5 ms·

But the old versions of Office won't get patched only 2007 and above, right? All the more reason to use OpenOffice.Org or LibreOffice.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
therobot24 11y ago
Apple stopped patching Leopard (released in 2007) by 2011 and stopped supporting IOS 5 (released in 2011) just this year. Google is just starting to ditch support for Ice Cream Sandwich (released in 2011). Why should Microsoft continue to support office below 2007?
- toyg 11y ago
  "From great power comes great responsibility." - Benjamin "Ben" Parker, 1962
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    "Computers give the user great power, so it's the user's responsibility to keep software up to date instead of relying on ancient packages." - Me, applying that logic to this situation, 1435872794 seconds since Jan 01 1970
- orionblastar 11y ago
  Some companies cannot afford to upgrade their hardware to run the latest versions. They are stuck on older Windows versions that cannot run the latest Office versions. I noticed a lot of companies still stick with XP. I watched the Terminator Genisys movie and had a display in the hallway with a pop-up that said XP support has ended. A lot of Movie Theaters use XP still. The US Navy still uses XP and an old version of Office.
  - cmdrfred 11y ago
    "We can't afford it" is the mating call of the business owner/MBA. I've worked for ten companies over the course of my life (small business to mid size), none of them could ever afford anything (unless it was a vacation or a luxury vehicle). The fact is they don't want to spend any money and expect Microsoft to honor their $120 office purchase with free updates for the next few centuries. Fuck em, they can pay or get there data stolen by Chinese teenagers.
    - orionblastar 11y ago
      Some are small businesses that cannot afford to upgrade their PCs and are barely getting by. I've done tech support for people still on XP, 2000, and Vista. I think if they run Vista they got a good chance to buy Windows 10 Pro for $164 but it will break compatibility with their Office Software and force them to do a fresh install. A lot of business software is written for older versions of Office. I tried to make a Virtual Machine creating service if a company has the licenses I can make a Virtual Box or QEMU virtual machine with the old version of Windows and Office in it if they give me their license keys and pay me for their labor. But nobody wants to do that yet. I plan on running Linux on my main box at home and run Windows in virtual machines if Windows 10 ends up being buggy as all heck.
      - cmdrfred 11y ago
        They will go out of business in a few years because they failed to adapt, and we won't really miss them. If they 'can't afford' $164 once a decade what are they paying their employees? Certainly not a living wage. So they have high churn and nobody working there really cares about the business, its just another low paying job and unemployment is falling. These companies are mismanaged, they didn't budget when times were good for when things go south. I feel no pity when someone has to adjust their standard of living to a level that the majority of the planet would die for. Don't fall for the sob stories, its there so they take home more of the profits that you generated. Instead build a start up and blow their antiquated business model out of the water. Related Protip: If you go to a bank/doctors office or anywhere else that wants a large amount of personal data from you, don't give it to them if they are still running XP. (If enough people did this all of the sudden it would become affordable)
cwyers 11y ago
Does LibreOffice give security patches for eight-year-old versions of LibreOffice?
- nothrabannosir 11y ago
  No, but I can. I say this as an unapologetic user of all software closed source, Windows, Office, et al. I send files in .docx without asking if my peers even have Windows. I use Google Maps and closed source everything everywhere always. But, even I cannot deny: if this were open source, many of the points leading up to this bug could be addressed without any help from the vendor.
  - nemothekid 11y ago
    >No, but I can. I'm not sure thats fair. Yes you can, but I'm guessing you aren't the type of person to be caught running software 7 years after its EOL. Or put it this way, Office 2003 was discontinued in 2007. Thats like running Debian 3.1 today (Sarge, 5 stable releases ago), and complaining about continued support. RHEL2.1 was EOL'd in 2008 (RHEL6 is the "old guard" now). If you wouldn't expect continued support for Debian 3.1 or RHEL2.1 in 2015 there's, I don't see why its a problem for Microsoft or how it makes open source any better. Sure, yes you could patch Debian 3.1 yourself, but ultimately how fruitful is this effort, and how many people can be expected to to write kernel patches? Even if Microsoft said tomorrow Office 2003 was open source, how many individuals could you expect to have the know to patch their installations?
- davidgerard 11y ago
  Yes, a whole new version free ;-p
  - singold 11y ago
    That runs on the same old hardware
    - davidgerard 11y ago
andzt 11y ago
All pre-2007 versions have been end of life/support for a while now. So yes.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

therobot24 11y ago

Apple stopped patching Leopard (released in 2007) by 2011 and stopped supporting IOS 5 (released in 2011) just this year. Google is just starting to ditch support for Ice Cream Sandwich (released in 2011). Why should Microsoft continue to support office below 2007?

toyg 11y ago
"From great power comes great responsibility." - Benjamin "Ben" Parker, 1962
- joshuapants 11y ago
  "Computers give the user great power, so it's the user's responsibility to keep software up to date instead of relying on ancient packages." - Me, applying that logic to this situation, 1435872794 seconds since Jan 01 1970
orionblastar 11y ago
Some companies cannot afford to upgrade their hardware to run the latest versions. They are stuck on older Windows versions that cannot run the latest Office versions. I noticed a lot of companies still stick with XP. I watched the Terminator Genisys movie and had a display in the hallway with a pop-up that said XP support has ended. A lot of Movie Theaters use XP still. The US Navy still uses XP and an old version of Office.
- cmdrfred 11y ago
  "We can't afford it" is the mating call of the business owner/MBA. I've worked for ten companies over the course of my life (small business to mid size), none of them could ever afford anything (unless it was a vacation or a luxury vehicle). The fact is they don't want to spend any money and expect Microsoft to honor their $120 office purchase with free updates for the next few centuries. Fuck em, they can pay or get there data stolen by Chinese teenagers.
  - orionblastar 11y ago
    Some are small businesses that cannot afford to upgrade their PCs and are barely getting by. I've done tech support for people still on XP, 2000, and Vista. I think if they run Vista they got a good chance to buy Windows 10 Pro for $164 but it will break compatibility with their Office Software and force them to do a fresh install. A lot of business software is written for older versions of Office. I tried to make a Virtual Machine creating service if a company has the licenses I can make a Virtual Box or QEMU virtual machine with the old version of Windows and Office in it if they give me their license keys and pay me for their labor. But nobody wants to do that yet. I plan on running Linux on my main box at home and run Windows in virtual machines if Windows 10 ends up being buggy as all heck.
    - cmdrfred 11y ago
      They will go out of business in a few years because they failed to adapt, and we won't really miss them. If they 'can't afford' $164 once a decade what are they paying their employees? Certainly not a living wage. So they have high churn and nobody working there really cares about the business, its just another low paying job and unemployment is falling. These companies are mismanaged, they didn't budget when times were good for when things go south. I feel no pity when someone has to adjust their standard of living to a level that the majority of the planet would die for. Don't fall for the sob stories, its there so they take home more of the profits that you generated. Instead build a start up and blow their antiquated business model out of the water. Related Protip: If you go to a bank/doctors office or anywhere else that wants a large amount of personal data from you, don't give it to them if they are still running XP. (If enough people did this all of the sudden it would become affordable)

cwyers 11y ago

Does LibreOffice give security patches for eight-year-old versions of LibreOffice?

nothrabannosir 11y ago
No, but I can. I say this as an unapologetic user of all software closed source, Windows, Office, et al. I send files in .docx without asking if my peers even have Windows. I use Google Maps and closed source everything everywhere always. But, even I cannot deny: if this were open source, many of the points leading up to this bug could be addressed without any help from the vendor.
- nemothekid 11y ago
  >No, but I can. I'm not sure thats fair. Yes you can, but I'm guessing you aren't the type of person to be caught running software 7 years after its EOL. Or put it this way, Office 2003 was discontinued in 2007. Thats like running Debian 3.1 today (Sarge, 5 stable releases ago), and complaining about continued support. RHEL2.1 was EOL'd in 2008 (RHEL6 is the "old guard" now). If you wouldn't expect continued support for Debian 3.1 or RHEL2.1 in 2015 there's, I don't see why its a problem for Microsoft or how it makes open source any better. Sure, yes you could patch Debian 3.1 yourself, but ultimately how fruitful is this effort, and how many people can be expected to to write kernel patches? Even if Microsoft said tomorrow Office 2003 was open source, how many individuals could you expect to have the know to patch their installations?
davidgerard 11y ago
Yes, a whole new version free ;-p
- singold 11y ago
  That runs on the same old hardware
  - davidgerard 11y ago

andzt 11y ago

All pre-2007 versions have been end of life/support for a while now. So yes.