Microsoft porting Office to Linux?

[SeijiSensei]

In reverse, ODF is only properly supported by LibreOffice and direct forks, making it a de facto monopoly.

Last I looked ODF was pretty well-supported in Abiword and Gnumeric. PSPP, the GNU clone of the statistics package SPSS, reads ODF files, as does the GNU econometrics package gretl. I'm sure there must be other open-source applications that can read and write ODF as well.

[monkeybrain20122]

One doesn't need to work in a corporate environment to have a need for MS Office. In the scientific field, publishers will almost universally ask for a DOCX version of the manuscript. I would bet their revision and page layout applications only use this format as input.
.

What 'scientific' field are you in, one wonders? In the hard sciences (physics, mathematics, chemistry etc) the standard is LaTex, no one serious would submit a paper in .docx or any "office" type document format for that matter. The social 'sciences' may ask for that,--but I doubt that they would not allow ODF,-- but they are not scientific fields.

In reverse, ODF is only properly supported by LibreOffice and direct forks, making it a de facto monopoly. Who said there was choice in the open-source world? True many times, but this one time, it's not.

This is a joke, right? Do you understand the meaning of an open standard? You don't have to pay to use ODF, but you have to pay MS to use .docx (reversed engineering doesn't count as there is no guarantee that it will always work)

[zeke2135]

What 'scientific' field are you in, one wonders? In the hard sciences (physics, mathematics, chemistry etc) the standard is LaTex, no one serious would submit a paper in .docx or any "office" type document format for that matter.

I think you may be behind the times.

From the instructions for submission to Science:

We now convert most submissions including hard copies to PDF files for initial evaluation and review (and use hard copies where necessary). To ensure accurate conversion of manuscripts, we are able to accept only the following formats:

• .pdf (Adobe Portable Document Format)
• .doc (Microsoft Word, version 6.0 and higher)
• .docx (Microsoft Word 2007, 2008 or 2011 for Mac, and 2010). This is our preferred format

Most applications can save files into one of these formats. Please send only one manuscript text file; figures should be either included in the text file or uploaded separately.
Please do not send TeX or LaTeX files for your initial submission. Convert the files to Word or PDF instead.

From the instructions for submission to Nature:

Our preferred format for text is Microsoft Word, with the style tags removed. If you have prepared your paper using TeX, please convert to PDF format and upload the PDF only at submission.

Of course it's been awhile since I've been an author on any papers that were submitted to (originally I wrote "accepted into" - I must have been dreaming) these journals.

[Tar_Ni]

Well Google doc. can convert your document in cloud, in any of these formats! No need of MS Office for that.

[monkeybrain20122]

http://www.ams.org/publications/jour.../procauthorpac

To download PROC author packages, follow this two step process:

AMS LaTeX Author Package for Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society Preferred
1. Choose a TeX Package

• AMS-LaTeX
• amstex

2. Download files

https://www.sharelatex.com/templates...621a613683ec71

This journal LaTeX template is based on the RevTeX package as recommended for submission to journals published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP). These journals include:

• AIP Advances
• Applied Physics Letters
• APL: Organic Electronics and Photonics
• Applied Physics Reviews
• Biomicrofluidics
• Chaos
• Journal of Applied Physics
• Journal of Chemical Physics
• JCP: BioChemical Physics
• Journal of Mathematical Physics
• Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
• Low Temperature Physics
• Journal of Physical & Chemical Reference Data
• Physics of Fluids
• Physics of Plasmas
• Review of Scientific Instruments

There are many more. Practically all top research journals in the hard sciences require Latex. Science and Nature are somewhat generalists, they are not of the same status as the specialized journals.

[zeke2135]

Practically all top research journals in the hard sciences require Latex. Science and Nature are somewhat generalists, they are not of the same status as the specialized journals.

This is all a bit silly to get into a spat about, but your statement that LaTex being required by "practically all" top research journals simply isn't accurate (altho I can't say I've done a survey). AIP doesn't "require" TeX, Word or RevTeX are both acceptable (http://www.aip.org/publishing/author...our-manuscript). The American Chemical Society accepts a variety (http://pubs.acs.org/page/4authors/su.../software.html). It's true Nature and Science aren't "of the same status" as the specialized journals, in fact they're much harder to get into than most, and quite "serious".

All that being said, it's also an overstatement that Office file formats are required as stated in the post that started this tiff

[Dragonbite]

Microsoft fulfills only the demand of it's users: Hyper-V vs. VMWare vs. KVM, open sourcing .Net, Office @iPhone/iPad and whatever comes - they have to adapt to gain new market shares and to satisfy the demand of it's user base -

If a developer uses an application, and modifies it to their own needs then aren't they too just fulfilling the demand of its user(s); themselves?

That's like saying Canonical/Ubuntu should NOT develop the touch interface and for mobile because users want it and if they fulfill this demand they become like Microsoft?

Any project, organization or company will strive to fulfill the demand of its users. How well they do will vary from group to group.

It's also how corporations live.. if they don't meet the demands of its users then it opens up for a competitor to come along, offer the missing feature and customers will flock to that corporation and not yours. Then you go out of business (adapt or die!) and make space for somebody else to come along!

MS can not grow much larger in the Office space as they are and therefore they have to offer Office for various platforms so that Office stay it's cash cow #1. Another thing is we live and work in a linked world - it's for an end user not interesting which OS is under the desk - they want their applications on every platform they have.

Sounds like Business 101.

Adapt or die. This applies to companies, governments, non-profits and open source projects. Some have to adapt rapidly, while others more slowly.

[saye-187]

never say microsoft on ubuntu that's gonna kill you :O

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

never say microsoft on ubuntu that's gonna kill you :O

Why do you think so?