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IBM Wants to Port Office to Linux
shfted! writes "OSNews reports: As part of its initiative to put Linux on the desktop, IBM Corp. wants to migrate Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite to Linux. Microsoft said it's not involved and suggests that IBM might do it by emulation."
or crossover office
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Yeah, this is great news and it only proves that IBM's in it for real. IBM is also creating a _desktop_ version of Linux - Blue Linux. It's not out yet, but PC Magazine's John Dvorak has already seen it.
HERE's the PC magazine article about it.
Crossover Office has been great for me on my laptop. I work at a plant with 1000 Microsoft users and they can't write a five-word meeting notice without putting it in a Word document. For the sub-$60 license fee, it has been worth every penny. I keep Star Office going on my Sun and Ooffice on my desktop linux system, but more often than not, they can't properly open MS documents. Yes, it would be great if I could convince a billion dollar company to convert all its employees to Ooffice, and convince all our vendors and customers to convert, and convince all the technical organizations to use Ooffice presentation software at the conferences. But instead, I just paid the $60 and got back to work.
I can't believe no one has pointed this out yet:
From the article:
"Microsoft said it's not involved and suggests that IBM might do it by emulation."
IBM:"..But we're working together with Microsoft, who have provided us with part of their code. We've worked together like that previously."
So Microsoft isn't working with IBM but IBM is working with Microsoft because MS has provided them with part of their code. Hmm does MS have split personalities or something?
Pointy haired boss, a reference to Dilbert. Its an acronym that really isn't catching on.
Well, to be more correct, Mainframe refers to the architecture. You can run Linux on a Mainframe, and Linux isn't a mainframe OS (yeah, I know you usually run Linux/390 under VM, but whatever). The Mainframe is really quite unlike any microcomputer architecture in the way it deals with IO (devices can actually talk to each other directly, I believe) and that is what makes a mainframe a mainframe, not its operating system.
-twb
Is this why IBM have never had anything to do with Java?
Nothing what so ever.
On virtually any other point about Microsoft I would likely agree with you, but on this one, you're wrong.
At this location on Microsoft's web site you can download the Word 97/2000 Viewer. It runs on 95, NT, 2000, and XP. You can also search "viewer" on Microsoft's web site and come up with viewers for their other applications, including a version of Word Viewer that works on Windows 3.1. I've tested the viewer and it works fine. Many government sites actually offer a download or link to get the Word Viewer.
There's nothing wrong with bashing Microsoft over their bloated software, or Machiavellian anti-competition tactics, but this time you just threw this assertion out that was entirely false.
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On virtually any other point about Microsoft I would likely agree with you, but on this one, you're wrong.
There's at least one popular OS not listed there -- Linux. You also have to wonder exactly how well it'll work on documents that the user's decided to turn on a bunch of useless bells and whistles. It lists the publishing date as 1999. It does say version 2000, so perhaps they updated it a year later.At this location on Microsoft's web site you can download the Word 97/2000 Viewer. It runs on 95, NT, 2000, and XP. You can also search "viewer" on Microsoft's web site and come up with viewers for their other applications, including a version of Word Viewer that works on Windows 3.1. I've tested the viewer and it works fine. Many government sites actually offer a download or link to get the Word Viewer.
In any case, just having a document viewer doesn't solve the problem with Government picking an office suite that's propritary and not free. How about the occasion (which is definitely not rare, I've run across it nearly everytime I needed something from a government agency) where you download the document and have to fill it in with your information, then save and send it back? In that case if you only have the viewer, you're SOL. Well maybe not totally SOL, but best case you have to print out the blank document, fill in the information by hand, then mail it and wait for several days for it to arrive and get processed.
And then you still have that annoying little problem of no viewer available for Linux, Solaris, BeOS (ok, yeah I'm nitpicking with that one), etc.
What will never happen, but would be awesome, would be for IBM or somebody to pump a load of money into increasing the performace/memory footprint of wxPython. Bring it up to the level of C#.
Sorry, but that can't be done: Python is a nice language, but it is not designed to be compiled as efficiently as C#. If you want C#-like (or C++-like) performance, you need C#/C++-like language features, and Python just doesn't have them.
It's Free and doesn't have all that Java baggage.
So is C#.
The next step to Utopia would of course be a wxQt port...
Why in the world would anybody want to bother? Just use wxX11.
IANAL and IANAUS (US citizen) but a well-informed EU citizen and at least where EU legislation applies that make that completely impossible (and feel free to tell me what the case is in the US). Most of this comes from an EU consumer rights brochure I obtained from the consumer rights authorities (in Finland, similar exist in other EU countries) - strangely I haven't found it online: :)
The brochure points out that EULA:s especially are completely invalid due to two reasons: 1. All terms entered once a purchase has been made are invalid (and you've already paid for the product when you see the EULA). 2. All click-through agreements, which require you to click "Yes" in order to access some service (such as a website and so on) are illegal if they prevent you from accessing when you click "No" (I have yet to see this enforced, though, but obviously such "agreements" are invalid even though you might click "Yes". As far as enforcement is concerned I've heard about a few cases where it might soon be enforced - sites which require you to accept advertising to your cellphone, if you wish to use the service). So as far as software is concerned, only normal copyright applies (i.e. do not make illegal copies). So even though an EULA might forbid reverse-engineering you can reverse-engineer software day in and day out until you get sick of it.
In addition to that it is illegal to make consumers to buy product A if they buy product B. So consequently requiring that consumers buy Windows if they want to use Office is illegal (so as long as they can run Office using wine there's no problem).
An additional note regarding this (even though you didn't bring it up): Claiming that something is "free" if it requires you to buy something else is illegal - so if a store advertises "buy X get Y for free" you're legally entitled to get Y without buying X (and thus a store being stupid enough to advertise that way is soon screwed). This and EULA:s (requiring that you own Windows) being invalid actually makes MS "free" Internet Explorer download useful for me. I no longer have Windows anywhere but IE runs well enough under wine to test websites and thus it is not only cost-saving (since in this case it actually is _free_ since I pay nothing for it) but also very convenient - running tomcat on linux and testing the localhost site with IE is very nice
Karma. Moderation. Is my
"Blue Linux" does not exist. What we have is Linux Client for E-Bussiness (C4EB), a Linux RH9 desktop that includes IBM apps such as a Lotus Sametime (an excellent Instant Messaging program) client, a Lotus Notes client (Windows version) running under WINE, and a few other things useful in the IBM Intranet.
There are about 20,000 users or so at the moment, and the IBM Linux desktop community is very active. The IBM CIO is extremely supportive: whenever we see a boneheaded internal site requiring MS IE only or other such atrocities, we report it and the Office of the CIO puts pressure on the site's maintainers to toe the line and support Mozilla.
Bottom line: "Blue Linux" = customized RedHat 9. It's hardly our own distro. But IBM is not just promoting Linux and recommending it to customers. We're also eating our own dog food.
We are studying a migration to a Fedora-based C4EB.
Lots, suprisingly.
.conf file, you can specify that Wine try to emulate NT, 2k, or XP.
It has changed gradually. People just keep writing more and more comprehensive DLLs.
In your
98 mode, however, works much better than any of the NT modes, but the NT modes are coming along nicely.
The NT modes do not integrate well with native DLLs, which is a problem---most of that stuff needs to be written from scratch.
But it is coming.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell