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No Office For Linux, MS Patents Rejected
Bays Fil wrote to mention a ZDNet piece discussing the U.S. Patent Office's rejection of two Microsoft patents on the FAT file system. "There has been concern that if the FAT patents are upheld, Microsoft may claim that Linux infringes on Microsoft technology and will seek a royalty. Any monetary compensation could threaten the operating system, which under General Public License (GPL) terms may not be distributed if it contains patented technology that requires royalty payments." Relatedly, Dayrl writes "Microsoft reiterates its firm decision not to offer its Office Suite on Linux anytime soon. From the article: 'Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows: We have invested billions of dollars in it. We have created Office for the Mac but--and I thought I had been clear on this already when I said 'No'--we have no plans at this time to build Office on Linux,' Nick McGrath, Microsoft's head of platform strategy said.'
The sky is still blue.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
'No'--we have no plans at this time to build Office on Linux
Too bad, I was looking for something other than DVD::RIP and distributed.net which would hammer both cores of my Athlon64 X2.
Trolling is a art,
Why should Microsoft build applications for an operating system directly competing with their own?
Heck, I wouldn't even build notepad for Linux if I thought it would cause people to leave my main product.
Cogito Ergo Sum
...I guess I will just have to fork over the cash for OpenOffice
...wait a second..
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
Could fool me. I'm seen crap like that come out of much smaller companies. Maybe that figure includes all their marketing? That could add up to that figure quick enough.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You know, now I'm half-tempted to try using WINE (or a windows emulator, which I know WINE is not) to run Office on my Fedora box, just to piss off Bill. That, and I always wanted to know it it would work ^_^
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
In the end, do I care? No!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
SAMBA doesn't have anything to do with FAT, for one.
In addition, the US (the only place these patents could apply) doesn't have statutory licensing fees for patents. At most Microsoft could enjoin US users from using the vfat modules, so Red Hat and Novell would stop building them into their kernels.
Wow.
IANAL, all that.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
From the story - "Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows: We have invested billions of dollars in it. We have created Office for the Mac"
Ummmm...how can you be 100 percent focused on Windows and still develop Office for the Mac?
Maybe he meant "Microsoft is 99 percent focused on Windows". Or, more likely, he meant to say "Microsoft is focused 100 percent against developing Office for Linux."
Oh man. I'm really starting to freak out! Gimme another Google story, man. I'll do whatever you want, man. Just give me another Google story!
I thought that the headline pertained to the fact that MS files use FAT as their internal organisatin methed, therefore making .doc readers/writers breach the same patent.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The future is open.
Meh.
As MSFT's .doc format was their creation and as they have modified it frequently over the years, how is it that OO supports it for opening and saving? Locking down that format would give MSFT good leverage on the word processing market obviously, but how is this legal, was it kosher from the start for others to use the format or did MS "donate" this? Legal loophole? Whatever the answer is, is this also the case for all other proprietary formats?
I am disappointed that we can't have inferior, buggy, unreliable Microsoft software for our Linux systems. Oh, well, I guess I'll have to get over this tragedy in time. ... There, I'm over it.
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
Yes office for MacOS X
Yes office for Windows
Yes office for [any OS with a web browser]
In one of the Slashdot posts/articles someone said how MS is the new IBM with the "Oh, nothing can happen to us, we are the biggest and the best, Google and Linux are just little barking puppies" attitude.
We'll just have to wait and see (and use OpenOffice until then, of course!).
So if they are focused 100% for Office for Win, how much focus does that leave Mac users for a product that Microsoft already sells? I guess if their engineers give the project 110%, we get that last 10% to make Office work with Exchange servers.
--
$tar -xvf
"Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows"
Guess what Buster, ever heard of Xbox and MacBU? Those departments are most certainly not focused on Windows.
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
I can see this not happening for three reasons:
:D
One is the same reason that it looks like Mac Office lags slightly behind the Windows version, and that is the use of Office to try and persuade people to use/stay with Windows. Much as many people on Slashdot seem to dislike Office, it's certainly a widely liked application for many businesses and individuals (I quite like Outlook and Word, although I hate Excel and loathe Powerpoint), so making the Windows version the best of the range is an easy win to get customers on the Windows bandwagon.
Secondly, any porting of flagship apps like Office to Linux would seem to be a vindication of it as an alternative platform to Windows, and MS can't be seen to acknowledge it as a potential comptetitor...
The third reason, possibly the most relevant given the weight of opinion on this site, is that the Linux market's known antipathy to Windows for ideological reasons, technical reasons, and economic reasons (many free, Free and open alternatives!) would make the cost of porting far outweigh potential revenues.
Game dev and music blog
"we have no plans at this time to build Office on Linux"
Good, because we don't want you to build Office on Linux. In fact, just go back to building your pile of crap "Vista" and never mention Linux again. We don't give a crap what you do as long as you leave us the hell alone.
no MS office, really?... well who in the hell cares? afterall we already have OOo etc.
If MS Office did get a linux release, where would that leave the development of OOo etc?
Accept the 80/20 rule (80% of users only use 20% of functionality), and the difference's between them are neglibile, while encouring people to use linux (sometimes without a LART too), it is a very rare occasion when an average home user can not sit down and user OOo with no problem.
Personally, they can keep it, and as long as they do im happy to see more F/OSS alternative's in development
The summary covers two completely unrelated topics. One is the USPTOs rejection of Microsoft's attempt to extort the digital camera/USB stick makers (which is really what patenting FAT was about). The other story is about how Microsoft Office will never appear on Linux - so what, we don't want it.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Seriously - The linux market share on business desktops is still miniscule, and companies who would go out of their way (Yes, it's easier to stick with Windows) to use it would be likely candidates for alternatives such as OpenOffice.org. This means that they would be spending time releasing a product for a competing operating system that would likely gain them little to no profits for what gain? Slightly legitimizing their only real threat (however small it is). Does anyone really think they *should* release their suites to Linux? Does anyone on Linux really want it anyhow? I think any amount of market research shows that its simply not an idea worth implementing, let alone even think about.
"If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter." -Terry Pratchet, on Popcorn.
considering how many times this has come up over the years and how many stories on slashdot have been focused on this exact topic, this is obviously not 100% clear.
One must conjecture that there is something preventing this from being summarily dispelled...
[tinfoil hat]like an internal group that maintains a port of Office to Linux and other unix variants?[/tinfoil hat]
Let's recap our history:
There is no OSX on Intel
There is no iTunes phone
There is no Palm running Windows
Amiga is making a comeback
thinking...
thinking...
oh, he must mean the Macs that use Windows.
...and people who use linux are really going to fork over cash for MS Office anyway?
No Office For Linux, MS Patents Rejected
Any hypothetical Office for Linux would markedly hurt Microsoft OS sales (No, it would not cause them to completely collapse but it would definetly dent them). So I think Microsoft is about as likely to create MS Office for Linux as the USA is likely to sell F-16 fighters to Iran. I have, however, always wondered why they bothered to create the MS Office suite for Mac?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
and I thought I had been clear on this already when I said 'No'--we have no plans at this time to build Office on Linux,' Nick McGrath
I say we keep asking him. Every chance we get.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Office for Linux may have been useful and even handy a few years ago, but the alternatives nowadays are just as good. There's no reason to need Office on Linux anymore.
Anyone have the patent numbers handy? None of the articles I clicked on bothered to actually say which patents were under dispute, only that there are two involved here.
Program Intellivision!
"No Office For You!"
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Let's ignore the fact that providing software for Linux would be somewhat counterproductive.
First, nobody would buy it.
Second, everybody would whine that it's not Open Source / Free.
Third, everybody would say that OpenOffice.org / Abiword / whatever is better.
Of course I'm thinking of the highly vocal Slashdot community, but in my experience this has been the general opinion of most Linux users.
On the other hand, VMware seems to do ok...
Those costs are sunk costs. Only incremental costs over incremental benefits makes sense... Although that kind of thinking amy explain MS's current woe's
n/t
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I don't blame Bill for this one. Why develop and market a product that is targeted at users who fundamentaly, and religiously, hate your company. It's like selling bibles in bagdad.
According to the attorney, a patent application must be submitted within 1 year after the first public disclosure of the invention, which can include:
I spent a good portion of my vacation dealing with some of the last minute paperwork, because it happened to coincide with the 1-year deadline.
So, I don't understand how Microsoft can be attempting to patent FAT now. Unless they started much earlier, or are trying to patent recent modifications to FAT, I don't think there is really anything to fear.
Open source is not automatically better than closed source. If Apple released a free version of OS X for intel, do you really think people would care if it is open or not? Sure, there is a good few people who try to use open source wherever possible, but most of the public (and companies) dont really care about open or closed, they care about price and if it does the job. The latter is why MS wont release office for Linux, because currently full compatability with office is one of the last few things stopping companies switching all their pcs over.
Paul
We would quite possibly have MSOffice (and all sorts of other apps) for Linux today, because the apps division would only care about selling their apps as widely as possible.
Sigh.
Yes, there are businesses who would, which is a reason MS won't port -- it would encourage that demographic to license Office, rather than Windows + Office. MS has a major revenue stream in that software double-whammy.
Who the HELL has asked him to create Office for Linux. I thought the whole reason, so many people use Linux is to get away from Microsoft products. So, why is he having to so harshly say no to something no one would want anyway?
Nobody expects Microsoft!! Our two weapons are Office and our Windows monopoly. Wait ... three ... our three weapons are Office, our Windows monopoly, and our fanatical devotion to Bill Gates ... no ... amongst our weapons are Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, Office, our Windows monopoly, and our fanatical devotion to Bill Gates. Cardinal Balmer, bring out ... the virtual machine!!
[Insert pithy quote here]
9 times out of 10, Notepad.exe will run on Wine. :-)
If you'd seen Office for Mac, you'd know there was 0% focus on it.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
...what the answer will be but...
:-)
It's fun to make them say the word "Linux" over and over again
I can't see there being a market. Who, running Linux, would pay $300-600 for an office suite? More likely, the other way around. Keep Windows that came on the box you just bought and load your favorite [F|L]OSS apps, like most of us already do.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
it is a fucking EXPRESSION, not a STATISTIC!
Office is a huge application suite, taking millions of man-hours to create. To write it for Linux would not take significantly less time than it does for Windows, yet the market for it is significantly less. In fact, a Linux version would take significantly longer because Linux doesn't have facilities already present in Windows, such as OLE and VBA.
Not only that, but support would be a nightmare because every user would not only have a different configuration, but a completely different kernel. Guys like Oracle can dictate hardware and software requirement because people spec out systems just to run those programs, but Office has to run on whatever the user has already got.
And to top it off, this is software for a free operating system. People who run it are often not willing to pay for software or hate Microsoft.
How many Linux users are there who would pay $500 for Office to run only on a standard (say, FC3) distro? How many of those could just run it under WINE?
dom
The Office codebase has a limited future lifecycle. They need a replacement for generic thin clients, for better team-ware support, etc. In the meanwhile, to make any progress on desktops, Unix and GNU/Linux vendors need an Office-like, Office-more-or-less-compatible replacement.
The Unix and GNU/Linux vendors pay for a (conservatively estimated) 100 employees to keep OpenOffice going. So, that's like 8 - 12 million dollars a year, still trying to catch up to a MSFT bread-and-butter product that MSFT itself sees as something they themselves need to leapfrog within the next few years.
Any revenues MSFT might get from making a Linux version available are going to have a hard time helping their position to a greater degree than that 8-12 million hurts their enemies, now and into the future. So the decision not to support Office on Linux is determined by heavy FOSS investment in a dead-from-the-start alternative, mostly by Sun but with plenty of ancillary investment to spread around among other MSFT competitors. It's a no-brainer, really.
-t
1) Person A makes something. :-(
:-( You know, with competition, and a free market, and everything.
:-(
:-(
2) Person B uses that idea to make something better.
3) Person A sues the pants off Person B, and further witholds the right to compete for two decades (patents), a century (copyrights), or indefinately (trademarks)
Society suffers.
Why not:
1) Person A makes something.
2) Person B uses that idea to make something better.
3) Person A competes by making something still better.
Society benefits.
No, wait... that would be actual capitalism.
*sigh* Instead, we live in a world where making your own improved version of something and selling it is a crime. Build a better mousetrap, and you'll be sued for IP violation by the old mousetrap companies!
There's no such thing as private innovation anymore; if you can't afford a team of lawyers, you don't have any rights.
I'm pretty sure it would take a lot more than Office for Linux to get most companies to even consider switching all their computers over to Linux. But, even disregarding the effect on Windows sales, there are plenty of other good reasons for Microsoft to not give a crap about porting Office to Linux. Microsoft would have to port a huge application to a completely different OS, so that they could sell to only a tiny fraction of desktop users, many of whom would use Open Office anyway? What's the point? It just doesn't make sense in terms of sales. People always act like companies should port applications to Linux, but if the user base isn't there, why should they? Plus, Microsoft would have to support how many different versions of how many different distributions in order to even have their product available to the whole Linux market?
I think this is a lot more about Microsoft seeing a whole lot of work for little reward than being afraid of Linux.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
"Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows: We have invested billions of dollars in it."
Okay so you are focused, but your lenses are thick and your field of vision is small. If you have invested billions of dollars in it, why all the spaghetti code in the background after making several document/spreadsheet changes? Why all the security holes? Why does it include clippy the annoying pest?
For billions in investment, it better be able to do voice recoginition, layout my spreadsheets automatically, and do my laundry.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
If MS ported Office to Linux, they could take quite a bit of market share away from Open Office -- which would ultimately help them hold down the fort against the OO insurgency in Windows. Instead, they will try to ignore Linux and hope it goes away. It won't. By the time they realize this, OO will become the only serious choice for Linux users. As Linux ramps up on the desktop, people will begin to wonder... "Linux users are getting office software for free. If it works for them, why should I bother paying Microsoft? Oh, they have it for Windows too? I should go try it." Nothing stops people from thinking this way today, but there will be MORE of them doing it in the future.
When you consider all the companies who resort to offshore outsourcing, it becomes clear that we have an insatiable appetite for IT cost savings and we will try almost ANYTHING to save money. Ditching Microsoft is a new frontier of [relatively] unexplored savings opportunities. If MS doesn't hurry up and carve out a niche in the Linux world, they will unintentionally accellerate the maturity of OO as a viable replacment for MS Office. Of the two "monopoly" products, the Office market is more profitable and more sustainable than the Windows OS.
OK who was the ****** who modded this off-topic? Unless they can't understand the meaning of "allegory" and "metaphore" of course.
/., not AOL.
I really hope i don't have to explain the parent post to the mods, this is
> Linux is their sworn enemy.
That's true on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, their sworn enemy is Google.
It does not run on the same hardware, yet...
And it will probably require non trivial cracking to run on not mac-produced hardware even in the future, when mac start shipping mac os X for x86
I think you said "they care about price and if it does the job" when you meant to say "they care how to most easily conform to current trends in software, reguardless of price."
I use openoffice.org 2 (beta, I know), and while I felt MS Office was better than the first openoffice.org, I think version 2 does just as much as Office XP (which is what my wife uses at home).
When it comes to typing up documents, making graphs, spreadsheets, etc. There are probably at least 50 products that "do the job" for much cheaper than Microsoft's tools. There are probably 3 or 4 that could easily replace MS Office with little or no training. So that's why articles like this point less towards the downsides (or updsides) of Open Source development, and more towards the dangerous line Microsoft is walking, where on their left is a cliff they could easily fall off of due to the other products on the market, but on their right is the amount of FUD, Marketing, proprietary tie-ins, and momentum which currently keep them afloat.
Honestly, this type of news should spawn discussion that leads to people realizing that there are open document standards out there, and microsoft does not conform to them, and have no intention of doing so. Open Source isn't the best, but Open Standards are.
"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
There's only one reason I use fat32, and that's to format my 300gb ub2 hd. If I want cross compatibility between windows and linux, fat32 is the only way to do that. If I format to NTFS I cannot write to the drive and all my files are labeled read-only (which is really annoying when you have to copy over many files). If I format to Ext2, Ext3, microsoft will not read those partitions.
Interesting thing is that micrsoft PURPOSELY BREAKS FAT32 in windows!!! I forget the exact size, but you can only format a fat32 partition up to 30gb in windows. Microsoft really wants you using their proprietary ntfs file system. As a result I have to format fat32 from linux to utilize the whole capacity of the drive.
This is simply another case of microsoft trying to force proprietary software onto people that want nothing to do with their product.
How can I access a partition in both windows and linux if it's not FAT? The other day i tried to make a DVD IMG, and this exceeded the FAT filesize limit (4gigs). I've read about ext3 drivers for windows, but they're read-only. Bummer :(
So, any ideas?
--and I thought I had been clear on this already when I said 'No'--
God, someone woke up on the wrong side of the Evil Empire this morning.
You need a little more sugar in the kool-aid.
With that problem out of the way, if we can just get the birds to keep their damn flu to theirselves, all will be well.
On FAT, the only thing likely to be lost are the long filenames. And perhaps only writing them. FAT itself is 'way too old (1978?) and public to be patentable.
"Microsoft's head of platform strategy"? Sounds like a marketing position doesn't is. Well I guess you could never say M$ was run by engineers, run by weenies is more like it. How hard would it be to port Office for OSX to linux? You see this is where marketing knowledge comes in handy, they know few would buy it and those that did would be using it to reduce or eliminate windows desktops. Too bad the DOJ did not force them to do it.
btw, Without OpenDocument who wants it?
Do you have a logical argument for why open systems will take marketshare from closed competitors? Or is this more rah-rah bullshit?
(There may be holes in my chain of logic; feel free to correct.) I'm no super-geek when it comes to Windows, but if MS were successful in their patenting of FAT, I think that would mean that hardware makers--portable music players, flash drives, etc.--would no longer be allowed to format their internal memory with FAT. Right? If so, would they switch to something other format (other than NTFS, I'm assuming)? And if they do that, they are suddenly outside Windows' supported filesystems. And if so, wouldn't that hurt Windows or at least force them to admit that there are better filesystems out there... even ones that do not have fragmentation? GASP! Or would the hardware companies just continue making FAT products and pay MS their royalties? It seems (sadly) that this would be the case, since most of the people buying products are using Windows. But it also would be incredibly cool if someone rocked that boat and opened up the stage for more filesystems supported. As for me, I'll just keep using ReiserFS on Linux. Saves me a lot of time not having to defrag....
I wonder...
If Apple released their OS for commodity x86 PCs, would Microsoft continue to support Office for Mac?
Every sale of MS Office on Linux represents a direct loss of revenue on a Windows license and a potential loss of revenue on any other MSware a user might purchase. This particularly applies to any MS serverware upgrade crack that ties together user installations of Office.
The Linux "economy" does not expect to have to pay for stuff, or not pay much anyway. So MS might well find it extremely hard to price Office on Linux at a level comparable to Office on Windows.
Support costs would increase substantially for MS and it would no longer be possible to guarantee the "user experience" across scores of different distros and software combinations. Both would be anathema to Microsoft.
If the worst came to the worst, which it won't, Microsoft might be better off buying or teaming up with a Linux distro, adapting it MS-stylee and offering Office as closed source exclusively through it. Folks have often speculated that Red Hat, with its MS-like ambitions, would be an ideal partner for such an enterprise.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The article refers to statements by Microsoft, that MS views the ruling as a victory because all the prior art used in the case was rejected. What prior art was that? Does someone have a pointer?
The Mac is not really a competing platform, OSX requires a $400-$2500 hardware dongle and has arguably far less growth potential than Linux. Linux is on the rise in the enterprise and in government, in many cases a mandatory switch target from Windows. It is in microsoft's interest to ensure customers are dependent on Office on Windows as it increasingly (excepting Exchange) the only suite keeping their enterprise customers on the platform altogether.
PFY: "I submitted a "trial balloon" to a popular tech news website, saying we were never going to offer Office on Linux, just to test the water." /." /.!!!"
...Chair flies out of window.
Ballmer: "Were the Linux zealots pissed? Please tell me they were pissed."
PFY: "Um, no, they didn't seem to care really."
Ballmer: "Tell me the site wasn't
PFY: "Well, actually..."
Ballmer: "I am going to F**KING kill that
I'll have to live with Office 2000 under wine and OpenOffice.org. Sorry, Microsoft, Windows is banned from my personal computer and at my place of business it has only limited use. I'll use Microsoft Office again when you come out with the Linux build, and not before then. Of course since we need the MSDN Universal kit, we'll still have the latest Office for Windows on hand but it likely will not be one of the installed programs on any of the Windows development machines unless we build something that a client insists be M$ Office-based.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
They get on average $70 per PC for Windows... Double that for Office Pro.
... and this is why the Justice Department missed to boat with Microsoft. Dividing productivity products from the OS was the way to go along with the requirement to support Windows, Mac, and Linux simultaneously and identically for all for 10 years.
Someone help this poor ole country boy understand something.
Why would anybody in the open source community give two shits about putting Office on linux when theres such a push by the open source community to extend the office apps on windows?
Granted, I did not RTFA, but who is the person who is asking Ballmer to make Office for linux? Does that just not fly in the face of the entire mindset of the open source movement?
As usual, Microsoft is behind the times. In the past they bought companies that innovated so that they could catch up with the industry. However, they have a real problem this time around.
For some time now, there has been a push to run applications in the web browser. First it was e-mail and Microsoft purchased Hotmail. As the technology was refined, people started using web interfaces more and more. A while back, Microsoft sent me an e-mail saying they were dropping support for using Outlook to connect to Hotmail. Instead, they are pushing Outlook online. It works fine under Linux, though Google has a much better interface.
Now Google is working on OpenOffice online. OpenOffice still has some deficiencies. However, with all of the PhD's working at Google, I'm sure most of those deficiencies will disappear. Microsoft will have to follow suit to compete. I heard rumors that they are working on this, but don't have anything to back it up. The thing is, this time they have to develop the technology in-house. Who would they buy out? Google? I don't see that happening.
Once Office is turned into an online application, who cares what platform it's developed for. It should work on anything with a browser.
The other side of this is that Linux is moving onto the corporate desktop. If history repeats itself, people will want to use the same technology at home. One way or another, Office will either be availalbe under Linux, or it will die.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
This decision is bad for Microsoft and Good for open source.
I've had bad experiences with Virtual PC 7 for Mac OS X, I think it is a pain in the butt, and it has sort of turned me off to emulators.
You're having problems with Virtual PC? In a few months I plan on getting a Powerbook and VPC with Windows 2000 at the same tyme.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Vigor
Maybe he meant "Microsoft is 99 percent focused on Windows". Or, more likely, he meant to say "Microsoft is focused 100 percent against developing Office for Linux."
I'd say the second choice is closer to being true.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Now, back to reality... As soon as Microsoft sees a decline in Windows market share, they will push their sole remaining profitable product, Office, anywhere they can. That includes Linux, regardless of the current market-speak.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
"We have invested THOUSANDS of dollars in R&D for our buggies and buggie whips. We have no plans for producing whips or any other products for these new fangled horseless carriages."
- famous last words by a buggy whip manufacturer
Who needs MS Office anyways? Spend 399 for that? Open Office does it just as for everything I do with it... and it does it for free. Why would I taint my TuxBox with Microsoft?
MadOgre.com
Judge Jackson was incredibly perceptive in his judgement in USDOJ vs Microsoft and it is unfortunate that the appeals court chose to ignore him. The problem with FAT is that every single flash card manufacturer implemented FAT as the file system for their cards. They didn't chose it on techincal merit, FAT doesn't have any technical merit. The only reason it was chosen war that FAT is the only file system that is guaranteed to be present in every Microsoft OS. If these patents are allowed to stand, you can forget about taking pictures with your spiffy new 8Mpixel camera and mounting the pictures in your Linux box and you can forget about mounting it as a USB drive too. Unless your camera vendor provides ext2 or some Linux software to read it (fat chance), you are going to have to own a Windows box to get your pictures transfered. The card manufacturers could have come up with their own file system optimized for flash, or use one that was unencumbered like the Berkeley Fast File system, but unless Microsoft bundled support for it, it would be totally pointless, and Microsoft would be just as willing to do that as they are to implement OpenDocument. This is exactly the kind of innovation that never occurred simply because it wasn't in Microsoft's best interest to allow it to occur, and they are going to continue to fight tooth and nail to make sure it doesn't now.
It seems that if MS does get their FAT patents, this is going to hurt Linux less than most. Linux does not depend on FAT. There are about a half-dozen FS specs for Linux and FAT is the worst of the lot. Samba works fine with or without fat.
Now let's look at the USB MSD market. MS is hoping that every single player in that market pays them a royalty. MS's ability to acutally execute in a market where costs are O($3) is going to be limited: would you buy the $10 memory stick with the extra driver or the $15 memory stick that works natively with windows (but nothing else...more in a minute). More likely we'll see an explosion of "standards" which will hurt MS two main ways: 1) lots of brand new kernel-mode code means the return of the blue screen. 2) devices may work natively with non-Windows devices (home servers, other USBs, portable entertainment devices etc.) but require an additional driver to work with Windows. The first one is huge: MS depends on the HW manufacturers to do the heavy lifting and right now, they can't afford any perception of instability or insecurity in Windows. To make the most unstable part of Windows (USB FS) even more unstable would not be very smart. Next, I know at least one person who's only reasons for owning a laptop are web browsing and storing photos. If it becomes easier to handle the photo side with a system that's $150 cheaper and that can actually talk to the camera (as opposed to Windows which would need a special driver) and copy CDs (which, believe it or not, Windows doesn't do OOtB), why would she buy a Windows box? For word processing? Nope doesn't do that either? IE? I don't think so.
Today's MS reminds me of my former bank. At the time that I had given up on the completely (and like MS it took many years of incompetence to get me there) they were running an ad campaign with the tagline "The bank that can." The irony was that every time (and I mean literally every time) I asked for assistance, the answer was "We can't do that". MS is sort of there now: the OS fresh out of the box can't word process, can't print, can't copy CDs, can't play movies (except in a very small range or formats) and apparently soon won't be able to talk to the rest of your devices either. Meanwhile, they're slowly and quietly transforming the kernel into a standard Unix design. If the trend continues, Vista is going to consist of a Linux kernel and a clown suit with everything else being extra.
Why would we want Office for linux? I mean, really? We have OpenOffice
They know that Mac will never take over more than the desktop share they have now...
Actually if Apple's switch to Intel works it will encourage out more people to try Macs, they can get a MacTel and run both MacOS and Windows on it. Then once people experience Macs some will prefer it.
Mac is still a closed, for-profit outfit (obviously), and hence will never take more market share...
So what if it's closed and a for profit business, so is Microsoft and it hasn't stopped them from dominating the market. With the switch to MacTels Apple could very well gain market share.unless they drastically reduce their prices and/or offer up a x86 version of osx
That's what the MacTels are, OSX for Intels. Hopefully using Intels Apple will also lower prices.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I would seriously use Microsoft Office if it were available for Linux -- even at home.
Click here or here.
1960s/70s IBM: We have invested billions of dollars in these mainframes. Screw the personal computer, it will go nowhere!
Microsoft: We have invested billions of dollars in Windows. Screw Linux, it will go nowhere!
Some people are just oblivious to the obvious...
According to Frank's Corner you can run both MS Office and Internet Explorer on the Linux desktop. And...he shows you how.
Implementing it corporate wide would be the real trick...
With ms having a mac version of office, is there a percentage of market share that would warrant a linux version? Of course, we all know the real reasons but I'd have liked to see the question raised just to see him squirm a little
Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows ... We have created Office for the Mac
Hey, all you Linux users who are just DYING to use MS Office, raise your hands!! Yeah ... that's what I thought.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Unless you can figure out how to make customers happy outside of your monopoly zone, you're in serious trouble over the long term.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Linux is their sworn enemy
This is a funny statement because there is no specific target to go after. You can't sue Linux and Linux can't sue you. You might be able to attack a ditributor/packager but, there's a thousand more ready to take their place.
The biggest problem MS faces with Linux is they don't know how to react to it. They beat a lot of companies buy offering up competing products for free. Now they are trying to compete in an arena where everything is free and they have no idea what to do. If Linux were a business to compete against, they'd be screaming "its using an anti-competitive practice". Its not and they are lost.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Either you are 100% focused on Windows OR you are building software for other OSes. Are MS just trying to avoid acknowledging a bias or something, because their statement just doesn't make sense? From the article:
The audience member noted that Microsoft had ported Office to Apple Computer's Macintosh, to tap into the Mac desktop market, and asked why would it not to the same for the Linux desktop.
I can't seem to find Microsoft's answer to this question in the article.
Only if it did. The Amiga is my favorite computer system/OS I've used. Years ago when I got my first PC one of the reasons I got a Gateway was because they had bought out the Amiga and I thought they were going to revive it, otherwise why buy it? When I ordered my computer I specifically asked the employee at the store if he could send my reason up the chain of command, and that I had wanted to get a new Amiga when released. Only later did I realize I made two mistakes when getting a new computer, one was getting a PC and the second was getting a Gateway. If I could go back in tyme and redo things I'd get a Mac instead.
FalconShould there be a Law?
For example, a DVD player that could handle CSS gracefully would be something I would pay money for. LinDVD exists but the folks who wrote WinDVD won't sell it to the Great Unwashed. I'd also pay for a music loop composition program ala ACID or GarageBand for Linux. At this point this doesn't exist. And Win4Lin is a non-free program that I have paid for in the past and am willing to pay for in the future.
Just because I won't pay for my OS (I am a Debian fan, why should I? It's 100% Free!) doesn't mean I won't pay for software.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Well of course, why would they make MS for Linux?
Money.
Some of us Linux users aren't adverse to paying for products, you know - if Microsoft made Office for Linux, it would have been them who got my cash rather than CodeWeavers (yeah yeah, I like MSOffice - trolls telling me to switch to OOo will be ignored).
I understand the point about them wanting to concentrate on Windows, but remember Office is their bread and butter - charge marginally more for Office on Linux than Windows (on the grounds of, say, having to develop for Qt and GTK, for example) and they wouldn't lose too much through any businesses switching to Linux, and they'd gain the dollars of people like me who are home Linux users who happen to like MSOffice.
(P.S. if you don't think that's much of a chunk of cash, the home Linux market, remember that running Office on Linux is - probably, I'm just taking an educated guess here - CodeWeavers' bread and butter - a far smaller company, granted, but proof that there's a market for it)
~ Matt
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Considering Microsoft's reputation, would you want any of Microsoft's code on your Linux system. You know that they would distribute a binary only version and you would not know what changes they would make to your system.
Balmer logic.
100% focused on Windows.
30% extra effort for the Xbox.
10% focused on Mac OS X.
2% ideally watching as the FL/OSS gears up for the kill.
Expression on Balmer's face when large companies switch to OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, IBM's Workplace, and some kind of Google Java office?
Priceless!
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Strategically they will publicly deny this up until the point they are close to having a product ready for Linux. My guess is some preliminary analysis into the cost of the port has been done and the economics of supporting a Office on Linux, nothing more.
If there is a cross over point where the MS stategists feel they have more to gain by porting Office to Linux they will...that probably isn't for some years yet though, if ever. As protective as MS is, it doesn't blindly ignore trends or profittable business opportunities. Witness their 180 degree change of course when the Internet emerged as the unifying network of choice in the 90s.
If I was an MS shareholder I would be very dissapointed if MS suddenly started to play fair and eroded the value of my investment by supporting anything that increases competition.
I would.
Here's a clue for ya... The most fundamental improvements in everything were when everyone wasn't patent-happy. In fact, Patents as we have them are a recent thing- only about 250 years old. The current thinking on Patents is actually only about 20 or so old. It doesn't help things. In some cases, it actually HURTS things.
Patents do not guarantee protection on your IP - You've got to have the money in hand to successfully mount a legal offensive to defend the IP, be it Copyright or Patent.
Patents do not guarantee that you have every angle solidly held. It takes a good attorney (more cash...) and care to not make the initial filings on something overbroad. If it's overbroad, it'll get overturned if there's a request to review- almost every time.
Patents only work within the confines of countries that honor them. If they don't, they protect nothing. If you don't file them in various places, even the ones that honor them may not protect you because you've not filed in all the right places (more money yet again...).
Basically, a Patent is a mixed bag- it all depends on what you're talking about. In the case of the stuff I've got pending, it's relevent, but we're still going to have to have the money to defend the Patent. Some of the stuff that people like Bill and Co., and Bezos are filing are BOGUS and are part of the problem. They don't do anything but put Patent Attorneys on payroll.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Can't do it. With Finland ratifiying the EUCD (the European version of the DMCA) no circumvention is allowed. That mean no DVD for Linux and, if they can swing it, even Macintosh.
Basically, Apple's threat to GPL its "crown Jewels" would immediately get Linux to the Apple level... meaning that Red Hat would support Apple OS and eventually a Mac/Linux merged environment. That WOULD threaten Microsoft, because at a minimum it could grab the 3%-6% share that Apple holds and the other 1%-3% that Linux holds, which all of a sudden is a viable platform to develop software for because Apple alone is...
HOWEVER, as you said, he couldn't do that, because it would be "not in the best interests of the shareholders" who would prefer a liquidation deal...
That said, what if Steve Jobs made that Apple policy AND signed a deal as such with a third party. In that case, Steve's threat is real, because the code is in escrow and contracted to be released under the GPL...
Now, as long as making that threat credible is in the interests of Apple shareholders (which it arguably is... it makes it more likely that the Mac remains a viable desktop), then he can make the threat.
Now Microsoft has no interest in removing Office for Mac OS X...
It's all about making the threat credible by cutting off his other options, because as you noted, it isn't a credible threat. Apple no doubt has lots of RESTRICTIVE contracts like that JUST for this reason, it cuts off the other options, which means that competitors have to factor on them doing it, instead of discounting it.
Alex
Come back in 1 year!
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
As for the office suite - We have Google on our side in this battle. Go, Google, go!
I grew up during the 1980's with the understanding that copyrights lasted forever. Everyone around me had drunk the same KoolAid and few people could respond to strange questions from a child like, "Why not write every possible combination of text characters and get the copyright on the English language?" or the same idea with musical scores.
The situation would have made a whole lot more sense if there was any news about copyrights expiring but it just didn't happen until I was an adult, with the 1998 Extension Act. Well, considering that law, I guess it's now true that expirations won't happen anymore.
This is not my sig.
C'mon, admit it. Nobody ever thought that they were illegally using FAT's technology when Linux (and other stuff) used FAT. Whether FAT is good or not is totally irrelevent, as is whether MS should patent it. Nobody checked ... period. You should remove it to conform to the GPL ... period.
First of all, there are a million reasons why you wouldn't run Microsoft Office on Linux and I don't have the time or energy to go into them here, the main reason why you WOULD run it is simple, it's far and away the best office suite on the planet. But, with the onset and continued development of Codeweaver's Crossover Office, there is no need for Microsoft to ever develop Office for Linux, as I can attest, under CX Office, it runs near flawlessly. The only significant problem, that I can recall, is that email management rules did not work under CX Office 4.2 with Office XP, beyond that, it was spectacular. Let Microsoft continue their imbecilic ways and continue to make a way for a niche market, just as they did for CX Office.
How about this: We remove from Linux the ability to create FAT filesystems. Seems to me this is similar to what happened with GIF images a few years ago. If someone on a Linux box wants to access a FAT filesystem, and they don't have the software to create the FAT filesystem themselves, then someone else had to create it for them. That someone else is either going to be:
So, it seems to me that this boils down to Linux users who don't deal with FAT not having to worry about it and Linux users who do deal with FAT having paid indirectly for the license through the software or device that creates such filesystems in the first place.
Is this really a big deal (other than philosophically)?
"This signature quote intentionally left blank"
Thanks greatly, I've been looking for a Reiser IFS component for windows now for quite awhile. Looks like that project isn't quite in the stable arena yet, but it's definately one I'll keep a watch on!
Here's the T-shirt Bill Gates should be wearing. The caption says "I invested billions in Windows, and all I got was this T-shirt", along with a picture of the BSoD.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
fyi
it isn't "Money is the root of all evil", but rather "Love of money is the root of all evil."
http://www.bartleby.com/59/3/loveofmoneyi.html (but to shorten it changes the meaning too much)Who said anything about DeCSS? As long as you have a licence from the DVDA you can implement a legal CSS decoder for Linux. Exactly what LinDVD have done.
Imagine ten people putting in 1 hour each every day on the project. They put in one hour of work, but because they share the end results they get nine hours of "other peoples work" for free. It sounds unfair: get nine hours of work for doing one hour. But it obviously is not.
That's the payoff. It's always been the payoff, that and whatever can be made from packaged distribution. Donations are a nice icing to the cake, but anyone who uses Linux or Firefox or OpenOffice or Apache in their day to day life has no call to turn up the guilt level if they don't get sent any.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
A) The headline is terrible. "No Office For Linux, MS Patents Rejected" is a mutant headline about two different stories.
B) Despite the use of "relatedly" the two storie are not related in the sense that is commonly used in news items. Yes, both stories concern both Microsoft and Linux but there is no relation between Microsoft losing its patent fight and and its decision not to port Office to Linux.
Insert witty sig here.
Mac OS isn't really a direct competitor to Windows. Linux runs on the same hardware that Windows does, Mac OS does not. Linux is a competitor to both Apple and MS.
Starmen.net
As the saying goes: "When a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps, when he says perhaps he means no. When he says no, he is not a diplomat. When a lady says no, she means perhaps, when she says perhaps, she means yes. But when she says yes, she is no lady."
Clearly he is no diplomat, but he may be a lady, in which case we might still see MS Offix one day...
With regard to Office for Linux, isn't this the whole idea of .NET and Mono? One must assume that they'll eventually want to port Office to .NET, which means it'll probably run on Mono, as well. Same goes for most new software projects.
Am I wrong? I know mono doesn't really support Windows Forms right now, but it's planned. Assuming its completion, what's the problem? Mono can presumable be ported to lots of architectures, so... MSOffice for *BSD? Solaris? Someone clue me in here.
Thanks,
Walrus
From article:
This doesn't sound like a out-and-out rejection of the patent, which the headline led me to believe. It looks like Microsoft will be able to keep this patent with a little more work...
They even had Word for Solaris back in 1996. Saw it, ran it, didn't like it.
But to spin the message. Linux is hurting them bad.
No. MSIE for Mac was definitely a steaming pile of dog crap. I am a professional web designer, and I worked in the Mac Lab in my university. Trust me, when I tell you that.
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
After Microsoft ports Office to Apple's Intel machines, compatability software will emerge, for free, which will allow Office to run on Linux and X. Betcha $0.25. Apple Wine, anyone?
I've seen a bunch of comments complaining about how microsoft is just scared that they'd legitamize windows. Uhm... yeah. whatever.
I think microsoft's thoughts went something like this:
1. We'd spend millions of dollars porting office to linux, and some more money marketing it.
2. Our available market would be the ****DESKTOP LINUX MARKET*****. that's like 6 people.
3. Since linux *sucks* on the desktop, those 6 people can only be die hard microsoft hating linux fans. 1 will buy it to write a review for slashdot bashing how poorly the port was done, and claiming that microsoft is trying to make desktop linux look bad. The rest will pirate it, use it on a regular basis, and feel superior because they've never given money to microsoft.
4. that's about $400 revenue, and a huge net loss
The lesson here, is that in the real world, sometimes people do things for reasons other than a sense self rightious indignation.
'No'--we have no plans at this time to build Office on Linux
Well as George Carlin said
" Good, fuck em' "
I'm damn tired of people thinking M$ Office will bring Linux into the mainstream-it's already ridding the wave folks. Smell the sea water. This crap doesn't happen over night! It took 10 years already, ya think it only take 2 more?
The Mac Office version has always had some level of problem in incompatability, as it was not the golden native x86 Windows Office product. It would never be 100%.
I run MS office on Linux using Crossover Office and it is terrific. No overhead of VMware, and it works pretty darn good for 99% of what I need to do (view doc xls and do simeple edits)
Check it out, it is only $40 and it lets you use your current legal office copy on your linux box. Plus it installs a lot of nice browser plugins and some fonts too. Easy install, professional stuff.
What about it? There are patents on VFAT, Linux/BSD/whoever implements it. Now what can Microsoft do? Can they claim damages for all copies sold by Red Hat, SuSE? If yes, why are these companies still shipping VFAT code, putting themselves at legal risk?
Bill: Dude, that's FAT!
Ted: Suite!
And on sundays Steve hates everyone. The rest of Microsoft, though, is in a friendly mood on Sunday.
I really wanted to change my sig to something witty, but all I could come up with is this.
Plus, Microsoft would have to support how many different versions of how many different distributions in order to even have their product available to the whole Linux market?
Is there a version of firefox for every distro?
Is there a version of OpenOffice for every distro?
Or does the same binary just run on every distro?
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
I take it you haven't actually used Linux before? The only reason most open source applications run on all distributions is that if they don't work, people can make any necessary changes or recompile it with whatever options are needed to make it work for their distro.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
What's the big fuss about Office not being available for Linux? OO2, when it is released as stable, has a greater number of features than Office 12 anyway. I see the whole non-techie world oohing and ahhing over the fact that Office 12 can turn a doc into a PDF. Big friggin whoop. OpenOffice has been doing this for a long time. OO has better database support, good stability, and provides an easier interface to use all it's functionality. Office only allows you to easily use the features it thinks won't get you in a lot of trouble because M$ has this attitude of superiority and thinks that the average computer user can't LEARN to use their computer. They have created a culture of dependency around their products to where people think that if they use something else like OO, they won't be able to use their mouse or something ridiculous like that(anyone remember those little helpers we used to put above the function keys). As for the fella up there who said OpenOffice was "buggy". I've been using it every day for almost 3 years... and I use a large set of features. I haven't run into any more bugs there than I did using Office. Besides, your only choices are not OO or M$. The United States Government now uses WordPerfect, which is a perfectly good commercial alternative to Office.
My questions about there being a different version for each distro were rhetorical -- in repsonse to the charge that Microsoft would need to support a whole lot of distros if they released Office for Linux.
I've never compiled Firefox or OpenOffice for my distro, and the versions I downloaded are not specific to my distro. I guess they work because they're staticly linked. I don't know the details - it just works.
I've done the make config, make install thing on tarballs too, and that just worked.
I'm guessing that if Microsoft ever do Office for Linux, it will be staticly linked binaries rather than source tarballs.
I take it you haven't actually used Linux before?
I switched from dual-booting linux and OS/2 to running linux only in about 1997.
One of my first distros was Caldera Open-Linux (remember the Tetris game during the install?)
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.