well yes, that's the number for Micro$oft's main tech support. For Linux, I need to transfer you to our Linux support area. Hold please...
(user gets put on hold, with comercials for M$'s line of products. HOURS later, finally gets fed up and hangs up)
User: (looking at computer) Damn machine! If I'd stuck with Windows instead of changing to Linux, I'd never have this problem...(muttermutter, grumble)
Oh yes, I can see how remedies like this can really help someone. Compatability is good, compatability is great. But why doesn't the gov't do something like... make M$ open up their file 'standards' instead or something...?
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
If you like KOffice or StarOffice, then use them. Those who have Windows installed at school or at work will be very pleased for the extra functionality that Linux might acquire.
I have to say that Access is the ONLY program I miss at home. It's a very nice little personal database engine that has alot of fexibility and power to it. We've used it at work for countless projects and it does work, so long as you're limiting the number of users to something it can handle.
I know people keep taking about pgaccess, but it doesn't have evn close to the functionality that Access does. Anymore, I think this is the second app that is stopping a mass migration to Linux (Exchnage being the other).
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
I'm amazed at how this case has been handled in the courts, and in the media. Everybody has an opinion of how Microsoft should be handled, and everybody is making their own proposal. When Microsoft proposed donating software to schools, Apple fired back that this would give them an unfair inroad to educators and students, and that instead they should contribute money so that schools could buy more of what they want (which historically has been Apples/Macintoshes). Now, I'm not saying that Apple doesn't have the right to oppose Microsoft's obvious attempt to gain ground in the world of education, but what kind of credibility is Apple left with after proposing a solution that is so obviously geared to benefit their company rather than the students and teachers.
Companies, especially competing companies, should stay away from proposing a solution to this case. Their proposals can only be one-sided, and geared to benefit their own bottom line, and there is no room for that type of justice in a court case that revolves around anti-competitive practices.
OK... spin it this way... VB scripting would start showing up in Linux as a result of an Office port. Do I really want to have Outlook or an app on my system that is so prone to worms? Right out of the box... I want to hear some hardcore VB people convince me that this is a good thing for Linux... I think its a good thing from the exposing people to new things front... Wordperfect was king in the days of DOS... Windows made Office a standard... and when you don't have to pay more money for OS licenses maybe, MAYBE you can convince someone to use StarOffice/OpenOffice. I stray from my subject... the opinions on VB scripting widespread in Linux?
Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?
I heard that when they ported IE to Solaris that it required all sorts of crazy Win support stuff. I don't know about you but I'm not going to put an AUTOEXEC.BAT file on my Linux box.
Internet Explorer for Unix - it mentions Solaris and HP-UX, so how far away can it be? :)
:)
While you are at it, take a look at the faq, my favourite sentence is: 'Do Java applets run in a "sandbox," or do they rely on UNIX security?' - notice how carefully worded that is to imply something about UNIX secirity. We all know how bad that is, right? Lol.
All in all, quite amusing pages, if you are bored like me.
And actually, I'd like to see IE on Linux too. Opera is starting to get really good, but nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats IE with the Google Toolbar today. If only Opera would implement all that functionality instead of just linking to google. *Sigh*. I'd never use IE again.
The appeals court, in its unanimous seven-panel decision, also found that Microsoft's commingling of Internet Explorer and Windows software code constituted an anti-competitive act. This made it more difficult for Netscape to compete with Internet Explorer, the court concluded.
Ummm...DUH!
The states would like to prevent Microsoft from bundling other technologies, such as media playback and instant messaging, into Windows for the same reason.
Would like? {pshaw} "legally" cross their wrists with their shoulderblades and put a "legally binding noose" around their neck (say a billion dollars a day + set free enslaved companies, starting with Bungie)...give them the same treatment the Taliban got.
Cut off their money and then their...ahem..."air supply".
Giving up its ability to add new features to Windows is one concession Microsoft has been unwilling to make throughout the case.
"My guess is Microsoft is never going to accept such a provision," Shohet said
To the DOJ, just one question...with apologies to the Dairy association..."Got Balls?".
"If you're still forced to buy the whole package, even if you remove the icons, the extra stuff could deteriorate performance," he said.
I've read that over and over and still not sure what to make of it.
The "extra stuff" could deteriorate performance?
What do you mean "could"? Outlook? IIS? WiMP?
There is not "could", skippy, "does" is the word you are seeking.
And what PoS OS would be brought down by removing icons? (if I read that right?)
And I don't mean to burst bubbles, but if you can live w/o "re-arrangable menues" I.E. integration and the task bar buttons...a 98lite'd system (98lite.net, use 98se and 95b) is one of the most stable "Windows" hybrids around. Choose the "sleek" option, you won't regret its speed, even if you regret using windows...YMMV.
As of Friday morning, some states were still debating whether the browser should be included in the trimmed-down version of Windows or whether Microsoft would have to remove it.
I repeat: "78% of win98's testers did not want I.E integrated in the first fscking place"
Anyone have a better clue stick? I seem to be breaking them in ever increasing numbers.
Cheers,
Moose.
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Companies don't really care about the desktop OS. To the business, the desktop OS is background noise, like the brand of the light bulbs in the ceiling. You might notice the difference, but it's not the basis for a business decision (an exaggeration, but more true than not). IT wants to manage support costs by using the same OS on every desktop (ideally), but the choice of which OS is based on technical nits and training issues. If you don't have to pay the yearly MS toll, you can buy a lot of training.
On the other hand, your office suite is critical. If your business exchanges information with other businesses -- and virtually all big companies do -- then potential compatibility problems are a real issue. You look unprofessional if you have to tell a partner or client that you can't open their spreadsheet because you can't afford to run "real" Excel.
Office for Linux could really shift the balance. The bad news is that as long as MS-the-OS-company is the same as MS-the-office-suite-company, Office for Linux will be an empty threat. You can bet that it will be crippled in performance, pricing, and/or reliability so that companies can't consider it seriously.
The States' heart is in the right place. They deserve credit for that.
Office for Linux would be interesting. Of course, it wouldn't be open. Likely, Microsoft would pick one distribution on which it will officially support Office for Linux (RedHat?). With RH's crazy compiler, the binaries wouldn't be very portable, either. So, instead of porting Office to Linux, why don't they open the details about how the files are constructed?
Microsoft could be forced to not only open the details for Office documents, but why not Windows Media documents too? They could open details about protocols for Back Office, MSN Messenger, etc. Basically, make the files their software creates, and the protocols their software uses, open. This could make the life of writing new, better, open software that is compatible with the files/protocols more feature complete.
Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?
In one hand this is a good idea. It would make their OS dominance go bye-bye if people actually had a choice of platforms to run the office suite.
On the other hand, do we really want to create new libraries proprietary to M$ under Linux that would allow the RandomCrashTime(), ScrewUpTheFormat() and CloseProgramIfNotSavedIn15Minutes() calls?
And I'm sure they would require us to reboot after every save of the documents.
---
If I had a funny sig, it would be here...
Plugins are the death of the standardized internet. They
should be outlawed by this agreement.
Why they don't specify opening of various file formats (like MS Office documents) for cross-platform compatibility.
This would be much more beneficial to competition and probably more desireable to all involved than MS Office for Linux.
This way, MS could go their own way and do whatever the hell they like with their OS, and other platforms would be able to interoperate with fewer problems.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's good that 9 of them are filing against MS but what about the other 41? Are they for or against MS? If they are Pro-MS then 9 states is just a joke.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
then never mind, thanks for help!
while your at it, would you mind pointing me to the full win32 api? those wine developers seem to be too stupid to do a search.
oh, and how about SMB? those idiots at samba sure are having a hard time getting it right, it's right there on MSDN right?
oh, and darn it those Tom fools who can't figure out Exchange - could you help them out too?
thanks a lot, we're pretty naive not being professional programers you know
Office or no Office, companies are still chasing the
PC Magazine/Comdex/MS/drag-and-drop graphically-perfect computing world. They will not change to Linux, EVEN IF it is proven to be better in every category, and they don't have to explain themselves. For developers it is a foregone conclusion. There are certain kinds of development I wouldn't even attempt on any Win* platform.
I have NOT ONCE heard a well-reasoned technical argument pro or con regarding current development, languages, architecture, or networking from any supervisory personnel at any job, ever. The standard answer is, well, that's the "standard."
The thing that most developers have trouble understanding is:
Nobody cares if it's wrong.
Just as long as they aren't late to the cake and soda in the meeting room or to Blockbuster after work.
There is only one really good/important reason to want it.
Expand the number of potential desktop users of Linux.
If MS Office is available, that is one less "hurdle" for Linux to overcome to become a widely accepted standard (in terms of the general uninformed public).
The goal should be to have at least three choices without hindering anyones compatability:
1. Linux
2. Mac
3. Windows
Microsoft developing their Office suite for Linux is a bad thing as it may tempt Microsoft to develop their own distribution of Linux. If they did that, then everyone would be using Linux, and considering that Microsoft probably would put about as much effort into Linux as they do into Windows (i.e. not enough), everyone will start saying "Linux sucks because it crashes a lot," even though it's really only Microsoft's distribution of Linux that crashes a lot. Not only that, but people will also be saying, "Linux sucks because there are so many viruses for it," even though it's just Microsoft's distribution that, on default install, has everything from telnet to netbios (smb) open and the default user after install is root and all other users would have root access to the system as well.
Not only that, but Microsoft would probably eventually abandon their Linux distribution, go back to Windows, and say to everyone, "See, Linux does suck, and we proved it to you," and everyone will be like, "Ohhhh, we see, you were right all along!"
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Seriously, MS isn't all shit and vomit. I've used MS Office for Mac for 15 years now (currently using 98) and I am still very happy with it! Since it's not "integrated" with the OS the virus problems are much less common, and it still works quite well (once you turn Dancing Banana Junior 9000 off). Why not make it available for Linux? It might actually make a few people happy, and you certainly don't have to use it if you don't want to.
sulli
RTFJ.
A limited port is probably preferable, more than the just the file formats, but less than VB-scriptable (so to speak). Desktop acceptance of Linux is the goal here. Not the full integration of Office with the system, but the ability to share the space.
Star Office converts tables fine into text documents and spreadsheets (Only from IE though, Opera and Netscape only copy the text info).
But anyway, Star Office is definitley not all that far behind MS Office, and I haven't ran into compatability issues yet. Plus it's free.
- PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
There are good reasons why I own some 17 or 18 legal copies of WP, and ONE of Word.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
... let's see here... you're wrong! they are a legally prooven monopoly, jackass.
The only real way to break Microsofts monopoly is to force and enforce their disclosing their "standards" (and I don't mean business atandards), and to follow the standards laid out by others, primarily the RFCs and such, if they choose to use those standards. (SMTP, etc.)
And it may be a good idea to have an inquiry by a committee of GPL'ed people to look over the code of Microsoft products and point out the parts of the code that are used from open source and have an independant, expert committee reporting to a judge to see if Microsoft has done a baddie there.
But this MS Office bit, that don't impress me much, won't keep me warm in the long, cold... Sorry, got distracted there.
Stefan.
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
The point is: computer formats should be always open. File formats, low-level communication with hardware, communication formats (including streaming media), they should all be required to be open.
Then it should be up to the software publisher to use either open source or proprietary licenses. I don't care if Word is closed source, I don't wanna read this source anyway. But I want to be able to read their documents if I have to.
Cheers,
-- Don Inodoro
Office XP or whatever the latest bloatware incarnation for their own platform is the usual level of complexity and quality. Back when NT was out, NT was actually hard to crash but Word and Excel was capable of doing it.
Conversely, Mac OS X's version of Office X is actually nice to use. There are people at Microsoft who can write good software. If that was the basis of a version for Linux it would actually help things. Then you could replace the OS and keep everything else. Run smbfs/samba instead (assuming you don't want to just go NFS or something else native). No outlook, no OTDs.
I believe "Office for Linux" has the potential to break the MS desktop OS monopoly,
I believe "Office for Linux" has the potential to break the Linux desktop.
Remember that many major security holes are in MS apps, not just the OS. Also remember that you'll be inviting VB macros, spyware, etc onto your desktop. Finally, remember that MS will have negative incentive to produce a reliable, stable product for Linux - and they don't do that good a job of that for their own OS.
Inviting MS software onto your desktop is like inviting a vampire into your home. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time...
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
That's not a good idea [having MS developing Linux software]. Let's open the file format fro MS office to help beneficiate other products like Star Office or better Open Office and forbid the beast to change and hide things under to break the competition.
No flame here but... I heard from some people that when a top product marketing guy at Microsoft was asked to justify for the fact that IE didn't support Java in its browser under MacOS X very well (an understatement as it was buggy as hell. The support was turned on officially months after IE and OS X shipped and today, it's still broken for many applets), his reply was that Microsoft had assigned "CLASS C" engineers to do the task. Can you imagine what the level of the programmers assigned to developing Office on Linux would be and what the quality delivered would look like? And who do you think would benefit from the end result? It's like asking the German army during WWII to fight Nazism. Who's the moron who came up with this idea again?
PPA
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Companies may worry about the desktop OS if the use software packages from other companies that only run in Windows. I know a lot of companies have software specifically designed for there type of business (from doctors, to lawyers, to accountants, to therapists, etc) and many of those software packages are for windows only.
I agree that Office file support would be a great advantage for Linux desktops. I just think there are a lot of other 'day to day' apps (like QuickBooks) and business specific apps that do not have the kind of support for Linux that are needed in the business world.
If I was Microsoft I would be so fed up with
everything everybody (users, goverment, states
and etc) requests, and everytime somebody comes up
with a new twist.. Yes even if I was Microsoft
(Bill Gates if you care) I would quit all
together sell the damn stock and wash my hands
off. If you (users, goverment, states and etc) do
not like me so much, well there you go, I am out
of the picture.
Microsoft's monopoly is propped up by incompatible file formats and protocols. Take away their ability to make incompatible files/protocols, and suddenly their monopoly power vanishes. *That* is what will stimulate competition as everyone would be able to compete on a level playing field. There are two problems with this approach though: first, what are the odds that government officials have any clue? OK, that was a rhetorical question. Next, how do you ensure that Microsoft released all the specs and that they don't make suble incompatible changes in the future? That's a tricky one, and Microsoft can always plead ignorance (they attempted to pull that off at the trial).
Now what effects will the release of MS Office for Linux have? It seems like a good idea: since most businesses are standardized on MS Office, it will speed the adoption of Linux on the desktop. (This, BTW, seems to be the only major obstacle). So, in the short run it's a good thing... except for one little problem: does anyone doubt that the Linux version of MS Office, if it is ever released, would be so crippled as to make it virtually useless? Or that Microsoft would find some other way to tie their customers to Windows? Microsoft could easily say "we coplied with the ruling" while blaming everything on Linux. So much for that.
Now what are the long term effects of this? If the scenario I described above plays out, then none whatsoever: MS Office for Linux will die a horrible death and we are back to square one. But now suppose MS Office for Linux is a success. Then corporations accelerate the adoption of Linux on the desktop; sooner or later, Linux becomes a viable choice for home PCs too and OEMs start bundling it, etc. Great! The windows monopoly is broken... but the office monopoly is perpetuated. And who know what other effects this may have. I suppose one monopoly is better than two, but it is nowhere near the ideal state.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
My objection to MS writing Office for Linux is the mechanics. Who's going to do it?
As you suggest, MS has a stake in Linux not having a good Office. I think you'd have a hard time forcing MS to write good software for Linux (and as you mention Mac is not really a counter example, it's a different situation).
If they put it out to bid (as I believe the article suggests), who's going to bite that actually has the means to produce a good piece of software? Sun might - but they wouldn't call it MS Office for Linux, they'd call it Star Office.
Basically whatever company got the bid would get the specs for Office docs, source code and internals. But who's going to:
A: do a good enough job
B: want to admit they're developing a MS product
C: win the bid
A better solution is to force them to release specs to everyone.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
You're right - he didn't make a terribly good case that MS's case is like these others.
He did, however, give me a different perspective on antitrust in general. It clarified in my mind that having a monoply is a different thing than abusing a monoply.
I think MS has abused its monoply - and it should be punished for specific items, and punished hard enough that it quits abusing.
And if it then manages to keep it's large market share then I think it, like Alcoa, should not be harassed.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
TeX is better than Office, i think microsoft and every company should be forced to use standardized protocols and file formats so that they cannot continue to waste the time of free & open software writers with the task of figuring out how to port these things.
after all it is not as if the standard itself is the real work. it's just a plan for the details which must be filled in by developers. these details are still protected by copyright.
if microsoft was not a monopoly, micrsoft would see benefit in establshing open standards, since they would want to maximize the # of machines their products can run on. but having a monopoloy, they prefer a lack of competition. since it is clear that only monolopies can befefit from closed software standards and that the consumer does not benefit, this should oppose some monopoly law.
once free software catches up to or goes beyond microsoft in terms of business readiness, there will be no comparison. but a lot of this has to do with file formats and protocols because of an existing system. and it is important to remember that we want the MAN to run linux because he can help us, and that as long as this is so, our desire will remain.
Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?
Nope. I really don't want it for Windows. Wouldn't this make the problem worse?
MS makes OfficeNix[tm] then it crashes millions of servers everywhere. Then it's linux's fault. Wouldn't that help to broaden their powers anyways? Help them convert people?
I just installed Star Office for Windows, and I love it.
Why not solve everyone's problem and develop a Windows Layer for Linux? Basically WINE but once loaded you could run anything windoze, DirectX games, office, etc. This would keep their code secret and let everyone run Red Alert 2 [my fav] while using a REAL OS.
Plus, they could still charge 100 bucks a pop!
Get your Unix fortune now!
...M$ doesn't use winelib, and if they use GTK for the widget set. BTW, IE for Linux, no thanks.
--
Esse quam vederi.
Remember that many major security holes are in MS apps, not just the OS. Also remember that you'll be inviting VB macros, spyware, etc onto your desktop. Finally, remember that MS will have negative incentive to produce a reliable, stable product for Linux - and they don't do that good a job of that for their own OS.
That's a bogus argument.
First of all, nobody is going to force you to use Office on Linux if you don't want to, so having an extra option can't hurt you. Even if your CIO might insist you use MS Office, the alternative there is him forcing you to use it on Windows, so don't complain).
Second, once people are on Linux, MS Office will have to compete on it's own quality against the open source office apps, which a year from now will be pretty damn good. If MS Office on linux is buggy or unstable, then the migration to a completely MS free environment is much more likely.
I imagine MS would create a closed-source kernel module which is required to run MS office. Or, even better, they's force you to patch your kernel in some ridiculous way.
Most likely I'd expect them to make an MS Office for Linux on the same par as IE for Solaris. Sucks.
So... would they use winelib to do the port?
Maybe forcing MS to really document and open up all their 'standards', file formats etc. would be a better way to go.
btw: Removing IE from windows wouldn't help unless they'd really cut it loose from windows explorer (the file manager) and rewrote all their stinking IE-objects and widgets to work without all those IE-dll's. Just removing iexplore.exe won't help.
And manufacturers too should be able to use windows "light".
Office file formats are a good start, but what really is needed are descriptions for integrating mail clients with exchange, and all undocumented microsoft protocols and formats. How about an Open Source Integration Document, listing how support for all microsoft products can integrated into open source software? Now that would be competition!
Except that MS isn't going to develop Office for Linux, the source code and code for all the underlying OS calls is going to be auctioned off to three seperate companies, who will then do the porting.
I think the States have really nailed this one on the head, they realized that MS has no incentive to make this project actually work, so why bother to make them do it? Turn it over to someone who does, and then, just to make sure it gets done correctly, throw parallel processing at it by allowing three different companies the right to do it.
Read the filing, the States have their heads squared on straight enough to see most of the loopholes in the DOJ agreement. File formats get left out, but bundling, phasing out old versions of Windows just to get people to upgrade, embrace-and-extend, closed API's, tying, OEM preference, they all get hit. It's a very good read.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
> Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?
...well, maybe. but only if Open Source and GPLed.
Yes.
I'll never trust Microsoft enough to let any of their products run on my Linux machines. I want to know what their programs do.
my dads machine is p2 300 with 128 megs of ram. I run xp and office px on it and it runs very decent
Maybe you don't know better, it depends on what you compare it with. I have to use Office every day at work (for years now) and I keep hating it. Compared to LaTeX and/or Framemaker my productivity is much less.
Creating structured documents with Word (including versioning, diffs between documents etc) is a hell compared to some other solutions.
We want a motorcycle helmet filled with creamcheese and pictures of Bea Arthur naked.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You can bet that it will be crippled in performance, pricing, and/or reliability so that companies can't consider it seriously.
What's even more, I can imagine Microshaft using some old GUI toolkit that no one uses like whater that crap RealPlayer is based on, and then blaming their inability to us a real toolkit like QT or GTK on Linux's supposed backwardness in GUIs. I mean, think about it. If your manager uses these horrible widgets in Office LX, or whatever it'd be called, do you think that he's going to stop to think: Wait a sec... these widgets suck because M$ sucks, not because there aren't pretty widgets available for Linux. If M$ writes any software for Linux, especially under these conditions, I guarantee that they'll try to make Linux look bad. "Now if you'd just use Windows XP, you'd be able to theme your whole interface."
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
I don't think the comments to the DOJ necessarily needs to be internally consistent. Let me suggest that Slashdot on behalf of its readers submit the highest ranked proposals. Do it using the same format that is being done when questions to interesting people is being solicited. That way at least the major concerns of this community is on record.
Help fight continental drift.
I don't know why so many people get hung up over the MS Office Linux compatiblity. Frankly, the word processor, as a concept, is archaic and slowly on its way out. The spreadsheet is still useful because of its interactivity and power to visualize data. Presentation programs are only good for large scale meetings / lectures, and a waste otherwise. Open Source should be about creating NEW solutions, not repeating what has worked in the past. It's the old inefficient companies, gummed up with worn out management, that insist on keeping with the status quo. People aren't taking advantage of Open Source software for what it excels most at: flexibility and easy innovation. Today's typical office computer environment consists of a bunch of desktops running an Office suite, a mailbox-oriented communications suite, and a handful of clunky database apps to fit sundry needs. Each desktop is a seperate environment with it's own local storage and configuration. A server sits in the back room to pass around documents and coordinate messanging services. This philosophy of design is decrepit, inefficient, costly, and often frustrating, both for users and admins. It's time for some fresh thinking and Open Source is the wide open door. Imagine, instead, an office where every desktop may be used by any user and never needs specific software installation or maintenance. Yes, it's the network-centric model of powerful servers and thinner, diskless clients. But the technology exists to do it the right way this time--cheaply, easily, and effectively. Take that as a base and branch. Once this base is set, the possibilities are endless. A mostly paperless office. A powerful, highly-tuned intrannet system that lets employees truly manage all available data smoothly. Abstracted tasks and many times the automation in use today. Every company is a little different. But that's a good thing. It means there's a huge market for Open Source consulting and in-house programming services.
I suggest we rub Bill Gates in butter and give him a spanking.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I imagine that the development environment for Office is setup in a very microsoft oriented manner, I think they'd have to do a lot of changes to their development env. to make itsuitable to produce *NIX packages...
Then again I don't use Visual C++ or whatever microsoft calls their C development environment, but forcing them to develop a Linux office entails a lot more then just forking off another development tree I would think....
Try rdesktop for a TS client. I use it against win2k servers in both application server and admin mode. There is sometimes a problems with fonts, but on the whole it works pretty good for an early release.
Jack of all trades, master of some.
- Serve up MS Office to X-based thin clients, without the need for Terminal Server licensing and/or Citrix licensing, both which consume huge amounts of money.
- Users of MS Office for Linux are using Linux!!! Office on Linux is one step away from Microsoft.
- Finally, and I think this is important
... people would use it, and as a result it would force Microsoft to realize that Linux has desktop potential. Even if they wanted to kill the product later on, they wouldn't be able to do it easily, because the bean counters would say "Hey, this product is selling very well, why stop it?"
Remember, with no platform advantage, Microsoft has to play fair in the Linux world. Let them come. Let them play on the level playing field. The sooner this happens, the sooner the world can abandon Windows.Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
If MS were forced to retain their software holdings on the Mac, perhaps Apple might be less afraid to be more aggressive towards helping disgruntled WinXX users like myself to move over to OSX. I've waited for years for Apple to have a UNIX-based platform that I'd always wished for. Now it's there, buy my SW investment has been on WinXX.
I could afford the hardware of getting a G4 as my next hardware investment, but to replicate all of my software licenses onto a Mac would be too costly for me. If Apple could feel more free to incentivise companies like Adobe and Macromedia to offer cross platform competitive upgrades for programs like Photoshop, I'd feel a lot more inclined to buy a Mac soon. And they could do so without as much fear of getting MS torqued off at them.
Much as I'd like that software to be available on my Linux box, that would be just as costly to get new licenses for and is probably not where we'll see as many apps as are available currently MacOS for the near future.
It is indeed a sad day to see not only government officials advocate the destruction of property/individual rights, but get so much advocation from technology minded individuals. While all of you rant and rave about the violation of property rights, either on this site, or someone elses site; when someone is forced to remove material; you advocate the destruction of individual rights when it comes to microsoft.
There is no such thing as a coercive monopoly in the system of Capitalism, the only coercive--out of reach from competition--monoplolies can be created by Government. You say, "Oh but Microsoft is so rich, they can lower prices until they kill the competition." Any rational mind that knows the basic principles of capitalism can figure out that a company cannot lower prices in such a way and expect to maintain its previous market share; with the lowering of prices, so low, that other businesses go under means that there will be a high loss in profit--what is needed to survive in capitalism. This heavy loss of profit means that sooner or later, prices will have to be raised, raised higher than normal to make up profit that has been lost; this puts the company at a real disadvantage to any competitors left, or new competitors that will be created by the heavy spending of venture capital due to the high prospect of profitability. So as you can see, the arguement that MS, or any other market leader, can lower prices and kill competition is flawed.
Another aspect of this unfair monopoloy talk that is flawed, that was the prime example in the court rooms, was that by bundling IE with windows "Microsoft" unfairly put netscape out of competition and consumer choice was lost. I fail to see how bundling a browser into an OS hurts consumers, its an added tool; should we stomp out KDE for bundling Konqueror with its environment? Netscape became dominant when its browser was better, people bought it, I bougt it; MS got with the program and created a better browser, soon everyone was using IE, because it was a better product, and already came with their OS; if MS should be punished, so should have netscape. Also, how was consumer choice taken away? The only way Netscape lost market share was because the consumers "CHOSE" to use IE, not at the point of a gun, not with brute force, but by FREE CHOICE; the only way choice can be lost in the marketplace--capitalism--is if the government steps in.
Um, d00d, Microsoft is a monopoly. Not only that, but they abused their monopoly power, which is illegal. This is a legal fact. It was declared a fact by a judge, and upheld as a fact by an appeals court. The only higher authority is the Supreme Court, and if they get involved, I'm sure they'll agree as well.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Incase you guys forgot, it isn't Microsoft that has created the monopoly in the desktop PC market, it is the APPLICATIONS that made the monopoly for them. Why are people forced into using Windows? Because all the applications are written for it. How do you break this monopoly? Make it so the applications can be run on any operating system! Some of the ground in this has already been broken by such great things like WINE, Bochs and VirtualPC. Plus with a special development group with access to all of Microsoft's sources and government mandate that forced MS to sponsor this organization, well, that's a slam dunk. And suddenly Microsoft's grip seems a little less tight.
1. It would only run as root.
IIRC, the Solaris version of IE would only work (properly) if you ran it as root.
Kind of? KIND OF?! FrontPage is phenomenally awful, and the cause of the majority of bad design out there on the Web.
It's just amazingly bad. DreamWeaver is the only WYSIWYG tool I've used that actually saves time over hand-coding, while still producing usable HTML. Which is probably why it costs more, but oh well. :)
On your other points...
Outlook is bad: security holes aplenty. For my money, the best Win32 emailer is Forte's Agent, a fantastic program (and one of the few reasons why I still keep my Win95 box around). But I'd rather use even Pegasus than Outlook.
We're agreed on Word; I like Excel too.
However, on Access - gah, what an awful, hideous, bloated, confusing mess. It's just fantastically disorganized and radically unintuitive. I now know much more about Access than I did six months ago, and while I agree it's a very flexible tool, it's gotta be the biggest example of the dark side of creeping featurism in commercial software today.
In a way, I'm almost relieved that my Mac can't run it. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
If this happened, it would bring AutoCAD and other AutoDesk programs that much closer to Linux seeing as how AutoDesk has linked some of their funtionality to MS Office. I would love to switch my department to Linux desktops running Mechanical Desktop and would in a heartbeat if it became available.
Yes, I know there's open source versions of CAD programs out there, but they don't have anywhere near the functionality we get in MDT and ACAD.
You're free to feel satisfied as long as the rest of us are free to feel unsatisfied. To each his own.
The schools want computers,
Apple doesn't want Microsoft entering the education territory Apple dominates,
The states want money or supplies,
The customers want Microsoft to hurt in some manner,
The Answer: In Lieu of cash,force Microsoft to pay for non-Microsoft preloaded computers (Apple iMac or Linux).
Microsoft would have to provide the funds for only non-Microsoft software (like Coral Draw or Photoshop). In short terms, Microsoft cannot profit immediately or be allowed to in the near future by extortionware, profit from this settlement.
Simple and clean cut. Microsoft should not be allowed to profit from sleazy business practices.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
Try LyX and you'll never touch Word again.
I agree with the original poster, only Excel has any value. With Linux I find I don't need Excel as Gnumeric is a great basic spreadsheet and I just use one of the many programming languages if I need more power. The problem with Excel is that too many see it as a platform for building applications (that suck) when they should have just used a real language to begin with.
Star Office sucks too. All Office suites suck. Small seperate apps that do a single job well is the only way to go.
When it comes to document sharing if you can't say it with plain old text then you obviously don't have much to say.
Why don't they force M$ to port their IIS webserver to Linux? Talking 'bout fair competition.
While their at it, I want I linux version for all these worms that are so popular lately!
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
All they would have to do is open the Office file formats (.DOC, .XLS, etc.) so any product on any platform could be made to read or write the files. I would even go so far as to say they should open up all of their file formats that are not commerce/security related. Oops, I guess they would add 'features' to their applications that would make all of the file types fit that description. I think you know what I mean though...
Procrastination; I'll think of a sig tomorrow.
Does Linux NEED another office suite? We already have a plethora of them.
Why force Microsoft to build a product they don't want? You KNOW they're not going to put the effort into making it a quality product.
Lord knows that even when they DO invest some effort that the products can rarely be referred to as "quality"
Rather, have them open up the specs on the file formats they use. This way we insure cross-platform interoperability without forcing Microsoft to develop on (and probably screw up on) another platform.
Microsoft is relieved of the onus of development.
Competitors benefit by being able to handle ALL Microsoft filetypes AND offer this on non-MS platforms.
Everything interoperates
A win, win, win scenario.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
First they come up with the World Copyright Treaty and then, in an attempt to prove that they have control over everything, they ask that MS do whatever they want. Imagine that, putting Java in a stripped-down version of Windows. Sure sounds weird.
Fuck You, Socialist!
Just a random conspiracy here: Right now they make major office releases every say 1 or two years. Now that means file formats are really pretty constant (-ish, anyway). Now, what if they move to say a subscription format where it's feasible for them to force an upgrade every month, which changes the format? Yes, it'd be an open change, but how many OSS projects have that kind of reaction time? And to stay on the ball on that and maintain the code with bugfixes, etc? They could still be very evil with it, even if it is "open" (note the quotes: do you really think microsoft will ever Open anything? "open", maybe...)
Current word processors are great for one thing - writing simple letters. Everyone who has been writing something more complicated knows how easier it is with Office. It would be great to have it on Linux, but not like this. You can force them to make it, but they can make it really slow and prone to crashing and say: "linux just isn't good enough"
Gimme a break. You have no idea what you're talking about. If you'd actually done any real reading on the subject, you'd know that your arguments have been rebutted many times in many places. Quit wasting our time with this crap. Would someone mod this inane rant down to -1 where it belongs, please?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I don't want to see Office 4 Linux at all, but what I would like to see, is regulation, enforced by the FCC, requiring all formats of data interchange to be open. I'm sure that given guaranteed, perpetual access to any standards that might emerge, the Linux development community will be able to greatly improve Linux' ability to be seen as a viable choice in a Windows world, or any other world yet to come.
I realize that given the current political climate, this is not likely to come about any time soon,
but one can still bitch and hope. (and code!)
.... make a Linux version, and give it away. The catch is, CLIPPY THE EVIL PAPER CLIP FROM HELL can't be turned off.
To remove this paperclip, please send $998 to Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp, c/o PayPal
whats stopping them from just making it crappy?
They could just introduce so many inconveniences and bugs that it wouldn't be useable and then blame it on linux deficiencies.
I don't see how this will solve anything.
How does making a Microsoft Office for Linux and Mac not fall into the continuation of a monopoly? Wouldn't it just help increase that monopoly? Mabey I'm not thinking straight...
To Live Is To Die.
NO
A few hours grace before the madness begins again.
In fact, MSOffice for Linux will mean many companies can switch to something besides Windows. Windows is really the unstable component because its poorly written. While the apps might be poorly written they are popular. No accounting manager or head buyer cares about the OS, they care about price and use.
If every other company uses office so will they.
How many companies use telephones? How many use Meridian phones vs. something else? How much do you care about what kind of phone you have compared to the features the phone has?
Its the same with any OS vs app. Linux/BSD/Beos/etc are nice but without the popular apps they suck in the common person's opinion.
Non illegemati carborundum est!
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you're wrong.
I don't care what the stupid judge said -- Microsoft is not a monopoly. It does not have exclusive ownership of means of production or distribution channels or anything else, like AT&T or Standard Oil before them did. There are other companies out there that make OSes and office applications and internet browsers, which means there IS competition, and where's competition there's no monopoly.
There's this thing that's been talked about quite a bit since the first Microsoft case. It's called network effects. Basically it means that the value of something increases with the number of people who own and/or use that thing. Take the FAX machine as the classic example. Say you built one in your garage before anyone had ever thought of it. Great, you have a FAX machine. First one on your block to have one. What are you gonna do with it? Not much unless other people have them as well.
Software works in a similar way. If I have MS Office, and so does everyone I work with, then I can exchange files with them and we can communicate. Now, What if I go out and buy some other office suite that isn't compatible (and when it comes to MS Office, nothing is 100% compatible), all my co-workers and collegues suddenly can't open the files I send them, nor can I open the files they send me. I become a pariah, get fired, wife leaves me, takes the dog with her, and I end up scrounging for food in the dumpsters outside of Burger King. You see why this is a tough situation? Unless you can get a majority of users to switch virtually all at once, you can't ever switch to an alternative, no matter how appealing it is. You simply can't afford to lose access to your existing documents, and you can't afford to not be able to exhange documents with others.
Now, this is why Microsoft is a monopoly. Not because there are absolutely no alternatives. It's because there are very high barriers to entry in the OS market. It's not just that Windows has 90% of the market, it's that 90% of software written by practically any company is written for Windows. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. It doesn't matter whether they got where they are because they made a good product or not. The rules exist to protect the public from getting screwed. When a company gets to the point where it is utterly dominant in a market, and especially when there are huge barriers to entry in that market, it is considered a monopoly.
That, alone, is not a bad thing really. The problem is that once you become a monopoly, you have to play by a different set of rules to ensure that you don't use your power to harm consumers. Microsoft broke those rules bigtime. Many times over, knowing full well that they were doing it. They have alternately lied about it, joked about it, and claimed that they will continue to do it, regardless of what happens. Face it. We don't have unfettered capitalism in this country (or any other that I'm aware of). You can bet that Microsoft doesn't want unfettered capitalism either. We have laws that govern our commerce. Microsoft broke those laws, plain and simple. They were warned repeatedly. They did it willfully. They deserve a LOT worse than the pathetic settlement they'll get.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
here's another great example of processed media:
In its settlement proposal, the Justice Department opted to let Microsoft remove access to bundled features, such as Web browsers and media players, rather than the actual programs.
can someone tell me what the difference between a web browser/media player and a program is?
But what the states are asking for is lame. Come-on, I'm from Utah, Utah is only thinking of Novell and WordPerfect, Cali is only worried about Sun, and Oracle. I think the states have the right intentions, but they are asking for the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
First off Java for Windows? I've never had so much fun watching the windows sun fight over the last few years. First Sun makes Java, then Windows supports it, then MS extends it in a stupid way to support COM, then Sun bitches and says its platform dependant and take away their logo (Its just the logo Sun can bitch about, I mean anyone can make a piece of windows software that can do anything, but if you want the Windows logo on your box you have to do it MS's way, same thing with Java). So MS says they will take the logo off the box. Sun still bitches, so MS stops making Java. Then Sun starts making stupid platform dependant API's for Java themselves (same thing they got upset at MS for doing. The API I'm talking about there is the first gen of the 3d api). So let me get this straight, if MS makes a new Java API, they are just trying to ruin it, but if Sun does the same thing they are just adding features? Then Sun says they don't want MS to do any Java. MS says fine and sticks to just supporting one old version. Then Sun says then need an updated SDK. MS finally says, you know what we just will not even include Java period, too much hassle. Now Sun is bitching because Java is not included in Windows. Man this shit is funny. Now 9 States want to force the government to include Java. Guys its just a stupid download, my hell. MS may be likened to an greedy, sneaky asshole, but Sun is like a 4 year old kid who doesn't know what he wants.
Lets talk about the donation to the schools. I can see how Apple wants to bitch about it come on, half of their money comes from Schools, so if MS gives stuff to them for free, then why would then spend money on Apple? Apple will lose a nice percentage in sales.
Now lets talk about a stripped down version of Windows. This is lame too. I've hated all of the strong arm crap MS did (and still does), but I've always supported their rights to includes features they wanted. Does anyone remember the lantastic days? MS had windows 3.0 and DOS out, no networking support. Lantastic finds a nice niche market selling networking addons. Then MS includes it in windows for workgroups. Now Lantastic wonders who the hell is going to buy their product if its build into windows. Good question, but networking should be in the OS. Now days we have the same damn thing going on, every feature MS puts in will question some 3rd party product. That's not going to change. Should a basic explorer come with the OS? I think so? Hell every Linux distro I've ever installed has included at least on browser, sometimes even more than one.
As far as I can tell, all of these deal issues are meant to benefit other companies in other states. Nothing here is meant for the consumer. You can't tell me that the anti trust vision of everyone having to go to the store and buy 10 different products just to run a basic computer is in the consumers best interest. You can't tell me that schools getting free hardware and software is not in the consumers best interest. This case is no longer about consumers, it's about other businesses and their own self-interests. Could you image the press MS would get if it spent time trying to convince the government to make changes to Java? Or to Linux? Just so MS could be benefited.
.. to continue developing Office for Macs ? I don't see how they could legally enforce this. "M$ is required by law to allocate $FOO person-hours of time for Mac development". I don't know the details, but it's easy to say that M$ would produce a mediocre product just to keep the DoJ off their back. "Look Uncle, we took Wordpad and made a prettier icon, renamed it MacWord.exe, and sold it for 199$. Now fuck off."
-Billco, Fnarg.com
This is just another step in demonstrating that the government doesn't really understand the issues that are at play. Even if Microsoft made a half-assed, buggy version of Office for Linux, which is probably what it would be (not intended as a flame, but they're not going to make a stable product for a rival operating system. Period), it'd still be a -Microsoft product-. This isn't stopping the monopoly, it's spreading the monopoly out to other platforms. Why use KOffice when you can get MS Office? Why develop KOffice if no one's using it? That's the sort of domino effect that could start if too much of this is allowed.
First off there is no point in a half baked office clone. If you want that you can use Star Office for free. For Office for Linux to add value you have to do the job properly.
So you have to port the code so the product works well. The easiest way to do that is to simply port the parts of the Windows stack that Office calls. So you will end up with Office for Windows on Linux, and not really office for Linux.
There might be a market for such a product. If it existed the chances are that Microsoft would aleady be looking to exploit it. No other company could produce the code for less or market it as effectively.
If Microsoft went out and did Office for Linux voluntarily all the anti-MSFT crowd would be squeaking 'monopoly'. Strategically their office monoploy is much more important than their desktop monopoly.
Even with Office, Linux would still be unable to run many important productivity tools, Civ3 for example.
Office for Linux would probably require a particular distribution to run well. Configuration would be harder than for Windows simply because of the variation between systems. I don't think that anyone wants to suggest a Microsoft distribution.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I think there are alot of people who are refusing to buy XP because of the all the bundled stuff. If you can get a "lite" version these people are free to buy it. No need to mess with Linux. I wonder if the guys behind this are doing this because they want a "lite" version of XP.
I think all of you are overestimating how difficult it would be to "overthrow" MS Office. I mean StarOffice or OpenOffice are great because they have a price even MS can't undercut. You don't need "perfect" import/export, you need just good enough import to receive MS Office documents. Don't work well with MS Office replace it.
But I can't use StarOffice or OpenOffice, because there is no Mac version. Sun canceled their port to Mac OS X and OpenOffice doesn't have a version available for Mac OS X.
From the msnbc column: "The company "cannot take any action or threaten adverse action against anybody cooperating or participating in this litigation," said Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut."
I guess that could be interpreted to mean that MS would not be able to introduce any new products that would compete with Sun, Oracle or other companies that spearheaded the anti-trust proceedings. It's not clear how that would benefit consumers, but it's never been about them anyway.
This is ridiculous. I am surprised that so many slashdot readers agree with the idea of a court FORCING a software company to develop a program.
... ok I stop here, you see the point.
All software developers who read slashdot, how would you react if you were FORCED to make your program do something, even if you are guilty somewhere ?
And even if it was to be done, why only linux ? Why not for AIX, Amoeba, AtheOS, BeOS,
As much as I hate m$, I would never stand for that idea.
The motivation is right anyway : if I have to use office, I have to use windows or mac. This situation is anti-competitive for the OSes that do not run office. But instead of FORCING m$ to MAKE office for linux, I think the solution is FORCING m$ to OPEN the windows APIs or I don't know what so that ANY m$ program can run on linux with a proper API translator or something.
the same way you can run linux on an INTEL or AMD cpu with an IBM or QUANTUM hard-drive, you should be able to run a windows program on ANY os (provided of course that the os developers have coded an interface or something, which can be a terrible task).
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
The bottomline in this country is that capital has completely captured the regulatory authority of government, and through its media ownership drastically undermined the legitimacy of government oversight with a Long March of corporate subsidized pro-elite ideology - now 20 years old at least. MS therefore can be guilty as hell and yet there is insufficient political will to enforce the laws regulating behavior of monopolies. The people have been told to disengage from these matters and for the most part they have. The legislators have been told not to bite the hand that feeds them and they have pulled out their own molars to avoid giving offense. Two judges so far have pretty much wrecked their careers trying to deal with MS like they would a normal defendant so the writing is on the wall for any future judge. They see the clout of the defendant, and like the Republican T. P. Jackson, they can see the ideological slant of the Court of Appeals above them: if MS can be let go on a technicality and they can be screwed in the process, that is what the Court of Appeals will do.
Under a crony capitalism style of government, which we see perfected under Bush II meaningful regulation of monopolies is impossible. (Heck, cartels of energy firms are convened behind closed doors to draft administration "energy policy" and the Vice President goes so far as to openly defy an order from Congress to reveal who was present at these meetings!) At least you can't look for sincere effort from the Feds to obtain a restoration of free and fair markets, or anything like justice. The Dems largely lack the spine to piss off corporate benefactors although the party nominally supports antitrust regulation. It takes them too long to work up the determination to do something about flagrantly abusive monopolies. And trustbusting is just not a value that remotely squares with mainstream GOP politics anymore. It's not like they are hiding that fact either: as a presidential candidate, Bush declared his sympathies were completely with Microsoft on the day they were first "convicted" and his antitrust division chief, Charles James, publicly extolled the consumer benefits of the MS monopoly during the trial. Let's face this honestly and frankly: there can be no doubt about the ideological riptide that Justice must swim against now and for the next 3 years at least. There should also be no surprise that things have come to this sorry pass. The role of big money in elections has so far overshadowed mere votes that even a party committed to antitrust regulation can only manage to do a half assed job of it.
So if there is a block of states litigating for something that somewhat reflects the fact that MS lost the antitrust case and was indeed judged to be a monopoly, illegally shielding its core market from competition and illegally leveraging that core monopoly to pursue monopolistic dominance in related markets, then you have to get behind whatever the states came up with as their alternative settlement proposal. This is the last hope folks, whether we think it's "ideal" or "flawed". There are simply no more options on your side and criticism is a luxury you can no longer afford. You can choose to let yourself be carried out by the riptide, or throw your strength in with those who are rowing back to shore, though at a slant.
Judging whether MS Office for Linux is desirable you have to weigh it against the aboslutely certain alternative. There's no mystery about what that is anymore. The alternative is nothing. Under the Bush Asscroft regime and the settlement they agreed to with MS, there will be NOTHING in the court ordered remedies that even touches on the heart of the problem, which is the entwined OS and applications monopoly. So your choice is really between what these 9 states have proposed, hoping they can get it all, and on the other hand, a crony capitalism settlement, a legal forfeit, that amounts to a Federal imprimatur of approval upon the Microsoft Windows monopoly and essentially a GOVERNMENT GRANT of MONOPOLY, rather than any kind of remedy or punishment.
Office for Linux (plus the required inclusion of Sun's JRE in Windows) is better than that submission and by a breathtakingly huge margin.
(Just so no one says I am assuming too much, I know that a requirement that MS Office be ported to 3 other non-MS operating systems doesn't necessarily mean that Linux will be one of those.)
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
NOT! Why would I want an expensive, prone to fail, with forced upgrades, and generally buggy piece of crap to run on My Linux and FreeBSD systems? I do all my work in StarOffice5.1 which in spite of it's warts is fully compatible with microcrap Office. I've run WordPerfect in the past and might again. It always beat the socks off Word. My system is stable, so why would I want to endanger it? Maybe you could ask for an M$ email agent that will infest your system with virus while you're at it.
Just by making Office for Macintosh, Microsoft is the *second* most important development house for Mac. When I say this to Windows guys they think for a second and then reply "... second after Apple?" and I reply "No, after Adobe." I never got tired of saying that when I worked at Microsoft. If they make an Office for Linux, it will be an important application. Believe it or not, it will go a long way to putting Linux on a lot more desktops in the business world and in education.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Or at least I would find that interesting.
Personally I can't see any home users who would like this idea (hell StarOffice is becoming too much like MS Office for me to use it lately - they've even got a goddamn Clippy counterpart)
The famed enterprise market is of course a different story, if you are spending $600 (or whatever it is these days) on Office, you'll likely cough up the dough for the OS on which it runs better. And lets face it, goverment or no government MS Office will ALWAYS work A LOT better on Windows than anything else (any one used MS Office for the Mac? shudder)
sic transit gloria mundi
Would I have bought MS Office for Linux six months ago? YES! Would I buy it now? Probably NOT. Why?
I made the annoucement today at our company's management meeting: I'm in the process of converting casual MS Office users to Gnumeric, Abiword and Evolution.
I was expecting to get drilled from my fellow managers regarding this decision, but after explaining why crazy people write free software their only response was "cool."
Though I've seen plenty of "I'm a Mac user and I love Office" posts here, I've never met such a person. There were plenty of Mac users at the University I used to work for. The Apple people made a good deal with the bookstore and many people became users. All of the poor devils felt pressured to put M$ junk on their machines in the mid 90s. It was an unmittigated dissater for them. The next few years, with Apple under that Pepsi looser, were just awful for them. The Mac OSs saw a serries of changes of their own, but the combination of that with M$ junk on top, shudder. MS workd became word 6 then Office which became Office 97 and there were lots of format changes that were not reflected in the Mac versions. Patches and "upgrades" had a tendency to wreck their victims. Those that tried got burt really bad.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
A resounding yes.
At work I would LOVE to use Linux has my everyday OS of choice.
The problem, we run a 50/50 split of Linux and MS servers for our Intranet applications. A good portion of applications use MS SQL Server as their RDBMS. Now this has nothing to do with Office for Linux per say, but I would like a version of Visual Studio for the MS development work.
So what we have is one company who is way to greedy and monopolistic and a giant user base of reasonably intelligent people who for some strange reason blindly follow the dogma of Open Source
which I am not sure they truly understand.
In the end we have a stale mate where huge gaps in usability and compatibility prevail.
That's where I have been stuck. Unfortunately I feel I'll be stuck there for quite awhile.
Microsoft should simply be forced to put all of their file formats, APIs, and communication protocols in the public domain. This would eliminate their unfair advantage and force them to compete based on quality.
No, I'd rather have IE for linux, but I'd like to have it done by the team that did IE for the Mac. The IE for Mac has a lot better features than IE for Windows.
I'd settle for a set of Office Previewer programs, so I can read and print the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. formats. I don't think that's too much to ask...
This is how Word killed off WordPerfect. They changed the file formats 3 times a year in fairly trivial but near-impossible to quickly reverse engineer ways circa 1995. There was so much screaming, offices standardized on Office. Some places WordPerfect was flat out banned, other places it's on more of a 'you can use it but it's got to produce stuff we can read'... which it didn't. Sigh.
Microsoft already realizes that Linux has desktop potential; in fact, they have recognized it as the number one threat to their dominance.
Microsoft publishes Office for Mac in large part because they aren't worried about the Mac's viability as a platform that is a potential threat to their monopoly. In the Mac world, Microsoft does have to play fair (more or less); the result is a superb product, which is a Good Thing. However, Microsoft probably makes as much or close to as much on every Mac sold as on every Windows machine sold because of Office sales. In this sense, Microsoft has a monopoly even on the Mac.
Does forcing them to produce Office for *nix really solve anything? It may harm their monopoly in the OS market, but it will simply extend their dominance in the office suite market, which is where the real money is anyway.
The only real solution is to force Microsoft to open their file format, as has been pointed out ad nauseum. However, the most imporant format to open is media formats. Microsoft's current goal is to establish a monopoly in the media player market, which carries the scary possibility that Microsoft will control our access to media outlets, including both entertainment and news. If they are forced to use open protocols and file formats (e.g. MP3), they might be prevented from establishing a monopoly in the one area where they don't already have one.
Office for Linux will never happen, here's a few of the reasons why:
1. Why Linux? Why not also BSD, AUX, Be, etc?
2. Which Linux? x86 obviously, but what about PPC? If I port Linux to the X-Box, does M$ have to support that platform as well?
If you want to see what an "Office for Linux" would look like, just remember what Office for Mac looked like back when M$ considered Apple to be it's biggest competitor.
As M$ is so fond of pointing out, you can't separate the application from the OS in the windows world. That's why most IT departments don't consider the Macintosh as a viable business platform: not because the apps aren't there, but because it's not Windows:
If a spreadsheet includes VB macros, it won't be usable by Macintosh users.
If a document uses Windows-only fonts, you know there'll be complaints from Mac users about an unreadable document.
Do you really want to be in front of a client presenting someone else's Powerpoint package and just hoping that there weren't and incompatibilities hiding in there to make you look like a fool?
And what rational business would choose to support an application on two (or more) different platforms when they could choose one instead; especially if one of them is directly profitable to them, and the other might just put them out of business?
The only reason M$ would release something called "Office for " would be for strategic advantage of their Windows product by proving the other platform isn't viable, or to maintain the illusion that they haven't got an absolute monopoly.
Network Effects: That's what Judge Jackson understood, that's why he was so pissed that he wanted to get the word out, and that's why he demanded that M$ be broken up. Until the network effects (including API's, File formats, application/os layering, and distribution channels) are all addressed, and a level playing field established, there cannot be an effective remedy.
A new kind of meat designed to appeal to vegetarians.
I think it funny that no one have mention this:
What if they port office to Linux, and people starts to read there email using OUTLOOK (!).
I wonder how many hours it will take before we will see the first virus roaming the network and hitting EVERY Linux box with outlook on it?
I would much rather see MS forced to reveal the document format.
This would give apps like OpenOffice and new programs a change to challenge the MS Office package.
Porting Office to Linux will only make MS monopoly stronger, by stealing users away from OpenOffice and other such apps.
And you how have used IE on Solaris know what a piece of crap that was...
Office, and its claim of 'ease of use'...
Ok, I have some issues with the claim to MS Office suite ease of use.
I work at a university in the Midwest. I support 40 people directly, among other things (support takes about 35% of my time).
My users are decent. They are good enough that they require very little support. Once a month I lead a training sessions or two (each three hours long) and I teach them new things. They catch on quickly. There comes a point where the problem isn't the intelligence level of the user, it's the software.
I've developed an opinion about MS. I've programmed in VC++, VB, used MFC and ATL. I've done extraordinary things with ADO, and made large systems that use COM. I've used MS-SQL, and I know Win95, Win98, WinNT, and Win2000 like the back of my hand (WinME? Not much experience yet, but good luck on getting WinME personal to log onto a domain). I'm also well versed in Office95 to Office 2000.
In other words, I've used MS products to solve real world problems. I've supported MS users. I've also admined novell and MS servers, and more recently, I've been getting deep in Unix based systems (although, in the case of Unix, my average users don't use it, I use it to get info for them (think Informix and card access systems for security and POS systems)).
In my experience, I've noticed one thing about MS. There are two layers to MS software (and development environments)- the tasks that the software (or SDK) was very specifically designed to do and every thing else...
Think Visual Basic. VB gives you access to many events. Open form, load form, preview key... but try to go the next step... try to capture an event that isn't in the VB set, and welcome to the world of Win32 events. Don't get me wrong, you can do it. I've done it. Window moves and resizes (think popup text-tips. I wrote a COM control that popped up text-tips right under a custom active-x control that allowed entry of metric values with a specific range, significant digits, and resolution. The popup gave feedback to the entered value.) I don't know how many times I crashed VB debugging this solution, but I got it, and it shipped.
Another point... using COM, ATL, MFC... f-ing A, I worked my ass off to get that stuff to work right. Specifically loading dynamic ActiveX controls that each controlled a specific type of hardware. The COM spec., the ActiveX spec., Trying to find some damn good info about any MS tech and using beyond the simple stuff. It is a challenge.
Don't get me started on Access. Powerful to a point, and cripple for anything beyond the basics.
Some my users are good. And MS is good for somethings. But I call bullshit on ease of use outside a very narrow range of uses. Mail merge? Use of an ODBC data source? An Access DB that does something with more than 3 tables? Is multi user? Web access? Security?
MS usability is a layer of façade over a layer of crap.
I have yet to see something moderately complicated EASY on a MS product.
I have strong faith that SOMEONE will make it easy, and I doubt it will be MS. They will still be concerned with marketing and profits while someone else will make it easy. Use Napster as a lesson. A thousand people have thought of it, but it only take one to write it.
On the other hand, MS gets much better with each iteration. The next OS will be killer. It will be full of fluff. It will offer no choices, because everything will be preloaded, but it WILL WORK. And users will user that which is loaded.
There is hope in there, but I leave it as an exercise to the student to find it.
Mean while, Monday, I will go back to work, do some work on MS, Oracle, ColdFusion, Unix, Perl, etc... but my life will be dominated by those users using MS.
-Bob
January, 2002. Steve Ballmer steps up to a podium, looking calm and collected under the harsh glare of the TV reporters' klieg lights.
Ballmer: As most patriotic, god-fearing, apple-pie-eating Americans know, Microsoft Office XP is simply the best office productivity package ever created...
Ballmer continues for sometime, raving about how "easy" OXP is for everyone from granny e-mailing her fruitcake recipes, all the way up to super-powered website developers (who all use FrontPage or MS Word, natch). As he drones on, a crazy look begins to develop in his eyes.
Ballmer: Now that Office XP is the best -- and best-selling -- office suite in human history, we've been asked by the makers of other, "non-standard" operating systems to produce versions that their customers can use. We've decided to do so, but that will mean hiring more...
Ballmer begins to scream, spittle flying everywhere, and gigantic sweat-stains appearing in the armpits of his shirt.
Ballmer: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
Ballmer collapses in a heap, twitching and muttering.
They that would sacrifice their
Remember the Middle Ages? That was when you could ask people in three different towns what a yard was, and you'd get three different answers. If MS want's to change the format every 2 years to allow new features, that's their business. However, if they won't share the specs with people, then computer technology will remain in the Dark Ages.
I see why a lot of people don't want to have MS Office on Linux. I also know through experience why many posters think it would be a blessing. You see, I've been writing papers, stories, and manuals in Word for 8 years. I have been experimenting with Linux for about 3. Granted I haven't a recent install of StarOffice, KWord, etc. to play with.
But while we may not need/want Office, Linux desperately needs a *comparable* office suite with perfect conversion filters. (Making Microsoft reveal its format details would be a good idea.) I personally dislike Wordperfect, and I could not manage to make StarOffice install on Linux. I don't really care if the Linux office suite is Appleworks or whatever, but it must fulfill these requirements:
-it must be a word processor in concept, not a LaTeX type-thing. In other words, a reasonably familiar interface: menus, toolbars, rulers, document-writing space.
-it must have an interface as wonderfully customizable as Word's. You can rewrite the toolbars and menus in that thing to be *exactly* what you want. If you can find the function in a menu or have a macro for it, you can make a button for it. Moveable toolbars are NOT good enough.
-it must be equally capable. Detailed page layout options. Foot and endnotes. Show paragraph marks and things. It *MUST* have tables as good as Word's. Text boxes, overlays, graphics toys and other tools so that you can do page layout. Spell and hopefully grammar checking, maybe a thesaurus. Whatever the heck there is in Excel, Powerpoint, etc. (You can see that I worked in Word mostly.)
As so many have said in here, letter-to-grandma word processors do not cut it for any but the most casual non-programmer user. We *need* something as capable as Office/Word that is not too foreign. Without it we cannot switch.
Until I get one, I'm using Office.
> a monopoly.
> That, alone, is not a bad thing really
It is. Capitalism assumes competition. If there is no real competition, then capitalism just doesn't work out.
Why?
For one, because customers have no choice anymore. That's already bad by itself. Maybe I don't like Bill Gates' glasses and don't want to have to do anything with this guy. Why should I be forced to give my money to him?
Second, the monopoly can then do (almost) whatever it wants and will get through. It can screw its customers, e.g. "allow" itself to invade the harddrives of the users. (Interestingly, both MS and the music industry have been reported to do/try exactly that.) Users won't be able to stop them, because they can't vote with their feet (buy something else). Heck, strong monopolies are often even slightly above the law (again: MS and the music industry), sometimes because even the government depends on the monopoly (like in the case of MS).
> The problem is that once you become a monopoly,
> you have to play by a different set of rules to
> ensure that you don't use your power to harm
> consumers.
One problem is that there is no such set of rules. Monopolies tend to have a lot of money and employ a lot of smart people trying to figure out how to work around the rules and still achieve their goals (read: harm consumers). In all cases I know of, they succeeded.
> They deserve a LOT worse than the pathetic
> settlement they'll get.
Right. Somebody so ignorant of the law deserves to be destroyed or taken away several times of what he got by ignoring the law. In the case of MS, that's probably in the area of x hundred billion dollars. The current settlements are a very sad (and fatal!) joke.
That's a bogus argument.
At least it's an argument, not a lame put-down.
Second, once people are on Linux, MS Office will have to compete on it's own quality against the open source office apps,
When people's first impression of Linux is an intentionally crappy MS app (even crappier than on Windows), they'll stay away in droves.
ALso, if MS apps are available on Linux, does the development of native, free apps continue? All MS has to do is pre-announce it, then never deliver or deliver crap, to do real harm. Actually, I'm surprised they haven't done it already - probably afraid to lgitimize the enemy that much. I'm against this almost as much as I'm against WINE. At least with this, it's MS wasting their time - with WINE, we've got real talent chasing the MS API moving target - which they'll never catch because MS will conceal or lie - when they could be working on native apps.
But I still go back to my main point - if you use MS apps on Linux, you're still using MS apps. You're still voting for MS with dollars. You're still endorsing MS 'extended' protocols and closed file formats. It's just slightly less so than using MS apps on windows.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
bah, it's not like anyone would buy it. even if office for linux was feasible (which, IMO, it's not), there are plenty of free (and non-free) alternatives.
office is a fair competitor, if not disadvantaged on the linux platform. dont force MS to do anything there
as far as anything else goes, tho... aw hell, crucify em =)
____________________________
What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
"Make me one with everything."
Actually, where I work, this would not help.
I have to use Lotus Notes. That's where IBM
could show us that they mean what they say.
Well, considerring that MS wouldn't be the one to do the converting, would in fact have to open its source code to three other players in an auction (I bet on IBM & Sun, and maybe Apple as well).
There goes the "they will make it suck" arguement.
But who here thinks that what those companies will do is take WINE, fix all the problems that it currently have with Office (and it doesn't have that many) and just compile it with winelib ?
It should be a much shorter work than to convert Office to Linux.
Also, Wine is a much smaller application than Office, so porting it to other dist/unixes (and no, that isn't always as easy as recompile) should be much easier.
The advantage to the community is that we would get a much improved WINE, I don't know about you, but IMHO, if WINE can manage to run Office well, then there won't be much left to improve in it.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
I'd like ms apps just for compatability with those not yet enlightend to the existance of ne thing else then MS.
/usr or /usr/local stuff with access to my libs.
/. about it a few months ago), that way i can firewall that machines address.
but i would hava a hard time trusting any ms code to be running it as root, or even installing it to my
I'll probably setup a MS user account and run ms s/w chroot or even in a virtual machine (in bsd theres jail(), i forget what it was for linux there was a
(it obvious that at min winME and media player have chats with the ms server if they spot ur online)
i not worried about ms progs crashing, cause i trust my kernel wont let that interfior with the rest of my sys, so i can go about doing what ever i was doing and ignore it
and hey if ms have to learn to dev for linux they might catch on how ur supposed to write a proper OS, API and code
-Trevelyan
I hate Microsoft. I hate Office. But I'm a professional translator and I can't do my job without Office. And I can't do Office without Windows. If Office was available for Linux (or FreeBSD hopefully), at least only the office suite would suck instead of the whole friggin machine.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
After reading the Cringely article, and then scanning the media summary of the States settlement proposal, I am very concerned about how Microsoft can declare open season on any "non-commercial" software product. The lack of legal standing on the part of the non-business entities - such as Gnu and other open source, non-profit organizations be they formal or not - seems to remain. Perhaps it is asking too much to expect that the States address what is apparently one of Microsoft's principle strategies, but without interoperability (i.e. open standards that are really adhered to, such as file, security, networking protocols etc.) there will be no interoperability. And that will effectivly end open source software.
I want to see: MS must disgorge illegally obtained profits; MS must be effectively constrained from engaging in the behaviours that were found to be illegal (here is where the States proposal is most clearly superior to the Justice department's proposal); and MS must provide access to all interfaces to all of its products, this information must be available to any entity that requests it and no internal MS group may have preferential treatment or have access to features, functions or interfaces that are not available at the same time to external entities.
To hear the gods laugh tell them your plans.
While I think it would be a brilliant idea to force MS to open their file formats, I would like to point an accusing finger at the non-MS Office suites. Every one of them have their own 'proprietory' file formats. Why? We're shooting our own feet off where we could be directly competing with MS Office and really putting the squeeze on MS.
Just imagine how different the world would be, if KOffice, StarOffice, HancomOffice, AppleWorks, etc, all used the same file formats. To be able to write a document in AppleWorks and share it with someone using KOffice, what a joy.
Further more, it would create a second standard of sufficient importance that through market pressure, Microsoft would eventually be forced to build import/export filters for it into MS Office.
Users would choose to use the Industry standard, platform agnostic file formats because of the security and platform choice it would give them.
And competition amongst the Office suites would take place where it should be. i.e. in the quality of the code, the elegance of the UI design, and the integration with the toolkit/platform of choice.
The point I'm making is that we don't need MS to open its file formats if we actually have the will to stand together instead of doing our own individual thing all the time.
United we stand, divided we fall. Time worn, basic common sense.
Is it just me or is everyone missing out on a really major provision in this settlement? Look at this.
:)
12. Internet Browser Open-Source License. Beginning three months after the date of entry of this Final Judgment, Microsoft shall disclose and license all source code for all Browser products and Browser functionality. In addition, during the remaining term of this Final Judgment, Microsoft shall be required to disclose and make available for license, both at the time of and subsequent to the first beta release (and in no event later than one hundred eighty (180) days prior to its commercial distribution of any Browser product or Browser functionality embedded in another product), all source code for Browser products and Browser functionality. As part of this disclosure, Microsoft shall identify, provide reasonable explanation of, and disseminate publicly a complete specification of all APIs, Communications Interfaces and Technical Information relating to the Interoperation of such Browser product(s) and/or functionality and each Microsoft Platform Software product. The aforementioned license shall grant a royalty-free, non-exclusive perpetual right on a non-discriminatory basis to make, use, modify and distribute without limitation products implementing or derived from Microsoft s source code, and a royalty-free, non-exclusive perpetual right on a non-discriminatory basis to use any Microsoft APIs, Communications Interfaces and Technical Information used or called by Microsoft s Browser products or Browser functionality not otherwise covered by this paragraph.
From what I read here, Microsoft would be forced to release IE code as early as its beta stages under a license that bears a strong similarity to the LGPL. They would also be forced to completely explain all underlying APIs and such.
Thinking of it, I wouldn't mind having IE for Linux, if only its security holes would be plugged up first
---
Am I a hipster-doofus?
This is so naive. Fine, M$ gives the sources to Office to a third party, which ports it to Linux. But in the meantime, M$ simply comes out with a new release of Office, using a new file format, that breaks the format in the Linux version. So, we've gained nothing, Gates gets huge licensing fees for a dead product and laughs in our faces.
The *only* solution to the M$ monopoly is to compel M$ to use open protocols for information interchange, both networking and application. This will let other competitors into the M$ arena, will prevent M$ from using its desktop monopoly to take over the server market, and - best of all - it is objectively verifiable. Anything is simply a waste of time.
If, as you guys claim, you're all about freedom, you should fear and condemn a government that will attempt to force a software company to produce certain types of software or prevent them from producing other types, or dictate how products can be bundled together. Instead you're a bunch of freakin' cheerleaders for fascism.
I am saving up money and plan to buy a dual processor G4 mac with macosX( if mol supports it)and OfficeXP as well as adobe photoshop with Debian. To top everything off apple is finally getting good java support from sun so I can even run IE and java applets. Sweet.
Now if only I could afford the $2,400 21 inch apple lcd monitor.
http://saveie6.com/
-Legion
It is. Capitalism assumes competition. If there is no real competition, then capitalism just doesn't work out.
True enough, but you can't mandate competition where there is none. Sometimes one solution is just better, and our IP laws help to make sure that there will be only one provider, or at least one provider will be the most efficient, for a period of 20 years where patents are involved. A monopoly can offer benefits to consumers. Efficiency, lower cost due to volume, and compatibility, and depending on the market there could be others. The problems really only arise when a monopoly abuses its position to prevent others from introducing new ways of doing things, or by charging consumers more for their product because they have no competition. When there are significant barriers to entry, these problems can be magnified.
One problem is that there is no such set of rules. Monopolies tend to have a lot of money and employ a lot of smart people trying to figure out how to work around the rules and still achieve their goals (read: harm consumers). In all cases I know of, they succeeded
The rules exist, they just aren't enforced very often or very well. Microsoft is a perfect illustration of this. The rules probably need updating and tweaking so that they actually have teeth, and a lot fewer loopholes. Microsoft, even after being convicted, will get off with hardly a scratch. This is the second time they've been prosecuted too.
You make some good points, but I think that given our system of regulated capitalism, monopolies are the goal of most companies. I don't think that it's necessarily bad that one company comes out on top, I just think that it ends up being bad for consumers because our government doesn't enforce the law properly to keep such companies from abusing their position.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
> you can't mandate competition where there is none.
Oh, there were competition, and there still is. Apple, Mozilla and StarOffice are still alive. Linux (incl. apps) is more than ever. ISPs are also still up, mostly.
They jsut don't have a real chance (for reasons extensivly discussed). This can be changed.
> A monopoly can offer benefits to consumers.
> Efficiency, lower cost due to volume, and
> compatibility
It *can*. In practice, it doesn't. Why should it?
Sometimes, it is intentional (high prices), sometimes not (inefficiency).
> The problems really only arise when a monopoly
> [...] charging consumers more for their product
> because they have no competition
They don't have to charge *more*, just the same. In most business sectors, there is constant change and improvement, leading to lower prices or better products for the same price. Competition will stimulate (or even require that), but you cannot "regulate" the development of a market.
Sun Microsystems buys one of the three licenses for Office. They put out a version of Office for Linux. However, they also use the expertise that they get from being able legally to examine the source to improve their Star Office compatibility to 100%.
Impossible, you say? There are three licences. I can't think of too many companies that would be interested and have the cash to put up. Sun, IBM, and somebody else. Microsoft is already producting Office for the Macintosh, and it's good. (The Mac development group at Microsoft has a strong maverick culture.)
I think that Sun might just do this out of spite and to shake up Microsoft.
The major advantage to this, however, would be that Microsoft wouldn't be able to rely on its decade-old catch-up techniques for its most popular products. They wouldn't be able to keep the better API calls secret any more.
Not true. I have IE running on my Solaris box. Nothing windows related on it. There is no autoexec.bat file, or anyhing else that looks like it belongs in windows.
I heard that Microsoft basically implemented the entire Win32 API on top of Solaris, then linked IE (using Win32 calls) to that API implementation to make a workable but inefficient binary. I don't know if this is true, but it doesn't seem unlikely. You wouldn't necessarily be able to tell, since it could all be linked into the single executable from a static library...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay