4 ms·

FWIW, LLMs make this 95% less of a problem. It’s possible to create read-only viewers for Word, Excel & PowerPoint files that are more-or-less pixel accurate o

by muglug 3mo ago

FWIW, LLMs make this 95% less of a problem. It’s possible to create read-only viewers for Word, Excel & PowerPoint files that are more-or-less pixel accurate on 99% of files, so long as the user has the correct fonts installed (or, in the case of the PowerPoint, they come embedded).

greazy 3mo ago
There's plenty of viewers, I think even MS used to offer free MS Office readers. We need interoperability between MSOffice and everything else. But were stuck with MSOffice because even the so called open format is not well documented. MS Office is the last roadblock for Linux desktop. It's literally the last thing holding back many users from moving to anything else.
- pjmlp 3mo ago
  So many things holding the Linux desktop back. No support from OEM vendors to sell pre-installed devices on consumer stores, even if they do support it, it is a custom OEM distro, because differentiation, like on the netbooks, Android, or drivers tied to a specific Ubuntu release, with shovelware. Games, no studio cares about Linux native games, thus Proton. Game studios keep happily using Windows, Visual Studio, up to Valve to do the needful, at least as long as current management is around. Governments, plenty of jurisdictions still have software that requires either Windows or macOS desktop software. And then we have the whole desktop fragmentation, that makes people don't care and ship shitty Electron apps or command line software.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    And what have you done to fix this? In open source, nobody is coming to save you. You are open source. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48959090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48959090
    - pjmlp 3mo ago
      Well, though luck if you think that will save Linux Desktop.
    - rleigh 3mo ago
      I've been developing open source software since the late '90s. I was a Debian developer for nearly 15 years. I stopped actively participating in this stuff about 10 years ago. I'm involved in a few libraries and that's it. The "Linux" ecosystem is utter chaos, and there are too many developers who are their own worst enemies. There's too much churn, and too little strategic thought. Compatibility is king. Microsoft know this, or used to. But too many developers on the Linux/open source side of things don't care. They have repeatedly self-sabotaged the development of a coherent ecosystem throughout the last three decades by repeatedly breaking backward compatibility and replacing well-established software with incompatible replacements. Even RedHat. The pursuit of new and shiny trumps compatibility every time, and half-baked new technologies replace stable and established technologies long before they are ready, leading to developers and end users being eternal beta testers of rubbish. It is not possible to develop software for a platform which does frequent rug-pulls leaving your software unusable. This isn't solvable by any individual, no matter how hard or how long they work for. That's part of the reason why I switched to FreeBSD as a replacement for a good bit of stuff I previously did on Linux. It might be lacking in some aspects, but there's not quite the same level of insane and pointless churn without purpose. And I say this as someone who used to hand-build kernels from applied patch files, back when it was fun and the improvements were consequential.
      - inigyou 3mo ago
        You can fix it by making a Linux ecosystem that isn't chaos. I'm pretty sure Apple proved that compatibility isn't the end-all-be-all of customer satisfaction. It was useful to Microsoft at a certain point in time. But what people actually care about is getting their stuff to work right now, not being stuck in the past. We now tend to run old software in VMs or just old hardware rather than trying to make it work on the latest OS version. VMs weren't yet very popular or developed at the time Microsoft had a singular focus on compatibility. In fact, Microsoft wasn't even trying to keep customer systems working. Microsoft was trying to sell unnecessary upgrades to those customer systems, which will only be bought if they make the systems better. The customer was perfectly fine with not upgrading their software and letting the system continue to run as-is. The software industry doesn't really work like that any more - platforms are free and non-free software comes with a subscription - there's not as much pressure to sell unnecessary system upgrades. Also you can just make the system upgrade itself over the internet and tell the customer to cope and seethe. Do people still try to run Word 97 or do they just buy Google Docs?
  - red_admiral 3mo ago
    > macOS desktop software Which runs on a FOSS kernel, just that it's BSD instead of Linux. > Games, no studio cares about Linux native games Steam deck?
    - pjmlp 3mo ago
      > Which runs on a FOSS kernel, just that it's BSD instead of Linux. That was long time ago, good luck trying to make your own distro out of Darwin. > Steam deck? Runs Windows games developed on Windows, with Visual Studio, using DirectX, via Proton.
- realusername 3mo ago
  > MS Office is the last roadblock for Linux desktop. It's literally the last thing holding back many users from moving to anything else. I think the last one has DRM shenanigans specifically to prevent it to run on Wine? Not sure of the legality of that regarding antitrust legislations but it seems that's what they've done.

by muglug 3mo ago

greazy 3mo ago

There's plenty of viewers, I think even MS used to offer free MS Office readers. We need interoperability between MSOffice and everything else. But were stuck with MSOffice because even the so called open format is not well documented. MS Office is the last roadblock for Linux desktop. It's literally the last thing holding back many users from moving to anything else.

pjmlp 3mo ago
So many things holding the Linux desktop back. No support from OEM vendors to sell pre-installed devices on consumer stores, even if they do support it, it is a custom OEM distro, because differentiation, like on the netbooks, Android, or drivers tied to a specific Ubuntu release, with shovelware. Games, no studio cares about Linux native games, thus Proton. Game studios keep happily using Windows, Visual Studio, up to Valve to do the needful, at least as long as current management is around. Governments, plenty of jurisdictions still have software that requires either Windows or macOS desktop software. And then we have the whole desktop fragmentation, that makes people don't care and ship shitty Electron apps or command line software.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  And what have you done to fix this? In open source, nobody is coming to save you. You are open source. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48959090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48959090
  - pjmlp 3mo ago
    Well, though luck if you think that will save Linux Desktop.
  - rleigh 3mo ago
    I've been developing open source software since the late '90s. I was a Debian developer for nearly 15 years. I stopped actively participating in this stuff about 10 years ago. I'm involved in a few libraries and that's it. The "Linux" ecosystem is utter chaos, and there are too many developers who are their own worst enemies. There's too much churn, and too little strategic thought. Compatibility is king. Microsoft know this, or used to. But too many developers on the Linux/open source side of things don't care. They have repeatedly self-sabotaged the development of a coherent ecosystem throughout the last three decades by repeatedly breaking backward compatibility and replacing well-established software with incompatible replacements. Even RedHat. The pursuit of new and shiny trumps compatibility every time, and half-baked new technologies replace stable and established technologies long before they are ready, leading to developers and end users being eternal beta testers of rubbish. It is not possible to develop software for a platform which does frequent rug-pulls leaving your software unusable. This isn't solvable by any individual, no matter how hard or how long they work for. That's part of the reason why I switched to FreeBSD as a replacement for a good bit of stuff I previously did on Linux. It might be lacking in some aspects, but there's not quite the same level of insane and pointless churn without purpose. And I say this as someone who used to hand-build kernels from applied patch files, back when it was fun and the improvements were consequential.
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      You can fix it by making a Linux ecosystem that isn't chaos. I'm pretty sure Apple proved that compatibility isn't the end-all-be-all of customer satisfaction. It was useful to Microsoft at a certain point in time. But what people actually care about is getting their stuff to work right now, not being stuck in the past. We now tend to run old software in VMs or just old hardware rather than trying to make it work on the latest OS version. VMs weren't yet very popular or developed at the time Microsoft had a singular focus on compatibility. In fact, Microsoft wasn't even trying to keep customer systems working. Microsoft was trying to sell unnecessary upgrades to those customer systems, which will only be bought if they make the systems better. The customer was perfectly fine with not upgrading their software and letting the system continue to run as-is. The software industry doesn't really work like that any more - platforms are free and non-free software comes with a subscription - there's not as much pressure to sell unnecessary system upgrades. Also you can just make the system upgrade itself over the internet and tell the customer to cope and seethe. Do people still try to run Word 97 or do they just buy Google Docs?
- red_admiral 3mo ago
  > macOS desktop software Which runs on a FOSS kernel, just that it's BSD instead of Linux. > Games, no studio cares about Linux native games Steam deck?
  - pjmlp 3mo ago
    > Which runs on a FOSS kernel, just that it's BSD instead of Linux. That was long time ago, good luck trying to make your own distro out of Darwin. > Steam deck? Runs Windows games developed on Windows, with Visual Studio, using DirectX, via Proton.
realusername 3mo ago
> MS Office is the last roadblock for Linux desktop. It's literally the last thing holding back many users from moving to anything else. I think the last one has DRM shenanigans specifically to prevent it to run on Wine? Not sure of the legality of that regarding antitrust legislations but it seems that's what they've done.