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I wonder how much work would have to go into porting Office to Linux. My first thought is that since they've had it on MacOS for years now, it (hopefully) uses

by jjice 6y ago

I wonder how much work would have to go into porting Office to Linux. My first thought is that since they've had it on MacOS for years now, it (hopefully) uses some portable UNIX libraries, but who knows. Linux still has a pretty small desktop market, and those who are on Linux are already used to (Libre|Open)Office or GoogleDocs. I'd like if Office came to Linux for the purposes of getting more people to potentially switch, but I don't know if it would be worth while for them financially. Adobe too. Man would it be fantastic to see Adobe add support. Same thought pops in my head: they're already running on UNIX, how much would be required to port to Linux? Probably more than I expect.

aruggirello 6y ago
Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? 99% of the (few) Windows programs I still routinely use work perfectly fine under Wine. I can even run my old Windows 3.1 (16 bit) stuff on 64 bit Ubuntu, which I couldn't run on Windows 10. Heck when I was a Linux newbie, I was amazed to find Windows programs that didn't support Windows XP links were nicely following Ext symlinks! Office doesn't play nice on Wine? Seriously, if Valve can get stuff working on Proton that requires DRM, DirectX etc. it doesn't look like fixing existing issues to make Office work 100% under Wine is beyond reach for Microsoft. Heck, we're talking about the same corporation capable of giving us the WSL! > Adobe too. And Autodesk too.
- vetinari 6y ago
  Recently, I was using Mikrotik Winbox for the first time under Ubuntu. I was shocked how easy it was to make it run (apt install wine-stable, wine winbox.exe) and how well it worked.
- TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
  > Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? Indeed. I was happily using Codeweaver's Crossover product to run Office 2000 (on RedHat 6.2 with Ximian Desktop, IIC) before Microsoft realized this loophole produced a flawless experience, and then changed the binaries to purposely frustrate this solution going forward. Nothing every worked quite right after that. Eventually, Evolution had a usable Exchange integration, and OpenOffice wasn't completely useless, so I simply stopped caring.

by jjice 6y ago

aruggirello 6y ago

Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? 99% of the (few) Windows programs I still routinely use work perfectly fine under Wine. I can even run my old Windows 3.1 (16 bit) stuff on 64 bit Ubuntu, which I couldn't run on Windows 10. Heck when I was a Linux newbie, I was amazed to find Windows programs that didn't support Windows XP links were nicely following Ext symlinks! Office doesn't play nice on Wine? Seriously, if Valve can get stuff working on Proton that requires DRM, DirectX etc. it doesn't look like fixing existing issues to make Office work 100% under Wine is beyond reach for Microsoft. Heck, we're talking about the same corporation capable of giving us the WSL! > Adobe too. And Autodesk too.

vetinari 6y ago
Recently, I was using Mikrotik Winbox for the first time under Ubuntu. I was shocked how easy it was to make it run (apt install wine-stable, wine winbox.exe) and how well it worked.
TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
> Porting? Who talked about porting? Why do you (and they) voluntarily ignore 20+ years of Wine? Indeed. I was happily using Codeweaver's Crossover product to run Office 2000 (on RedHat 6.2 with Ximian Desktop, IIC) before Microsoft realized this loophole produced a flawless experience, and then changed the binaries to purposely frustrate this solution going forward. Nothing every worked quite right after that. Eventually, Evolution had a usable Exchange integration, and OpenOffice wasn't completely useless, so I simply stopped caring.