Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft denies Linux Office interest
crow writes "The Boston Globe columnist who started the rumor that Microsoft is porting Office to Linux now has a column where he reports that Microsoft claims it has no efforts underway to port Office to Linux. In fact, Microsoft claims that there has been no interest from customers about Office for Linux. However, Microsoft now has an email address where people can comment about Microsoft applications in regards to Linux: linuxq@microsoft.com " Quite frankly, I'll be happy man if I never have to see that little paper clip again. Ever.
http://www2.vmware.com/
sort of makes this irrelevant.
My wife uses Excel on a mac and pc. Exel never can completely read from pc to mac or vice versa. I don't want those kind of nightmares. Universal file formats are the only way to go!
I've got VNC. Personally I don't want MS garbage running amok on my system in any event, can you IMAGINE the kind of crap they'd require to get it to run?
Heh. Even "The Bill" must succumb to the will of the users.
What are you talking about? It isn't irrelevant because I still have to install a trashy M$ OS, still have to (if I want to be legal) license the damn thing, and still don't have applications that will run natively on my OS of choice! Not to mention not everyone has the horsepower of the recommended PII processor to run vmware with necessary OS's. I must say that I am pretty happy with the way Linux performs on a P-133 with 96MB RAM still today. I guess VMWARE will do *ME* no good any time soon because I can't afford to upgrade my hardware to what I WANT...
So we are back to being relevant again. Please go Corel and Star Division and make all the native apps you can!
While the beta is free, the going rate for this thing when it will be finished is over twice what you would spend for Win98! It's bad enough to have to pay the inflated prices for buggy Win32, but it's even worse to additionally have to pay out hundreds more for something that allows Win32 to run in Linux. So, aside from the astounding performance of this emulator (make sure you use the utilities file too), there are two things that would keep me from buying the finished version - inflated price and inflated price. Now, if they would be so kind as to come out with an LE Version for use of Win32 on Linux only for a greatly reduced price (or free), or if by some act of God they decide to GPL the whole venture, then I'm there. (GPL GPL GPL GPL - are you reading this VMWare>)
Mike
Simson Garfinkel, the columnist in question, has written six books on computer issues, including the O'Reilly book on PGP and a couple O'R books on security issues. You may disagree with his evaluation of StarOffice's WP program, but rest assured that he has indeed seen a Linux box once or twice.
I spend several hours downloading too, did'nt
work on my glibc 2.1 (why?), so I whiped it
off. I don't care anymore, KLyX is doing just fine.
What is this MS-Bob thing anyway? I've never seen it, or heard what it does.
(Okay, trick question, what it's supposed to do)
where else can you type, literally, 'how do i change the motherfucking margins on this goddam piece of shit' and get the right answer?
or "how do i number these motherfucking pages"?
Best way to remove the obnoxious little cretin is to delete the actors directory
.
.
.
AAAARGH what is this turning into? A MS Helpdesk?
STOP ME NOW!!!
They (MS) are trying to see if it would be possible to make business off Linux if it ever `grows up'
If MS loses enough market share to the Free OSes, then what're they going to do? Sell Office, like they did for Macs.. (back in the 80s, twas a fairly nice thing too.. excel was pretty innovative, for those who say microsoft never innovated :p) Then what? The paranoid part of me says they'll do evil things. The other part says they might turn into some `humble and all-around swell' company.
-- some paranoid kid
How many distributions are using it now? And how many will use glibc 2.1 tomorrow?
Actually it's Apache. I saw in the /icons/ directory apache_pb.gif... But one day all the icons were removed and replaced with an M$ logo... And they made it redirect to eggplant.rte.microsoft.com which ran IIS 5.0 on Win2k... But now the icons are back... Click here
It is bloated, neither WYSIWYG nor WYSIWYM .doc doesn't REALLY mean .doc file format shennanigans.
Damn the M$ formatting codes that you can delete but never see.
Damn not being able to have part of a line full- and part right- justified. WP5.1 for DOS lets you do this folks! Best wordprocessor yet.
Damn Mr. Clippy.
Damn the
Damn M$ for having the gall to release an OS that can't reliably hang up a modem w/o crashing (happened 2x to me in the last month).
yeah, but is the paperclip open source? gnome rulez, kde sux dooodz.
WHa?!
Oh, for a moment I thought you said Katz screensaver. Some bloke pops up & starts blathering nonsense..
Unfortunately, I don't believe that this will happen.
If MS does port Office to Linux, yes - more people would use it because it would then become a 'respectible' OS. Then they would continue to use the MS products because these are 'obviously' the only high quality products out there.
PLEASE PLEASE DONT give us Office for Linux
Office is hands down the best of its kind. StarOffice is to MS Office in the same way that Doom compares to Quake3, they both can do the job and have their charms but one is a hell of lot more sophisticated. If Office was available on Linux, IT departments could pull windows95 boxes and replace them with Linux machines. That isn't going to happen with the current crop of suites on Linux.
Who the hell needs MS Office when we have StarOffice. It can read all Microsoft formats (and save to them), and is a highly superiour application. I can run it on Linux and my Windows machine
I like Excel (hey its got a flight simulator built in)
:-(
I dislike Word and Outlook
I can take or leave Access for what it does
I hate Powerpoint - but mostly because of the people I know who use it and I have to support
I recently updated StarOffice with their new filters. Now, the next office guy's MS-Office gets trashed on documents > 10MB, while i open'em nicely.
I think you're on more of an anti-MS-anything trip than you are sincerely dissatisfied with Office.
What the heck are you doing that requires a reinstall of Office? At most, I can see the need for reinstalling Outlook if Exchange Server support gets accidentally erased (uhm, my fault). In an office of about 50 people here, I know that we've never had to reinstall Office. Anyway, how hard is it to install Office? Pop in the CD-ROM, pick a pre-fab setup or customize, and it installs itself...no different than any other windows program, in fact, if you were to install Corel's office suite you'd go through the same process.
You complain at the same time that it is bloated and hard to understand. Office is bloated in the sense that it has many features, bells and whistles (lots of which we really use here).
If you're not using all of those features, then it's safe to say that you probably use it for basic things like typing, spreads, presentations and maybe even databases. So, if you're using the fairly basic features, what's so hard to understand then? Don't know how to type, key in spreadsheet formulae or create a slide? You're using Linux and you're complaining about how hard Office is to use?!
I'm not necessarily advocating Office as the final word in office suites. I'm a big fan of Corel and Lotus as well. I'm not even saying that you have to like Office. I'm just saying that this previous poster's -supposed- problems with Office are definitely not shared by all Office users.
Please, don't forget Applix!!! Applix has a complete office suite available now
Well, if you're a concious human being, you'll hopefully be aware (after all of the hype) that those backwards Office 95 users can't read your Office 97 stuff. If that's the case; just save your documents and spreadsheets in '95 format. It's one of the options available when you save something. For the most part, none of the added *chuckle* functionality of the Office 97 format evens comes into play for most people.
And they "deny" the things that are actually requested.
And I know several Linux users (me included) who would buy Office for Linux. You could of course ask whether we are sane, but we do exist. There's a lot of different tastes in a user base that is between 10 to 20 million people.
Love it or hate it (I am of the latter), Corporate America is standardized on Microslop Orifice.
Now we know that we're not talking about a standard standard (what with 2.0, 6.0/95, 97 and the soon-to-be-released 2000 (or is it 1900?) all having different file formats), but if you're going to conduct business, your documents must be in a M$$$ format. Looks and presentation count for these people more than content or quality.
It sucks but that's life!
Please choose your Office Assistant:
1) Linus
2) RMS
3) ESR (in Jedi outfit)
4) Tux
5) CmdrTaco (dressed as PowerPup)
6) ClipIt
..almost would be worth it
I'll take TeX and LaTeX, thank you very much.
Applixware 4.4.1 has filters for Office 97
You're squeezing my optic nerve!
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:41:20 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 87
ErrorThe parameter is incorrect.
Just a bald head, floating there in space - only the Katz screensaver just sits there, bitching and moaning, asking why you still support the prophet Bill, when Lunix can show you the way...
People like you threaten Linux and the free
software movement. Why pay $200 for non-free,
proprietary software if you can do the same thing
with free software? Heck, learn to use TeX and
LaTeX - they're far more powerful than any lame
"office suite", and you'll be more productive.
People who are willing to use (and pay outrageous
sums of money for) proprietary software are the
whole reason most people are stuck with MS crapware.
Please stop and think about how this makes for a bad society.
TeX is infinitely more sophisticated than MS
Office, and we already have it on Linux.
Excel is the best part of Office. I used Excel 1.0 on the Mac when it came out, and watched it compete fairly on it's own merits against several Mac based spreadsheets. No special OS tricks, etc.
It still one.
Word, Powerpoint, etc. = lose lose lose.
ROFPDLLMAO HA HA HA OH OH OMG!!!
I'm not doing anything. But in this office (of about 300 people) we are constantly having to reinstall (be sure to use the identical original CD!) to get back clipart, templates and so forth.
WTF? I assume your users also frequently delete vxd, hlp, and exe files off their machines? Teach the sheep how to not delete files! Gimme a break!
It's not that the features are hard to understand. It's the whole product that is hard to understand. The learning curve to do anything beyond simple typing is at least as steep as learning Linux is (at least for me). For instance, I STILL can't change margins/tab-stops reliably. I just have to drag those little markers back and forth until I get what I want
Again, WTF? You're the one who dissed "clippy", I believe? Have you tried clickin on the little weasel, typing in "How can I change tab stops?"???
It works. First thing it suggests is "changing the spacing between default tab stops".
Perhaps, if you don't want to RTFM, you should stop bitching long enough to use the damn help that comes with it!!! I can't believe techno-illiterate people are allowed in IT...
For 10 years Microsoft has been sending the message: normal people use Microsoft software; freaks use Amiga|Macintosh|Unix|Linux|anything-non-Microsoft.
Sure I'm a freak and proud of it. But I like to co-exist with the normals. If you take this opportunity to pick your teeth at Microsoft, you will notice them picking back.
"Microsoft: the software for the 90% of people who are normal." Followed by more Winmodems, more secret file formats, more all-out war to destroy anything non-Microsoft.
Don't fall for it. Embrace and extend them right back. Tell Bill you *want* Office on Linux.
yep, but he left out the part where the install routine dials up Redmond and coughs up the filetree of every partition on all your local drives. They can keep office for Linux right where they conceived it ( )*( )
I can't believe some people actually thought this was true. You got to be nuts!
A close minded dumb ass like you is a bigger threat to Linux than anything else. You think Tex is so easy to use? It maybe to you but not to the millions of Office users out there, myself included! I don't have time for ya dude. Go to hell and stay there.
don't get me wrong, I am not M$ advocate but I just wanna SHOUT OUT at ya cuz you are THE freakin' threat!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Email sent.
This cheers up my day. We want Bob!
Please let people know where they can get an original copy of Bob.
Warez or no. I understand he needs Windows 3.1. This could become
a real collector's item, and/or a cult.
Will be doing research on Bob and looking for dedicated Bob
Web Sites.
An eye in the palm of your hand would be more useful, but WOW that would be cool.
:P
yeah, but then you really WOULD go blind if you didn't stop that...
He got caught once for cracking, once for cell phreaking, and now again for cracking.
He really sucks at it, he might as well get a day job, he should know by now he is a lamer
Yes, we do buy a lot of it don't we. 99.9% of the communications I exchange with from others are simple text; theirs simply enshrined in the latest MS propriatary format.
That is not a "standard", that's mass corporate stupidity. Indeed, its stupidity for stupidity's own sake.
Last year I made a point of sending every communication I could in simple plain text format.
Funny thing, I haven't had any great need to resort to MS format files since. Everyone, yes everyone, I communicate with can simply read my rants without having to politely ask for a "Word 6" formated copy.
At one point I had to use MS-Word to read a large document prepared by another. The document could have been done just as well in text, but it wasn't. It simply had to be "pretty". So it was, and that made it unreadable. It also made it a $280 pay-per-view.
Text is the standard for business. Standards lay open to the largest audience. Text works with MS-* and everything else, but it doesn't go the other way. So, text better earns the "Standard" moniker.
The only reason not to hate Unix is that the current alternatives are even worse. Everybody on this site ought to take a look at the unix-haters handbook, and put their energy into fixing it. Otherwise your beloved Linux is just reinventing the square wheels of 15 years ago.
On the contrary, I find VMWare to be fast enough to get real work done. I'm running vmware on a PII 400 with 256MB RAM and the Windows NT VM inside linux 2.0.34 is much faster than Windows 95 on my Pentium 90 at home. When you run vmware inside linux, make sure to run vmware-tools.exe inside NT/9x which improves the display from 800x600 at 8bpp --> 1024x768 at 24bpp and drastically improves the performance as well. Since I'm at a university, $100 bucks for vmware sounds like a good deal to me.
Anand Rangarajan
Yale University
and, like Max Headroom, Katz has a show. Yay!
Even with vanilla stuff she has problem (like cells being formatted as numbers get converted to dates). I would expect a company that has cross platform products to be able to read each platforms files. Or is this too much to expect (esp since MS Office costs so much). Being in an academic environment she needs to be able to work on the macs at school and a pc at home. I just don't think MS cares at all.
This is EXACTLY why I bought Metro-X over Accelerated-X for my, at that point, :-( proprietary, NDA only Permedia 2 video card. I lived with the buggyness of the original Permedia 2 support in Metro-X (all cleared up now), since Accelerated-X costs too much. In fact, it costs many, many TIMES more than buying another video card fully supported by Xfree. I guess Xi just doesn't get it, huh? And the laptop Accelerated-X costs more than returning the damn laptop and buying one with a supported video card. WTF??? If I have to buy software, you'd better make the price right.
;-) Imagine if the course TEXTBOOKS all cost $13,000 and the pens and pencils, etc... all cost $13,000 each!
:-)
On that track, I think we've all seen the info on Slashdot about the $299 PCs. What gives? If I must run Winsux, I have the choice of running either a $300 software + a $170 software (a-la VmWare + Windows) on a $1500 machine ($1970), or getting licenced for Windows, and getting a whole NEW machine for only $299? Considering how VMWare runs, and the occasional incompatibility, plus the added unstability, I would go for the REAL THING.
On a last note of software price, our school uses a piece of software for electronics design called OrCad. When I inquired about buying a copy for home as a student, they said $13,000 MINIMUM. Get real. At that price, it's cheaper to pay a fine if you are caught with the Warez. Sometimes I think that people have a right to pirate. This piece of software is included.
Another software bites the dust, and lands in the Pirate Pool.
The product manager for MS-BOB ended up marrying Bill Gates.
The way I see it, Office would be starting at the bottom of the pile against already established Applixware and StarOffice and, in spite of it's quirks, WordPerfect. With the amount of animosity a vast majority of Linux users holds towards Microcrap, it is highly unlikely they will ever win in our camp - which is the true reason why they're not porting to Linux (first smart move I've seen them make yet). If they have followed just a fraction of the Linux communication, they will realize the hate for Micro$^%*# that swells in our hearts - and they also know we are ruthless when it comes to critiquing a software package. Their piece of &$*% Office would be torn to shreds and poor Mr. Paperclip would end up in the trash with the rest of the refuse. And God knows we don't need those damned Macro Virus's invading the Linux platform - let them keep their &$*#( - our existing tools are better and safer.
Mike
And to play the games. Don't forget the games.
Although I'm waiting for CIV III for Linux . . .
Dear Microsoft, I am a Linux user and I want you to port the following Microsoft Applications to Linux:
1.IE5 (Netscape is a dog and crashes too much)
2. Microsoft Office
3. Media Player (the one posted on your site does not work)
Well, but WP8 on Linux is worse than Word
It was a sad day when I had to switch from XyWrite III+ to WordPerfect 5.1 just to make a living (as a word processor, but that was in another life). You can't beat XyWrite for just putting words on paper. I still have a copy somewhere with all of my templates for doing manuscripts, just in case someone ever decides to go out of their mind and offer me another book contract. Makes me wish I had enough time and energy to write a XyWrite clone for Linux. Or maybe I could do it in Perl . . . hahaha, boy I crack myself up sometimes.
As for MS Office, I say put up or shut up. Port it to Linux and see if they can compete with WordPerfect, StarOffice and everybody else on a level playing field.
-- Just Another Anonymous Coward
This just in. News Flash: Nobody cares about M$, or its bloated crappy-crashey software. Bill G. can keep it off Linux, and we will all be better off.
Some of your suggestions are non-intuitive and poorly documented, and some are workarounds for missing functionality.
Oh, and if it took you two hours to format a table in Wordperfect, maybe Linux isn't the best choice for you.
hey, hypercard is cool
That's not RTFM, that's RTFClippy
get it straight
This is exactly what linux-based office suites need! Without it our apps are just "rudimentary". To gain respect, linux-based office apps need this user-friendly feature.
Shall we call it the "OpenClip" project?
Let's take this even further and implement MS-Bob for linux. A penguin we need to talk with to get anything done.
http://egg.microsoft.com/icons/
"Oh, how I have longed for the day when one of YOU would be working for ME."
After surfing around that site, I found a wide open mailing list. wpad. I did this:
config wpad wpad.admin
And I received the entire config file. Looks like someone doesn't know how to configure majordomo lists.
--
To be the man you gotta beat the man, wooo!
I know this is is going to sound like an advert for Adobe, but I think the Linux community would gain much more if Adobe were to port FrameMaker to Linux. This is *THE* standard for document publishing in the research&developpement field, and is a very strong product for difficult documents such as technical specs, but can also be used for simple letter tasks.
I have tried (and failed) to use MS Word for my own student needs but it usually either failed to handle long documents correctly or just simply came in the way of the task at hand. FrameMaker did quite the opposite, it's a marvel on long documents and usually shortens your path to the finish line, although a little more learning is initially required, but only once.
Let's forget the MS lobbying, let's do the Adobe lobbying (and we might also be more successful at doing that !
Something that people are overlooking in all these comparisons is the "Help for WordPerfect Users" option in M$ Weird. This particular "feature" purports to let you enter WordPerfect commands, then it will tell you how to do that function in MS Weird. Now, let us consider the fact that WordPerfect and most other wordprocessors have no such thing for M$ Weird. Why not, you ask?
Because the average user can figure out what they need in a properly designed application. The only reason that this idiocy exists is to support a counter-intuitive user interface like the trash from Redmond.
I have used both M$ Weird and WordPerfect 6/7/8 for 5 years or more. I was productive with WordPerfect within the first half-hour after installing it. I still struggle with the organization of M$ Weird after this amount of time.
Users who really want to be productive will use the package that lets them concentrate on what they want to put in a document, rather than how to get it in there.
Yes, Lenny, it's me.
i'm just wondering what makes it so slow, is it vmware
or the os? Has anyone tried bootin linux inside of linux
or another such os? Just wondering.
I care! At my employer we are going to move to Intel boxes for doing EDA work. We know that companies like Synopsys, Cadence, have Linux binaries but just don't release them because they are too "scared" or the "cost is too high" or "customers never ask for Linux" (my ass ...).
Our pointy-hairs who make the money decisions have said "thou shalt have a single machine to do thine work. Thou shalt not have a PC and a work station. Therefore, thou shalt use NT to design thine chips."
cough, cough, gag, barf, yack, puke
We have repeatedly told them we can get linux binaries (or force vendors to "officially" port to Linux) for our EDA tools and their standard answer is "So what? You still need Office to do documentation, write up reports, create presentations, etc. Therefore, thou shalt use NT and be friggin' happy with it."
Poop.
They don't give a rat's ass if StarOffice and the others read/write MS formats. They don't understand that that would be totally adequate. If it doesn't say "M$" on it and it's not named "Office" then to them it means we can't share documents with them or the bloody secretaries, etc. etc. etc.
Therefore, a Linux port of Office would be the nail in NT's coffin where I work. I sure as hell wouldn't use the binaries but it would make the pointy-hairs much happier.
MS Office for Linux would be a GODS gift!
So far it is the most powerful, consistent, and stable office suite I have ever seen. Don't forget that office suite is not just a word processor, it is a suite of applications, word processor, spreadsheet and a personal database, may be something else. We don't have such a thing on Linux. I am a student of Business Administration. I use all those programs all the time. StarOffice and WP8 SUCK! I want to use Linux but I want to be productive too! I understand that all of you just want to have vi + gcc + gdb. But don't whine then "Linux for Masses!". This is bullshit. It is not gonna be a consumer OS until it has a set of productivity applications comparable to Windows Office suites.
good gad, fsck you all.
ed/dd/sed forever.
very well put. face it people, despite the "I have to hate M$ because they are evil" attitude, Internet Explorer is a better browser then Netscape. Period. I would also like to see IE 4/5 ported to Linux ( go ahead, flame me!)
I have just finished rolling out 20 dell workstations + 3 servers with diamond cards based on the permedia II chipset.
I'm using Xfree86, had to burn my own redhat cd's with the current updates to cut down the work involved, but the Xfree86 3.3.3 driver for the card works great, and it's free.
DeadBeef
db@osoal.org.nz
http://www.osoal.org.nz/
Just read their "clever" wording. "No interest from our customers" WTF??? WHy would a microsoft-os using customer give 2 shits about Linux. OF COURSE, there is no interest from "their" customers. It's blatantly obvious.
Their customers do not give two shits about linux because when they DO give a shit about linux, they will No Longer Be Microsoft Customers.
Microsoft just needs to stay out of our way. I personally would not want to see Microsoft port anything to Linux. There are several excellent office programs out there that are available and I for one dont plan to support theres if that were the case. I tend to believe that Linux users are a breed apart from your ordinary Winbloze users and like it that way.All this hoopla about trying to make it easier for those users to install and use Linux is crap. The challenge that Linux provides in its flexibility is what keeps me from getting bored.
Why don't you turn the bloody thing off you morons ? It'll take all of 15 seconds out of your precious little lives - trust me, the world will continue to turn.
You still struggle with MS Word ? People with single-digit IQ's can use MS Word for Chrissakes. Have you done a training course, read a manual, read a help file ? (gee let me guess). If Wordperfect was all that good the whole world would be using it. MS Office/Word whatever cost way more and everybody still buys them - gee whiz, maybe they are better products.
MS aren't porting it to Netware, SCO or OS400 either Einstein. Hmmmm.... Novell aren't porting Netware to SCO - I must call the DOJ, hmmmmm IBM aren't porting OS400 to Intel - I must call the DOJ. Get a life !
Do you really believe that bullshit? You can use TeX, I can use TeX, but let a non prof use it.....
Let me get this right. You, a nobody (like me) know how a whole bunch of large software manufacturers should run their companies. Gosh what a logical argument. Your strategic vision is astounding.
What's all this talk about browsers crashing Unix ? Isn't Linux a Unix variant ? Isn't Unix/Linux the most stable OS on the planet ? How can such a little browser crash such a robust OS ? Gosh maybe Linux and Unix aren't quite ready for the primetime yet huh ?
LOL
214-This is Sendmail version 8.8.7
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214- RSET NOOP QUIT HELP VRFY
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214-For more info use "HELP ".
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The permedia 2 is great. But when I got mine (last year, in june or so) there wasn't a free X-Server in sight except for the SuSe X-Server (binary only, unaccelerated, and had many visual defects, like flicker whenever anything changed on screen). It's great that there is an XFree86 one now, but oh well... Thems the breaks...
:-)
Note that this card is AWESOME in the price/performance ratio. If you can get one, go for it! I was only a little dissapointed in the 3D part of the chip. Oh well... And putting this card on a system OC'ed to 83 Mhz bus will make the card seem MUCH faster (on Socket 7 of course).
I was told by a Microsoft employee that EVERYONE at MS was embarassed by BOB. They even had a mock product, MS MOM- Microsoft MOM: Where do think YOU'RE going today???
That's pretty bad when MS employees are ashamed of their products...
I'm not going to say one way or the other wether MS SHOULD get a Linux version of Office, but, didn't they use Linux as a defense point int the Anti-trust lawsuit? They claimed that they did NOT have a monopoly, and cited that many users were using or moving to Linux. Now, since they already have Word on other OS's (MAC), wouldn't it make sense that if they REALLY think Linux is going to have a large userbase that they start porting thier apps to it? Hmmm..
'We're afraid Linux is going to beat out Windows'
Followed by:
'There is no interest in Linux, so why port apps to it'.
Sounds like MS-talk to me! Oh, it is..
Also, if we email them and tell them that WE DON'T EVER WANT TO SEE OFFICE ON LINUX, they will port it even faster!
It seems to me that this comes down to a question of what the Linux community ultimately wants. The choices are:
1. Linux can remain an OS for the technically proficient, with programs like TeX used for publishing. Companies like Microsoft will stay away and continue making products for the average home user (and nontechnical business user) and MS Windows will remain a dominant OS.
2. Linux will become a more and more reasonable OS for *everyone* to use. It will continue to be versatile and open-source software will flourish, but there will also be easy to use programs that the average person can figure out how to use. These may be free or they may be commercial.
I think the second alternative is clearly favorable, but if it is going to happen Linux users cannot say "Who needs an office suite? We have TeX." TeX, while useful and powerful, is not what I would consider easy to learn. Furthermore, most computer users are used to WYSIWYG systems, despite their flaws, and if Linux is to gain acceptance these products must be available.
Ultimately, having Microsoft products on Linux is not desirable, but if it can bring more users to Linux it may be good in the short term. Over time better office software (word processors, spreadsheets, databases, desktop publishing software) can be developed. For the present I think MS Office on Linux is not such a bad idea. Ultimately it may bring about the complete dominance of Linux over Microsoft.
Just thought I'd give my 2 cents.
MS Office's problems run very deep indeed, and I don't think folks should be faulted for over-reacting to what is unquestionably one of the buggiest major products extant.
s /q118/5/86
s /q94/9/75
s /Q158/6/25
s /q146/2/42.asp
s /q193/1/91
s /q113/0/55
q 113/0/50
s /q113/0/49
s /q130/1/99
s /q131/0/40
s /q132/2/56
s /q120/4/62
s /Q157/0/89
As just one example, here are the results of my research into why we were having trouble translating footnotes and endnotes between Word and WordPerfect. If you check the articles, the same bugs have been "known issues" in Word since version 2.0, which basically means that any office that really needs to work with footnotes or endnotes (like the entire legal and academic communities) made the wrong choice if they chose Word.
UNREPAIRED FOOTNOTE AND ENDNOTE BUGS IN MS WORD ITSELF
(no file conversion from other word processor formats involved):
WD: Footnote moved to next page
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD: Continuous Section Break with Footnotes Causes Page Break
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD: Footnote Text Displayed, Printed on Top of Footer
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD: Custom Footnotes Disappear After Spell Check
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD: Footnote References Renumbered in Word Tables
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
UNREPAIRED PROBLEMS CONVERTING WORDPERFECT ENDNOTES TO MS WORD USING MICROSOFT'S FILE CONVERTER:
WD: Endnote Styles Not Applied to Converted WordPerfectEndnotes
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD6X: WordPerfect Endnote Number Not Converted Correctly to Word (fixed
in Word 6.0c) http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/
WD: Converted WordPerfect Endnote Text Cannot Be Edited in Word
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD: WordPerfect 6.X Import Converter Limitations for Word 6.x/7.0
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD: WordPerfect 5.x Import Converter Limitations for Word 6.x/7.0
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
MICROSOFT WORD BUGFIX AND FEATURE LIMITATION LISTS:
The following articles list Microsoft Word bug fixes and feature limitations. They are
included to aid in determining whether footnote or endnote conversion issues of importance have been repaired in later MS Word versions.
WD6x: WordPerfect 5.x Converter Enhancements in 6.x Kit Release
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
WD6x: WordPerfect 5.x Converter Enhancements in WinWord 6.0c
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
Of97: Microsoft's main list of WordPerfect 6/7/8 formatting commands that either do not
convert because Office 97 has no comparable feature or that convert imperfectly.
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
pem@televar.com
Every other phrase out of MS execs is, "users request it" about every confounded feature of MS program. Even the good Mr. Muth said you need OS integration to embed a spreadsheet into a word processor. Why? Because users request it. Forget corba, integration's the way to go...
Remember, Microsoft denied their Java port until shortly after they canned it.
Yes, and Howard Aiken, designer of the Harvard Mark One, predicted that the world would only need six computers. People get things wrong from time to time, especially when they're predicting the future, and I don't think there's any shame in that.
Microsoft troll.. Go back to Redmond.
Lack of a talking paperclip makes StarOffice rudimentary?
internally it being referred to as Boob.
This is the guy who was on WBUR's "The Connection" show as a Linux expert. Some expert:
Didn't know the URL for freshmeat "freshmeat.com?".
Kept plugging the *BSD line "Well, I actually like *BSD, but if I used Linux..".
Didn't know that WP8 has been released for months now "Corel is going to port their word perfect..".
Argh. Probably good that I didn't get on the line or else I'd give him a verbal lashing.
Posted by Nino the Mind Boggler:
...and nobody needs more than, what was it, 256k of memory? Does anybody take these public proclamations from Redmond seriously?
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Meanwhile, Word for Linux would have a crushing impact on the other Linux word processors and spreadsheets: Star Office and Word Perfect could never win the market share battle if Microsoft Word were available on the Linux platform.
Ummm...false?
Even when I was an MS-head, I hated Office. I hated doing an install. I hated the all-too-frequent reinstalls. I hated using it. I hated every aspect and feature. I always saw Office as MS's worst product and still do. It is bloated, neither WYSIWYG nor WYSIWYM, over-featured while strangely underpowered, hard to understand, hard to find help on, it silently upgrades the OS and there's no way to upgrade just part of it (try putting Access 2.0, Access 95 and Access 97 on the same machine).
In short, I hate Office and will not use it on Linux.
Posted by US Marine:
I've used MS-Office at work because I have to. But I use Corel Wordperfect 8 and Quattro Pro at home. MS-Office is VASTLY inferior and less stable than WP and Quattro Pro. It is bloated, slow, and has severe problems interacting with other non-microsoft products.
Even if MS gave their office away for free, I still wouldn't install it.
Posted by stodge:
Oh please, do me a favour. Sure I'd love to run an incredibly bloated, overstuffed Office package. And no I dont mean MS Office. Give me MS Office any day. It loads on my P2-233 at work in seconds, while Staroffice takes aaaaaaages to load on my P2-350 at home.
As my mum would say "don't cut off your nose to spite your face...."
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
What the heck are you doing that requires a reinstall of Office?
I'm not doing anything. But in this office (of about 300 people) we are constantly having to reinstall (be sure to use the identical original CD!) to get back clipart, templates and so forth.
So, if you're using the fairly basic features, what's so hard to understand then?
It's not that the features are hard to understand. It's the whole product that is hard to understand. The learning curve to do anything beyond simple typing is at least as steep as learning Linux is (at least for me). For instance, I STILL can't change margins/tab-stops reliably. I just have to drag those little markers back and forth until I get what I want.
Posted by Wayne Steele:
Try asking Mr. Paperclip this question...
Why does Microsoft suck so much wank?
The answer may be interesting to the DOJ.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
First, it's not the users deleting these files. They are just getting corrupted.
Second, I can't share it from the network because a) we are short on network file space and b) our network admin is a moron.
Third, I said nothing about Clippy. I am well aware that it is simple to turn him off.
Fourth, the reason people tout Office as the be-all end-all of office software is the intuitive easy of use. If I have to RTFM to figure out how to use tabstops because the "obvious" actions don't work, there is a problem.
Posted by US Marine:
Dear Microsoft -
Keep your damn office software.
I can code better on my free time than the dufuses you pay $70,000 a year for.
Posted by fieldmarshallburrito:
What? I find Netscape to be just as stable as
IE, probably more so. If you're running a PC, download the latest JRE from java.sun.com. Granted; I don't use IE too much, only when I have to to test out Java apps and look'n'feel portablility. I hate to break it too you but IE crashes too and both have problems with Java.
Posted by fieldmarshallburrito:
damn it, you're a marine!
Oooh, I hate when that happens :) Try turning off Java - that worked for me. Of course, if applets weren't a common factor in the Omnivorously Spawning Haywire Dialogs From Hell, then please disregard or disembowel (or decipher) this message.
I wouldn't mind an IE5 for Linux either, would I? The more browser choice, the better, right? Feel free to insert your own "integrated in the OS" joke here.
--
--
=8^
When the browser "crashes", it doesn't. If the original poster's problem is the same one I was having, Netscape slows to a crawl because it's spawning an endless series of dialogs. At worst, both Netscape and X hang - very rare. Sometimes Netscape hangs - also fairly rare. But Linux doesn't crash; it may only look like it. All it takes is a kill -9 (or an exit from the wm) to get out of the mess, but on those rare occasions, it's a chore.
--
--
=8^
He has probably never seen a machine running Linux, yet he's talking as he was an expert...
I assure you, Simson Garfinkel has more than just seen Linux computers. And he definitely qualifies as an expert.
Of course, he also had a hand in the completely fucking ridiculous and stupid Unix Haters' Handbook -- proving that even experts can be crack smokers.
I've got StarOffice 5 on both linux and solaris, and sorry, it just ain't so!
Any product that only allows one instance of one window into an app is brain-dead. SO doesn't even let you have 2 windows into the same doc, much less multiple windows into multiple docs. I need those multiple instances visible at the same time -- otherwise I might as well be relegated back to a DOS-style app. For all I hate M$, at least Office got that much right!
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
If I need something to take up many hundreds of megabytes on my drive, I'll create a null file.
Not that it matters to youre main point, but the DOS memory barrier was, I believe, at 640K
--Chouser
--Chouser
"To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." -LL
Yes, and I think it was Steve Jobs who said 256K of RAM was enough..he he, boy was he wrong
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
The paper cat, however, is so realistic with the sounds that my cats all have sat up and noticed. Not like that Catz scrsaver.
'nuf said of my interest in a M$ Office port.
I'm afraid I'm not quite the Microsoft conoisseur that Hemos is. What is the famous paperclip that everyone on the planet but me worships?
Interesting how Microsoft only claims comsumer interest in Linux when Bill Gates makes an idiot of himself on TV.
Regards, Jochen
Regards, Geewiz
Here at work we have numerous documents done in MS Word that are around 600 pages. Do you have any idea how long it takes Word to repagniate 600 pages? Word seems to spontaneously repaginate every few minutes, even if you're in the middle of typing. Other groups here use FrameMaker or Interleaf.
MS Word may be fine for small (i.e., under 50 pages) documents, but for anything big, I'll ALWAYS stick with LaTeX + Xy-Pic + xfig---you can't beat those for reliability, portability, and speed. I work on the same documents at home (Linux) and work (Windows "Blue Screen" NT) with LaTeX. I wouldn't trust MS to actually make a Linux version truly interoperable with a Windows version, they couldn't do it with MS Office for the Mac.
I don't expect much from a company who writes cdplayer.exe for NT which crashes on my often. Damn you Microsoft, damn you all!
% cd /tmp ./office-install ./office-install
% tar -xzf office-linux-6.6.6-tar.gz
%
ERROR: Office for Linux can only be installed by the superuser.
% su
Password: ********
%
Installing Microsoft Office for Linux...
Checking for installed components...
Verifying available disk space...
[...]
Installation complete. Your machine will not be restarted so the changes can take effect.
Executing: shutdown -h now
[...]
(*Machine reboots*)
[...]
Updating ESCD...
Verifying DMI pool data...
Starting Windows 98...
Bob is to Windows what Duplo Blocks are to Legos.
It's a extremely stripped down, simplified (to the point of barfing) replacement shell for windows with big on-screen buttons to run a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics program, etc. No control panels. No DOS shells. No nothing that could in any way allow the user to screw up the OS in any way. Turns your PC into a kiosk appliance; a toaster with just about as much control.
Apple took a stab at this too. Their's was called "AtEase"
It's a win-win situation for Linux... If MS doesn't release Office for Linux then Wine and the Linux suites will develop... If they do then everyone will use Linux instead of windows for corporate installs because its more stable and Linux will benefit from market acceptacnce...
I just can't work out which is the best outcome....
Who is Seg Fault, and what is he doing with Kernel Space?
Having said that, a wordprocessor is no bad thing, and choice is always good.
Best of all, if Microsoft DOES port to Linux, then businesses will take Linux seriously. When Microsoft gets totally belted out the market, as they did by 3com in hand-helds, the interest might even grow (as also happened with hand-helds).
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think Tux would be better.
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I use Applix and WP8 now, and although they are ok, since I travel a bit, it does cause problems. If I have to ftp home for a file, it's almost impossable to convert to MSOffice (which is ususally the only thing avaliable on the road in places like Kinkos or something). So, you have to remember to convert before you leave, and then, the conversions never look quite as good as the original.
MS Office is ok, I HATE how it can't seem to convert HTML to a .doc in it. MS Office becoming an HTML editor was a LAME move in my opinion. But, untill a GNU Office suite matures more, I think MS Office isn't really THAT bad.
I'm not sure if I've ever been as annoyed by
anything on a computer screen as those damn
bloody patronizing paper clips, smiley face
balls, etc..one must look at things from another's
perspective, though..one man's annoyance is another
man's helper..*shrug* ah well, one shouldn't worry
one's self too much about what other people are
using/doing..
"Fundamentalist forces are undermining the integrity of liberal and democratic political structures."
I can't get it to install either, and their support has been non-existent. The one response I've ever recieved from StarDivision is an advertisement for the latest version of StarOffice.
Yes, you guessed it, the same version that won't install.
computers://use.urls. People use Networds.
u$office is not open source and therefore an evolutionary dead end
why should I suffer through learning to use software that I never really own in the first place?
(ask yourself that question about everything, especially if you are a business)
watch for u$ to move to control and corrupt what they call "core APIs"
it is a good thing the GPL protects us so well from that attack
but anyway now I need to think of something clever to send to linuxq
This is the great idea I've been waiting for.
Send email to Microsoft asking for Microsoft BOB for Linux? You bet!
My solution to what should happen if Microsoft loses the
anti-trust trial is that every interview with them would be
accompanied by a little notice stating that
"U.S. authorities have determined that most of what the
Microsoft Corporation discloses to the press is complete
bullshit." Of course I am being facetious, but
only a little bit. --- Josh
I can see this guy is a good journalist. He has probably never seen a machine running Linux, yet he's talking as he was an expert...
Internet Explorer is available for several Unix platforms. I'd like to see it available for Linux. As much as I dislike Microsoft and the poor quality of their software, I dislike the poor quality of Netscape's more -- and the lack of options for web browsers with any sort of modern standards.
Netscape is a lousy package under Linux. I've never had a version that felt stable. Currently ps shows netscape gobbling up almost 100 meg of RAM on here, after only a day's work. Netscape also seems to bloat X's memory,although not being an X-programmer I don't really understand how that could happen.
On all three machines I regularly run Netscape on I have a mysterious problem with it spawning error windows until the system crashes...
Gotta figure IE for Linux is a smaller porting project than Word, given the HP and Solaris versions.
What's everyone's opinions? I wish Mozilla was ready... hopefully it won't be as bad as 4.0/4.5.
I've got it on two machines -- this one (a Pentium II 266 -- I think), with 176 meg RAM, and a AMD K6-2-3D running at somewhere around 290mhz at home, with 64 meg RAM. On here Win95, Win98 and Windows 3.11 all ran like a charm. Never got Win98 working with the drivers so video was kind of pokey, but I can play back that southpark starwars trailer under Win95 using VMWare without any glitches or audio dropouts. I boot them with 64 meg RAM.
At home with only 64 meg RAM, I boot them with 32, and its pokey because of the godawful large amount of RAM GNOME takes up. If I log in to an account I setup to load Windows directly, it runs like a charm too... well except for the annoying tendancy Linux has to hardlock on heavy drive access... four months and I still haven't tracked that bugger down, and that's a Linux thing not a VMware thing.
Concerning the price for VMWare, sending e-mails can't hurt. I suggested a WMWare "lite" version for people who just wanted to be able to boot Windows, and they said they made note of the suggestion. If they keep getting it ("I'd rather buy a new PC than spend $300 on the software, but $150 might be reasonable") then they might consider a price change or a "lite" version.
Not once... not a single time, EVER, has an application I've been using under Linux caused the OS to crash where I had to reboot.
Netscape crashes a lot itself... but its lousy software, not a lousy OS. Once in a while that spawning window problem happens and X might hang -- it doesn't crash, it just gets hung up. Telnetting into my box from another machine and killing Netscape always fixes the problem.
Heh. A cow-orker went to a VB development conference where a 3rd party vendor had come up with a way to remove clippy permanently. He got a standing ovation from the other developers. :-)
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Yes, there's the option to not install him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get installed anyway :)
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
...only comes with the East Asian office versions. It's a very curvy redheaded office lady (OL) who bows to you. Very pleasant to look at.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Of course that's nonsense. Lots of Linux users want Microsoft Office on their desktop.
Who exactly has this fellow spoken to? I know of no sane Linux user who would ever want a MS program running on his or her system. I just installed StarOffice yesterday to tide me over until PerfectSuite 9.0 is released for Linux (November?). I may not even change then. It's a great office package, and I'm very pleased with it. It does everything I need it to do, does it cleanly, and is far from rudimentary. Perhaps the author of the article linked above should spend less time broadcasting misinformation then printing corrections and more time finding a clue and getting his facts straight!
I have no interest in this product. But since M$ is in denial, it will probably ship before NT5.
pete
I could find plenty of good uses for an eye on my elbow. In fact, it would be downright GREAT!
STFU about slashdot bias.
...I like using Office (I use it on Windows at work and my Mac at home), and I'd buy it in a heartbeat for Linux if it was available and reasonably priced ($200 or so). In fact, it'd get copies of Linux into my company's desktops that I just can't make the business case for otherwise. For all Microsoft's many faults, I find Office to be a fairly pleasant suite to work with. Clipit does suck eggs, though.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Just to follow up on my own point - I'm home right now, and I'm posting from a workstation I built from parts. It runs SuSE, StarOffice, and KDE. I really like it. When I posted my original message in this thread, I was at work. I use a Dell laptop, and it runs Windows. Now, I don't like Windows at all, but that's what my company uses. That's also what our home-grown financial systems and mainframe connectivity are built on. And we use Office there. Screw TCL and TeX, I just want users at work to have the most available, simple _desktop_ system to use. I'll use Linux on servers (and I'm preparing to do just that), because it's the best tool for that job. I'll keep using Windows/Office on most desktops for the same reason, but I'd probably run Office under Linux in at least a few instances in my shop. It's OK for _me_ to tinker with other tools - I run the PC department. Asking me to give some neat tools, or software that is any different from good old Office, to my users is suicide. Remember, I said "business case" earlier. I have 150 users who could wind up without jobs if I screw things up badly. Do you want to pay them if we fall apart because I forced free (though good) software on people who couldn't benefit from it?
I didn't think so. I will use Linux at home, and I will evangelize the hell out of it wherever appropriate. But I won't push it where it doesn't belong. And it doesn't belong on my company's average desktop, even with Office. Check back with me in a year, though.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The paperclip is one of several "office assistants" you can choose from.
They act as an interface to the on-line help - they popping up with speech bubbles for you to type questions into, appearing with lightbulbs when they think you're doing something that can be done more easily.
Oh, they also have cute animations and generally kill productivity.
When I first heard about this rumor, I wondered if
it wasn't just a Microsoft PR strategy for undercover FUD.
In other words, spread a story about Office for Linux, then yank the rug out in a later release.
Seems to be what happened here.
If this guy loves Microsoft's products so much, why does he "seem" pro-Linux? Why not just shut up and use M$ software on M$ operating system? The only reason I can think of is he's on M$'s payroll, paid to write "pro-Linux" articles designed to confuse the PHB's about Linux. (Star Office is "rudimentary"?)
That's much more effective than your average anti-Linux FUD.
If only M$ programmers were as innovative as their PR staff...
.. has more bloat and less elegant design than MS Office, runs with the speed of Java, eats memory like a runaway Netscape, and has more features and baroque twiddly bits than a Vegas one-armed-bandit. Rudimentary, however, it ain't.
if you're using MS Office on linux then you might as well use windows. What's wrong with wordperfect?
---
it's great on Windows. Give corel a chance on linux
---
]] Heh. A cow-orker went to a VB development conference where a 3rd party vendor had come up with a way to remove clippy permanently. He got a standing ovation from the other developers. :-)
I do believe that Microsoft released some code that did this.
Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
SB.
Okay, simple words for you here.
Supposing that, as is the case with many companies, they've standardised on Office.
You can't expect a secretary with no knowledge of comuputing to sit in front of LaTeX, after all, so it's a valid choice.
This currently prevents a company from using Linux.
Now, if M$ supported Linux, a large number of companies would switch to Linux rapidly - I know, for instance, that my own company would, and be glad of it - we have Linux boxes acting as servers already, and Linux workstations would clear up much of the serious problems we have with Windows, such as viruses, and the like.
This means, and I stress this for the hard of thinking: MORE PEOPLE USING LINUX. LESS PROPRIETORY SOFTWARE. More proprietory software on linux, but that's okay, because it's moving in the right direction.
Personally, I'm dropping an email to M$ now, and asking them for Office on Linux, preferably running under GNOME. I'm going to ask them to consider giving the software away for free to personal users, too. I'll offer any support and help I can - hell, if I can sign an NDA and help with the code, I will. I urge others to do the same.
I'm hoping that the GNOME project, or KDE, or anyone else, will produce a GPL Office replacement soon, too, but I'm really hoping that businesses take up Linux onto the desktop, because then the problem of installed userbase suddenly swings in the direction of Linux.
If Microsoft denies linux ports, then what in the world is egg.microsoft.com running as a web server?
XenoWolf The Original - Since 1993
I chose to upgrade to Debian potato. SO5 and rvplayer 5.0 broke. I painstakingly went back to slink.
subject says it all
... and missing.
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
It allows me to demonstrate a proficiency with MS products which makes my complaint about them harder to deny.
/m option turns off autoexec macros? Just reset the file association and the start shortcut and you have instantly disabled almost all possible Word macro viruses!
Allow me to demonstrate.
Get that paperclip up. Right click on it. Uncheck and carefully close. Bye bye paperclip!
For your second magical performance, did you know that calling word with the
*Now* start complaining...
Regards,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I said to be careful?
DO NOT HIT RESET.
Just unclick and close.
(Sorry, should have mentioned that.)
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Forget the fact that it would be cool just 'cause it's freaky. Imagine the level of control you'd have over your sight! An eye in the palm of your hand would be more useful, but WOW that would be cool.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Why wanting a browser ported that even in its latest incarnation still doesn't support all standards? See this Press Release for more...
"We'd hoped that the latest round of browsers would take the
opportunity to get things right. Internet Explorer 5.0 is an
opportunity lost," Olsen said. "We'd like to know: when will
Internet Explorer have full support for any one Web standard?"
Argathin
Urgh, please no[0]... IMO, Framemaker makes Word look good...
:-)
Nah, if the only choice on the system is Framemaker, I'll take LaTeX anyday... About as complicated (LyX ight solve that) and more flexible *and* portable. I mean - after all you *were* talking about scientific documents!
Unfortunately, our SysAds dumped LaTeX - "everybody is using Framemaker or Word, anyway!" - bah...
Argathin
[0] Ok, for choice's sake, go ahead...
Then all the trendy business types who have heard about linux could jump over, see how good GPLed software is, how bloated and worthless MS products are, and that free software can and IS better than $200 shrinkwrapped crap, and then we will be all that much closer to World Domination!
I've got a really neato-keen way to remove clippy. Never install him. It's an option if you go to the custom install. I'd say to RTFM, but since that's more like reading the friendly configuration menu, I'll shut up :)
No the DOS memory limit was 1Mbyte, the 640K came from the architecture of the IBM PC which put the ROM area at 640K.
In the mid 80's I was using MSDOS on non-IBM compatible systems which provided a full 1Mbyte of addressing (the video wasn't memory mapped)
Come on now, reinventing a square wheel?
Like Micros~1 Windows isn't the QWERTY
of the 80's and 90's. Talk about square
wheels, 8.3 is the corregated roadway
Windows users have accepted for 15 years
and Ctl-Alt-Del is the reocurring
vapor-lock that 'just happens'.
Get real.
Locutus
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
If other companies (like Corel/WP, etc.) are porting their software to Linux, but MS is not, it would seem to me that MS is showing their monopolistic tendencies. Because it's not an MS OS, the Apps division won't develop for it.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
VMWare has debugging and logging turned on right now. Which is why it's so slow.
Please, I want FrameMaker for Linux... of to
Adobe to request it now.
This article just bugs me. "We've standardized on MS Office." What if Linux gets onto the desktop, but people are locked into the MS upgrades nightmare because they don't see the point of open data formats? I mean, they've already *proven* they don't see the point, by standardizing on applications instead of open data formats.
Yikes.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
I hope MS delays its Office port to Linux long enough for someone else to get some market share. Then maybe the world will wake up and see that Office's "ease of use" is a big lie.
Now I am not a big fan of proprietary software in general, but it is a fact of life on Joe User's desktop and it will be for some time. At least MS's head-in-the-sand policy will give Corel or Star Division (maybe Lotus?) a chance to sell some software again.
By having a need to denounce Linux and all other non-commerical projects, Microsoft has given these projects validity. IMHO: they're scared.
xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
...is none other than Microsoft and self appointed 'cummm-poo-torrr boy gene-ee-uss' Nathan Myhrvold. Surely you remember Nate... Microsoft spends ungodly sums to promote him as the second coming of Einstein. You probably recognize him more on sight; he looks like the mutant offspring of bigfoot and Mickey Rooney.
I read an unintentionally hysterical article about 2 yrs ago wherein the computer illiterate interviewer asked what hot 'innovations' the 'giant brain' Nate had contributed to while at Mickeysludge, at least those in its main products. He pointed proudly to paper clip man!!! Yes indeedy, that annoying animated dork from hell is the product of Nate's 'intense, in depth study of user interfaces and artificial intelligence'!
Hopefully, none of Nate's 'innovations' will ever be used on anything that can destroy the planet, like nuclear weapons or handling plutonium. I sure wouldn't want to see what his idea of 'AI' would do with that...
First of all, "asking for Linux community input"
is an obvious way to manipulate the opinions of
the (loosely-defined) Linux community. Often it's
an honest request for input; often only partly so,
or not at all.
Second, Microsoft can use a large response as
ammunition to support the story that Linux isn't
a serious business platform because it doesn't
have Microsoft apps.
Third, if Microsoft *does* get Office on Linux, it
will use that as leverage to kill other possible
application solutions, and then will further use
Office as a foothold to get proprietary frameworks
atop Linux. It will be difficult (though not
impossible) to prevent that. Isn't this kind of
monopoly leverage what many Linux people have been
trying to avoid?
(BTW, I have talked with Simson Garfinkel several
times, and he seems like a good guy, but I think
he's inadvertently helping Microsoft more than
Linux this time.)
Before Clippit
- You get a problem
- You type some plausible word into the help search box
- No useful answer is forthcoming
- You: "Grr, that blasted Microsoft, they create junk software, mumble, mumble."
Now- You get a problem
- You type some plausible question into the Clip
- The clip doesn't find a useful answer
- You: "Grr, that blasted paperclip is a piece of garbage, mumble, mumble."
In other words, the primitive parts of the human brain are quick to blame Clippit, not its creator. So now Microsoft is still a fine company, and that Paper Clip is the source of all unsolveable problems. Brilliant.The first words I typed in Microsoft Office97 was a little essay called "The Paperclip Spy". Because that's what it seemed like, a critter that was always looking at your document, ready to send any criticisim of Windows to Redmond.
Of course Microsoft could always do that.
But the paperclip somehow made it seem real.
And now, of course, we know that's not as farfetched as I'd thought.
Oops.
D
----
When I was a junior in High School, I typed my junior term paper in WP 6.1. Decided that it would be better if I print it at school before I turned it in. Well, the only thing at school was word, didn't think much of it until I did a spell check.
What happened was I did my paper on OJ Simpson, and it decided during a spell check that it was wrong, and without any window or warning, changed EVERY Simpson, to Simson. I was in a hurry and didn't proofread the printout, and just bound it and turned it in. Needless to say, I failed the paper for mispelling the topic of my paper in all 8 pages and spend 2 months in summer school.
If that's not reason enough to hate Office and Word, I dont' know what is.
I would find it greatly ironic if MS ported Office to Linux considering one of the main penchants of their FUD campaign against Linux is lack of applications..
:-)
Ben
The subject says it all. I've never understood the need for anything fancier than a text editor for HTML editing. Better control and less cruft generated.
Somewhere around, I have a MS TCP/IP stack for DOS from about 1992.
Maybe you got Novell and Microsoft confused.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Damn the M$ formatting codes that you can delete but never see.
.doc doesn't REALLY mean .doc file format shennanigans.
Not having formatting tags is a feature in my book. Word always has stored is paragraph formatting in the End-of-Paragraph symbol. You can see this symbol by going to the view options.
Damn not being able to have part of a line full- and part right- justified.
Press the Enter key on your keyboard.
WP5.1 for DOS lets you do this folks! Best wordprocessor yet.
People are complaining here that Word is too hard to learn. Who wants to spend 2 hours trying figure out how to make a table in WP 5.1?
Damn Mr. Clippy.
Delete the Actors directory.
Damn the
Get the Word 97 service pack and set your default save format to Word 95/7. Not too hard, eh?
Damn M$ for having the gall to release an OS that can't reliably hang up a modem w/o crashing (happened 2x to me in the last month).
I've never heard of that, except with an overheated PCMCIA modem. You probably have an IRQ conflict or are using a Winmodem. (which suck even under Windows.)
Your comments make you sound extremely lazy. If you can't make minor settings changes in Word, I doubt you can be bothered with something like Linux.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I'm not doing anything. But in this office (of about 300 people) we are constantly having to reinstall (be sure to use the identical original CD!) to get back clipart, templates and so forth.
Running around installing Office on 300 machines with a CD sounds like an idjot thing to do. You might want to ask someone what that fat phoneline-looking wire plugged into the back of your computer is for.
It's quite simple to put Office clipart and sample files on a read-only file server share. RTFM. And, if you have VxD-deleting users, run WinNT and make the system directories read only.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
what your getting with Lynx, you know no java's gonna work, you know no plugins, grafix and such are gonna work, you just know you get text and that's it.
My experience with IE4 and NS4 (And the version 3 of both) is that neither fully supports all websites and I must have both installed to surf everwhere I want to go. This is mostly MS's fault IMHO, MS created Jscript which attempts to be Javascript but causes apps like the NetObjects Fusion BBS to break without some special coding. They also come out with their own version of every standard (Can we say ActiveX?) causing great pain and suffering for netusers all around the world.
Above and beyond the browser war, lets take a look at what MS has done for WYSIWYG HTML writing programs such as Frontpage and the crap exporters they've put into almost all the new products. Frontpage extensions just plain suck. We were running an NT server with IIS and put the Frontpage server extensions on it, wala *CRASH*. That was the point we nuked the NT Server and installed Linux with Apache and dropped support for the Frontpage extensions.
Hell, if MS can't make a product that works well with the world and wants to extend the standards into MSStandards we should all quit using their products.
Zanthor
Nuff said
Yep, with only VisiCalc and Lotus123 to lead the way, they were pretty innovative about bringing the spreadsheet to a GUI platform.
Bill....
Please don't port any Microsoft software to Linux. Thank You.
Yep, look at this...
250 egg.microsoft.com Hello [], pleased to meet you
vrfy root
250
vrfy bin
250
vrfy sync
250 sync
expn root
250
[root@vapid cgi-bin]# telnet 131.107.85.207 21
Trying 131.107.85.207...
Connected to 131.107.85.207.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 egg.microsoft.com FTP server (Version wu-2.4.2-academ[BETA-15](1) Sat Nov 1 03:08:32 EST 1997) ready.
Name (131.107.85.207:noid): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
Password:
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Looks like apache to me.
with a microsoft quick fix "chmod -R 000
Trying 131.107.85.207...
Connected to 131.107.85.207.
Escape character is '^]'.
get http://index.html
403 Forbidden
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access http://index.html
on this server.
Connection closed by foreign host.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
I often find that people hate what appears to be challenging. *WE* know windows is not challenging so it must have some real issues. I have used both oses extensively and prefer unix because its more powerful. It might be harder to use but hey I am not afraid to learn, are you? Then let microsoft do all the work so you can go on drooling and clicking your mouse button.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Sorry folks, but the fact of the matter is, I believe that guy earlier is quite right. Of course who am I? I am also a "young college student." But for my accounting class, MS Excel is a MINIMUM requirement. I know some of you folks (some of you might even be my peers) might start flaming me for saying this, but for accounting, one needs tools... And Linux has yet to deliver on this. Gnumeric looks promising, but it is too incomplete to really useful as the base tool for any serious accounting work yet. I *HATE* Micro$oft, but the real problem is that MS Office *IS* the corporate standard. I think many are now willing consider alternatives to Windows--there are some viable alternatives to it now. But for Linux to gain acceptance on the desktop, it *NEEDS* a viable alternative to M$ Office, and I'm sorry, but Gnumeric, StarOffice, etc. just don't cut it. WP is okay, but we need an integrated office SUITE to replace Office... And Corel is too far from completion to consider.
For that, I have to give M$ some credit--as much as I hate Bill Gates, this is one thing that has gained him the respect of the corporate world; he has delivered the needed tools. I do think they could be better, and Linux has the potential to deliver an alternative... But we just don't have one yet. That is why the corporate world seems to love Microsoft so much.
So if anybody wants to help step in and write these things instead of complaining all the time, I think some people (including myself) would appreciate it.
It's running Undisclosed/0.0 on Linux...
:)
IIS Linux port. Yeah, thats it...
Q.
I don't remember Microsoft ever saying that they were considering supporting Linux. Otherwise, though, I wholeheartedly agree. This is certainly FUD at its finest.
If Microsoft doesn't want to make a seriously embarassing admission - namely, that there are valuable applications out there for Linux - they can't afford to consider Linux as a development platform, unless they don't consider Office to be an application with a signifigantly large following.
First thing: I do not agree with what he said.
but he has a point.
3 years ago I could say: "Microsoft is helping the internet with MSIE,Outlook,and IIS server".
As much as I like Linux to scceed I like Microsoft to fail.
Dont say "MS Office will bring people", say "Hey, you can also use StarOffice/KOffice/Aplix/Whatever"
Microsoft is not helping anything.
It wouldnt release anything for linux unless they gained something.
And for the small amout of linux users, it's not money, it must be market share.
Even if we cant understand why they do it,
I can almost be sure that it's not good for us.
---
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Instead of telling each other what an idiot Garfinkel is, tell The Boston Globe! Letters to the Editor go to letter@globe.com
>Of course, he also had a hand in the completely fucking ridiculous and stupid Unix Haters' Handbook -- proving that even experts can be crack smokers.
The UHH is actually spot on enough to elicit comments like the above from Unix weenies. Better Unix hackers than you and I have contributed thereto.
I don't think all of the complaints apply to Linux, especially those on X, but if you're going to bash MS rabidly you need to give due consideration to the shortcomings of the alternative.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I can't even begin to count those I know that have upgraded to the newest Office, not because they need it for any reason, but because their friends upgraded, and they can't read their documents without upgrading.
Word Perfect, while also proprietary atleast has kept it's data-format unchanged trough it's latest 3 revisions.
The main problem for Excel (or Powerpoint too) is when you embed something in your chart. You can kiss whatever you embedded goodbye when you open it on the other platform. This especially sucks when you get files in Japanese. It still boggles my mind how MS could overlook problems like this.
I would like a spreadsheet standard, but is there one for spreadsheets the way they have ASCII and Unicode for text?
they could have IIS defaulting to /home/httpd just like apache...
What would you like to do?
Install or remove individual components of Microsoft Office.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The problem isn't that people necessarily need to use Microsoft Office, it's that they are likely to need to open Office files that someone else has created. As much as I might wish otherwise, Microsoft Office is likely to be the dominant office suite for some time to come. Even happy Linux users may have to annotate Word docs from clients, update Excel spreadsheets from cow orkers, and pretend to have looked at Powerpoint presentations from suits. I've still got one foot in Windows land myself, and have yet to work with any Linux office apps. What kind of filters are available for Applix, WordPerfect, etc. to import and export Microsoft's various moving target file formats? Also, can they cope with embedded stuff, like a chunk of Excel spreadsheet in a Word doc? Compatiblity with existing files is probably a bigger obstacle to acceptance of alternative office suites than any kind of UI or training issues.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Now THAT is as true as it gets!!!
};-D
iSKUNK!
The point is, when you need an anthropomorphic paperclip to make a program usable, there is something very, very wrong with the program.
It has been said often that the true killer-WP app will implement the ~20% of M$Office-type functionality that is used 99% of the time. (leaving the other 80% to LyX and friends, if not properly buried "Advanced" dialogs)
iSKUNK!
And the lovely thing is, it already exists for Unix. Once the support side is taken care of (more customers, anyone? :-) all they have to do is let gcc take a whack at it.
;-)
Still, however, remember that the word processor is only one part of your complete balanced office suite
iSKUNK!
Strange. Are we talking about the same Star Office? Version 5.0 from Star Division? I wouldn't call it rudimentary. It has a full featured Word Processor and Spreadsheet and Datebase and Presentation maker and those all have their pluses and minuses but they are not rudimentary.
Everybody Lies. But it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
Oh god I think I wet myself...
Libel/defamation lawsuit anyone?
Thats just like when MS lawyers had that whole big fiasco with seeing how fast windows 3.1 could get on the internet as apposed to win98 or something.. and it turns out the win98 machine was using a better modem..
The lawyers responce to this was, that it was 'acedemic'.. and he repeated the word 'acedemic' like 2 times.. just what in the hell does the word 'acedemic' mean in that sentence?? all it was, was a big word to make it sound like they were realy smart, when in truth they were cought with their panties around their ankles
>
Sorry, but VMWare (1.0 Beta, at least) is waaaaaaaay to slow to be used seriously at this time.
Emacs sucks! pico forever!!! :-)
Is anyone listening to this guy? 2 things more to consider:
1.We can turn M$'s reknowned strategy, "embrace and extend", against them if they port to Office to Linux.
2. This is just like free speech - the good comes with the bad. You can't say to the rest of the World "Port your app to Linux!!! Except of course if you're from Redmond..." - Linux must be for all, including Mr. Bill if he so desires.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
>My wife uses Excel on a mac and pc. Exel never can completely
>read from pc to mac or vice versa. I don't want those kind of
>nightmares. Universal file formats are the only way to go!
It does work..
...providing you don't use tables, graphics, outlines, etc...
However, if you keep your documents "vanilla", then there is not much point buying new versions of MS Office.
Bill's nightmare is that no one upgrades.
Richard
Compared to this, AtEase was great, but much easier to disable. They had it on the Macs in high school, making us learn (god help me) HyperCard. You could get rid of AtEase by typing "Close AtEase" in the HyperCard message box. Bob disables the Ctrl-Alt-Del bit, so you have to reboot to get rid of it.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
"I see you're trying to write a letter. Would you like help with this feature?"
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
I agree, Pico is just so nice.
Would come in handy when talking to clueless Windoze users. That way you don't have to stop what you were doing, reboot into Windoze, and then boot back into Linux when they go away. Beats having two machines on your desk, or paying for another machine just to run Windoze on.
:)
By the way, they are working on making BeOS a guest OS. This would let you Linux ppl experience nirvana, without actually leaving configuration hell
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
...is that it won't even install now that i'm using glibc 2.1. Or am i just doing something wrong?
--
perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
Don't bother. It's too slow to be worth running, anyway.
--C
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
ROFL!
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
OK -
Pros:
1. I want to see Linux succeed.
2. Office on Linux would be a step into making it a viable desktop for corporate users.
3. Microsoft would effectively be agreeing to play with Linux rather than try to kill it off.
Cons:
1. Microsoft could save their skin doing this.
2. Microsoft's life would be prolonged.
3. I'd have some microsoft logo on my PC again *sigh*
Really...
While I'm not a huge fan of StarOffice, it's about as full featured as MicroSoft Office. Hardly "rudimentary".
I find this a big yawn anyway. Several decent office suites allready exist for Linux (StarOffice, Applixware, Corel) all of which read and write in MS file formats if desired.
Who really cares if they ever port Office to Linux!
While he may have seen a few Linux machines, and be a Linux expert, it's quite possible he's never seen StarOffice running, or at least not played with it at any length.
To my understanding it's the browser not Linux that's crashing
i thought you could. On all the systems i install for my users, i send clippy or whatever to the great bit bucket in the sky via the option in the office tools checklist. try it you'll like it, no need to write VB scripts unless you got nuffin better to do. even the most computer illiterate users don't seem to mind the absence of the paper clip from hell :)
use Signature::Witty;
Griping about the ever-changing Word format, yes.
Wanting to be able to run word under linux, though, rather than just be able to do something with its files?
News to me.
Typical FUD. Out of one side of its mouth, MS puts out the rumor that it will support Linux, thus forcing its competitors to spend scare resources responding to the 'threat' of MS getting into a new market first, and keeping the sheep in its flock from considering a competitive product by 'waiting until we can get MS'. Out of the other side of its mouth, MS denies anything and continues to marginalize Linux, keeping its sheep, er, customers, from considering Linux as an alternative at all (and possibly duping some competitors into holding off on making Linux products, thus further marginalizing it).
Clear as mud now?
Hi there!
I must say that the chances are that they would do a lousy job porting the thing, giving it a poor performance.
Take a look at Office for MacOS.
It wouldn't be good of a port was faster on a hostile and frivolous OS than the "original" running on their own OS.
Live long and prosper...
on my p2 350 with 128MB ram, vmware was running great. although i cant see why anyone would want to pay to run windows inside of linux.
Universal and OPEN file formats!!!
and not binary ones at that, except for actual binary data.
I don't know about cool, but it's a hell of a fun way to waste an afternoon waiting for exams to finish.. Just get a bunch of people and take turns making cards, then link them together for a story!
Yayy! Fun!
I would love to spend time talking to a penguin. Let's get Larry Ewing to animate some images, and pop in a conversation simulator. That would be so cute!
For those of you doomed to use Microsoft Office at work or whatever, you can get rid of the irritating animated helpers (such as the paperclip) by renaming or deleting the directory:
;-)
Microsoft Office\Office\Actors
Of course, feel free to point out that uninstalling MS Office will also do the trick
Ah yes, I neglected to mention that this can be done with no harm to the app. The info that the bloody paperclip used to give shows up as regular help files.
I know, I know, it's a Windows tip, but some of us have to use it at the office...
screw that damn paper clip, and his friends too!
How about this... remove the stupid paperclip/einstein/etc and make Linus Torvalds the helper for MS Office for Linux...
;-p
I would buy it just to here him explain why Office crashed...
K
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -St. Augustine
oops typo, HEAR him explain the crash.
K
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -St. Augustine
Yep, Tux would be pretty daggon' cool.
K
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -St. Augustine
Morons need Word to feel fuzzy. 'Tis how things are.
I think I'm going to email linuxq@microsoft.com to ask if they'll port MS BOB to Linux.
Actually MS-BOB was the original GUI for Windows 95. Think of it as the evil grandaddy of the MS-Office Paperclip, with no way to be turned off. After this failed miserably in usability testing, MS hurriedly threw together the whole "Start" button thing. Maybe we should do an open-source implementation of the Bob idea. Say a dancing gnome that guides you around the entire system, launches applications for you, gives advice, and does not shut up. Perhaps we could make this part of the gnome project, replacing the "panel" interface...
Microshaft products are not just bad because they run on a flaky OS; they're also unreliable and bloated in themselves. If we see Microshaft Orifice for Linux, then the downright shoddiness of such a package will reflect badly on Linux.
Do we really need anything from M$?
Personally I'd like to avoid any of their products being ported, as Microshaft getting involved can only be a bad thing. They won't support the open-source, free software approach, they will seek to control Linux, just as they control the current standards. It may be more difficult, but given time I'm confident Bill could corrupt anything.
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
I am forced to suffer the inadequacies of Redmond at work by using M$ Office, so cannot set the install options.
I tell you, if that stupid fucking paper-clip waggles his eyebrows at me just one more time, I'm gonna find his files and delete the little fucker!
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
Seconded.
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
Powerpoint is like Windows. It tries to create things for the lowest common denominator: stupid people.
People actually like Powerpoint apps, because they're generally very simple (to create and understand), with very little information in them, with nice and bright colours.
I'm not sure if this is a problem with the app. or the people who use it...probably both.
~ Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity ~
I think you are missing a very important point: I think that the fact that Windows dominates as a platform is due to MS Office. The only real reason for using Windows is that you can utilize Office documents created by your colleagues/friends. This is the competetive edge that Windows has and it would render Windows obsolete if Microsoft would release Office for Linux - so why should they do that?
Get real. I hate the way Microsoft pushes companies around and how they think they should dictate how technology should progress, but buying one of their products doesn't hurt Linux. The fact is that Office (Especially Office 2000) is a decent piece of software and works pretty well. It is integrated better than most if not all of the competition and therefore I will buy copies for my Windows machines. If they had a version for Linux that worked and I thought it was the best answer to what I was looking for I will buy it.
Basically YOU are the true threat to Linux. The psycho-user who thinks that you have to blow off all the thousands of products out there because you have a hate campaign against the OS maker. I on the other hand am a professional and I rely on 10 - 15 different high-end programs a day. I don't have the luxery of dropping them all for a baby operating system, no matter how much i love it (and I do!!!)
When there are programs like 3ds Max, Photoshop (yes I know they are geting there) Premiere, etc. for Linux I will gladly go after them. The probelm now is that there isn't enough SUPORTED software out there for the average user to risk it. If Microsoft wants to throw a hat in the ring with a fully functioning version of Office I will be in line to buy it. If someone can make something free that is better, faster, and reliable, then I will go for that.
Basically the main thing is that I think for myself. Saying that anyhitng that Microsoft touches is evil is as closed minded as the executives at Microsoft that say Linux is just a passing fad. The truth is that both have good qualities and both have bad. Let the market duke it out. The best product will come out on top and you want pass out from screaming at someone that has a very well thought out REASON to buy something.
Open source or not, it will never all be free.
I've heard so many vendors of Windows software say they just haven't had the requests to justify their porting to Linux. Linux WILL become a serious contender and they should know it, so why let new, small vendors establish themselves in the market? It's great for the consumer, but a serious blunder on their part.
As a matter of fact a good part of my business is consulting on strategic planning. Keep what I said in mind, time will tell if I'm right or not.
I didn't do much of job of replying to you, it was late when I posted and I was anxious to hit the sack, sorry.
Taking a look at the programs on the start menu on my Windows box and scanning it for products made by companies I know something about I can say most of them aren't made by huge firms, but by medium-sized businesses. The size of firm I deal with most often (the size of firm that pays me to help them with planning).
I'd be suprised if the huge firms, like Microsoft, aren't exploring the idea of porting to Linux, but like I say, most vendors are much smaller and they just don't have the resources to do a port quickly. Success in penetrating a new market often involves being there before the market hits maturity, often earlier. Sure a huge company with big marketing bucks can compensate for a delayed penetration (although in the case of one huge company I doubt it will work since many people are looking at Linux just to get away from these guys).
There ARE new mass appeal products being made for Linux and once Linux is established as an alternative for the masses some of these newer products WILL remain. This means a lower market share for the current vendors. It's not rocket science. (Of course a firm's strategic plan might not call for maintaining or expanding market share, in which case this isn't poor planning on their part).
BTW, most of the guys who make decisions for these mediums sized companies are, like us, nobodies, albeit comfortable nobodies. And I have no qualms about pitting mind against some of those on planning committees and departments in the huge corporations : )