5 ms·

I use LibreOffice because it runs on my machine - MS Office doesn't. If MS made a Linux version I'd probably get that. LibreOffice is at its best if you make

by nickcw 6y ago

I use LibreOffice because it runs on my machine - MS Office doesn't. If MS made a Linux version I'd probably get that. LibreOffice is at its best if you make the docs and edit them just in LibreOffice. It's great at making structured docs. Calc is pretty good too. The PowerPoint equivalent is the weakest of the bunch, crashing frequently. However in the biz world you end up sharing docs and sheets with MS office users and that is where things start to go sideways. Complicated MS docs are not rendered well. Excel sheets are generally Ok. PowerPoint docs don't round trip at all well so I've given up even trying!

kristopolous 6y ago
I really wouldn't be surprised if this happens soon. Some kind of encrypted flatpak with some licensing scheme built in. Or making a Linux store of essentially an apt server where everything has a pricetag. It shows up in your repository after you purchase it and then can update it like anything else... This isn't new ground these days There's lots of ways to do commercial software with the existing infrastructure and I don't think the modern Microsoft cares as much as long as they are selling.
danans 6y ago
> If MS made a Linux version I'd probably get that. What about the web based Office 365? It should run fine on Linux, and clearly paid closed-source software isn't an issue for you if you would be willing to pay for traditional Microsoft Office. > However in the biz world you end up sharing docs and sheets with MS office users and that is where things start to go sideways. Office 365 should work swimmingly for this use case.
- ralls_ebfe 6y ago
  Had to use Office356 recently, because libreoffice kept putting strange, large, unremovable rectangles in the spreadsheet I got handed. I wished, i would not have to touch this Microsoft filth, but I had work to do and libreoffice kept bugging.
- 1_player 6y ago
  Personally £7.99 a month for a piece of software I use 1 hour every 6 months is definitely not worth it. Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Subscription plans are stupid.
  - danans 6y ago
    > Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Office 365 is a continually updated and enhanced product. They won't provide those updates and enhancements to you forever because your £100 won't pay for them. What you are asking for is their old downloaded/shrink-wrapped Classic Office product offering, which you can still get by paying a f themixed sum ($145 I think). But even in the old days, your £100 bought you a single program with very few updates if any. If you wanted new features or even security updates (when this became a thing), you needed to purchase a new license, for another £100. What if you don't want the new features or security updates? Well, perhaps it sucks, but the world of software is a far more complicated than it used to be and both the feature competition and security threats are steep, so no software vendor can afford to sit on and continually support an old version. Unchanging software isn't a product that becomes an antique like a 1959 Chevy. Rather it loses value over time as the world changes around it and it becomes less relevant. Eventually, they will stop updating your purchased software, and if you want to have new features and security protections, you will need to pay again. In the long run, that cost will converge with that of a subscription. This is why some people like open source software like Libreoffice as an alternative model, but as the OP highlights, it still needs an economic model to incentivize the enhancement of the software, and it would appear that the primary motivation of many users of the product is to not pay for an office software suite, not the higher ideal of a shared community software development model.
    - 1_player 6y ago
      I get what you mean, but people still made a living selling software without monthly subscriptions before. If I had to use Office more, I'd pay the monthly price, but not for 2 hours a year. It being continuously developed still doesn't justify the price. I can afford it, but if I had to pay £7.99 x 6 = £47.94 for every hour of productivity I extract from a piece of software, I'd go bankrupt very quickly. That's why I called subscription plans stupid: it's unreasonably expensive for the amateur (like me) slice of the market. And being such a small time user, I don't care about the super new features of Office $CURRENT_YEAR. If I could buy Office for Linux 2020 for 100 pounds, I would, and it would be enough for me for the next decade, unless I'll move out of software engineering and go work as a lawyer or something.
veddox 6y ago
At our research institute most people use Linux + LaTeX, which is great, but interfacing with MS Word is an absolute pain when you work with external collaborators. Accordingly, one of our professors‘ key argument for Mac OS is: „It’s a Unix with Word...“

by nickcw 6y ago

kristopolous 6y ago

I really wouldn't be surprised if this happens soon. Some kind of encrypted flatpak with some licensing scheme built in. Or making a Linux store of essentially an apt server where everything has a pricetag. It shows up in your repository after you purchase it and then can update it like anything else... This isn't new ground these days There's lots of ways to do commercial software with the existing infrastructure and I don't think the modern Microsoft cares as much as long as they are selling.

danans 6y ago

> If MS made a Linux version I'd probably get that. What about the web based Office 365? It should run fine on Linux, and clearly paid closed-source software isn't an issue for you if you would be willing to pay for traditional Microsoft Office. > However in the biz world you end up sharing docs and sheets with MS office users and that is where things start to go sideways. Office 365 should work swimmingly for this use case.

ralls_ebfe 6y ago
Had to use Office356 recently, because libreoffice kept putting strange, large, unremovable rectangles in the spreadsheet I got handed. I wished, i would not have to touch this Microsoft filth, but I had work to do and libreoffice kept bugging.
1_player 6y ago
Personally £7.99 a month for a piece of software I use 1 hour every 6 months is definitely not worth it. Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Subscription plans are stupid.
- danans 6y ago
  > Though I'd pay £100 for it no questions asked. Office 365 is a continually updated and enhanced product. They won't provide those updates and enhancements to you forever because your £100 won't pay for them. What you are asking for is their old downloaded/shrink-wrapped Classic Office product offering, which you can still get by paying a f themixed sum ($145 I think). But even in the old days, your £100 bought you a single program with very few updates if any. If you wanted new features or even security updates (when this became a thing), you needed to purchase a new license, for another £100. What if you don't want the new features or security updates? Well, perhaps it sucks, but the world of software is a far more complicated than it used to be and both the feature competition and security threats are steep, so no software vendor can afford to sit on and continually support an old version. Unchanging software isn't a product that becomes an antique like a 1959 Chevy. Rather it loses value over time as the world changes around it and it becomes less relevant. Eventually, they will stop updating your purchased software, and if you want to have new features and security protections, you will need to pay again. In the long run, that cost will converge with that of a subscription. This is why some people like open source software like Libreoffice as an alternative model, but as the OP highlights, it still needs an economic model to incentivize the enhancement of the software, and it would appear that the primary motivation of many users of the product is to not pay for an office software suite, not the higher ideal of a shared community software development model.
  - 1_player 6y ago
    I get what you mean, but people still made a living selling software without monthly subscriptions before. If I had to use Office more, I'd pay the monthly price, but not for 2 hours a year. It being continuously developed still doesn't justify the price. I can afford it, but if I had to pay £7.99 x 6 = £47.94 for every hour of productivity I extract from a piece of software, I'd go bankrupt very quickly. That's why I called subscription plans stupid: it's unreasonably expensive for the amateur (like me) slice of the market. And being such a small time user, I don't care about the super new features of Office $CURRENT_YEAR. If I could buy Office for Linux 2020 for 100 pounds, I would, and it would be enough for me for the next decade, unless I'll move out of software engineering and go work as a lawyer or something.

veddox 6y ago

At our research institute most people use Linux + LaTeX, which is great, but interfacing with MS Word is an absolute pain when you work with external collaborators. Accordingly, one of our professors‘ key argument for Mac OS is: „It’s a Unix with Word...“