Microsoft to release Office for Linux ?

[leclerc65]

I sit here, basking in heavenly light and bathed in angelic chorus, because I know that 2014 will finally be the year of desktop Linux. How do I know this? Am I the messianic lovechild of Torvalds and Stallman? No — I know it because Microsoft is apparently going to release Office for Linux in 2014.

This rumor stems from a source in Brussels, Belgium, who spoke to Phoronix’s Michael Larabel at FOSDEM, one of Europe’s larger open source conferences. According to this source, who is presumably one of Microsoft’s open source developers, Microsoft is taking a “meaningful look” at releasing a full Linux port of Office in 2014. The sudden change of heart is apparently due to Linux showing “commercial viability,” and because Microsoft is reportedly already working on Office for Android. Android, as you may already know, is a Linux-based operating system, meaning a lot of the porting work will have already been done — it shouldn’t take too much effort to take the next step and bring Office to Ubuntu, or whichever distro Microsoft favors.

Until now, Microsoft has never released a piece of desktop software for Linux (with the exception of Skype, but that was an acquisition). Microsoft does have a Linux department, though, which has mainly been tasked with maintaining Hyper-V (virtualization) compatibility with Linux OSes under Windows. Presumably, with the development of Office for Android, Microsoft has beefed up its number of Linux developers, and those developers will then also work on Office for Linux.

The big question, in my eyes, is whether there’s actually significant demand for Office for Linux. On a good day, Linux has perhaps 1 or 2% of the desktop market. It’s important to remember that almost every Linux distro comes with LibreOffice for free. It’s only an educated guess, but I suspect there are scant few Linux users who would proactively go out and pay for Microsoft Office — after all, many desktop Linux users chose their operating system because it’s free (both in the money sense, and free from the real or perceived Microsoft hegemony).

The other possibility is that Microsoft might be reacting to increased uptake of Linux and cloud-based productivity suites by large institutions, such as universities and governments.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/147813-microsoft-looking-to-release-office-for-linux-in-2014

[CharlesA]

Helps to post something from the article instead of just a link... but it sounds... interesting.

I'll still stick to Windows for schoolwork, thought.

[monkeybrain2012]

Instead of wishing/hoping for MS to release Office for Linux, I would rather see more people switching to free software like LibreOffice. If this happens, in the short run it may meet some needs, but in the long run it is only going to strengthen MS's proprietary formats at the expense of open standard. If you must use MSO, you can do it with WINE even now. I can't get excited about it.

[Dr. C]

On the surface this looks very much as a double edged sword for Microsoft. One thing to keep in mind is that the margins for Windows in the OEM channel are getting razor thin as the price of hardware falls. In many cases office is the up-sell where the profit lies. At the same time GNU/Linux is steadily gaining on the desktop particularly outside of North America so this does not sound as crazy as it first appears.

[doorknob60]

Being a college student, I'd definitely consider buying it, as long as I get a decent student discount, and it's not that subscription crap. Don't know if I would or not (LibreOffice works pretty well), but I would consider it. Will never buy it if it remains Windows only, for the record.

[SeijiSensei]

Why would they bother with Office for Linux when they are trying to get people to use the cloud-based Office 365 and pay an annual subscription fee of $100? Office for Linux makes little sense in comparison, given you'd need an entirely parallel set of coders testers, support staff, etc. Office 365 avoids all of that.

[CharlesA]

Why would they bother with Office for Linux when they are trying to get people to use the cloud-based Office 365 and pay an annual subscription fee of $100? Office for Linux makes little sense in comparison, given you'd need an entirely parallel set of coders testers, support staff, etc. Office 365 avoids all of that.
+1. While I'm not really a fan of this cloud based Office stuff, all you need is a web browser and you are golden.

[jajodo]

Most current Linux users are not dependent minute to minute on any Microsoft software. However many Windows users would not consider Linux without availability of Microsoft Office. Expanding the user base of Linux is the interesting piece here.

[llanitedave]

I'll believe it when I see it.

If it WERE available, I'd still use LibreOffice. When I have to boot into Windows 7 on my Laptop, I use LibreOffice there, too.

[monkeybrain2012]

Most current Linux users are not dependent minute to minute on any Microsoft software. However many Windows users would not consider Linux without availability of Microsoft Office. Expanding the user base of Linux is the interesting piece here.

What is the point of expanding the Linux user base at the cost of getting more addicted to MircoSoft's closed formats? Don't get me wrong, I am not hard line like Richard Stallman, while I prefer open source I do use proprietary software. The problem about Office is that MS is trying to make its closed formats the standard in what happen to be very important area of day to day computer use, and most users actually do not need the bells and whistles of MSO for their purposes. They pay/pirarte MSO and contribute to its ubiquity just because everyone says they must have it.

The difference between MS and other companies that make proprietary software is that not everyone goes out of its ways to undermine open standard and inter portability like MS. MS doesn't just make closed source software, it is an aggressive monopolist.

As I said, if you must run MSO, there is WINE.

[jajodo]

What is the point of expanding the Linux user base at the cost of getting more addicted to MircoSoft's closed formats? Don't get me wrong, I am not hard line like Richard Stallman, while I prefer open source I do use proprietary software. The problem about Office is that MS is trying to make its closed formats the standard in what happen to be very important area of day to day computer use, and most users actually do not need the bells and whistles of MSO for their purposes. They pay/pirarte MSO and contribute to its ubiquity just because everyone says they must have it.

The difference between MS and other companies that make proprietary software is that not everyone goes out of its ways to undermine open standard and inter portability like MS. MS doesn't just make closed source software, it is an aggressive monopolist.

As I said, if you must run MSO, there is WINE.

Obviously the people I am referring to are already addicted to Microsoft's closed formats. How better to detox them than to expose them to open source Ubuntu?

[bholten]

As Linus said, "If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won."

[QDR06VV9]

+1. While I'm not really a fan of this cloud based Office stuff, all you need is a web browser and you are golden.


Amen.

[MadmanRB]

I forsee possible integration of Microsoft office products on the most base levels like their web interface.
After all google docs is very popular among office synching and maybe Microsoft could take a bite out of Google by doing more witgh their online office.

[forrestcupp]

The big question, in my eyes, is whether there’s actually significant demand for Office for Linux. On a good day, Linux has perhaps 1 or 2% of the desktop market. It’s important to remember that almost every Linux distro comes with LibreOffice for free. It’s only an educated guess, but I suspect there are scant few Linux users who would proactively go out and pay for Microsoft Office — after all, many desktop Linux users chose their operating system because it’s free (both in the money sense, and free from the real or perceived Microsoft hegemony).On the other hand, there are quite a few Linux users who are using a paid copy of MS Office in Linux with Wine. It's very conceivable that a lot of those people would pay for a native copy of the next version.


+1. While I'm not really a fan of this cloud based Office stuff, all you need is a web browser and you are golden.All you need is a web browser and a consistent, good internet connection. What if I want to work on my document at the gazebo at the park on a nice day? I'm never going to depend on a cloud based office suite.

[Jake Sweeney]

I wouldn't bother spending ridiculous amounts of money for something you can get for free such as Libre Office or Google Drive. however, MS Office's GUI does look sleek ad nice and perhaps most people are used to using it. I'd just stick to Windows for serious college work.

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

I wouldn't bother spending ridiculous amounts of money for something you can get for free such as Libre Office or Google Drive. however, MS Office's GUI does look sleek ad nice and perhaps most people are used to using it. I'd just stick to Windows for serious college work.

Not sure why Windows would be any more appropriate than Ubuntu with or without Microsoft Office for "serious college work" :)

What occasionally happens - for whatever reason - is that teachers etc. don't accept formats like .odt or there are some formatting issues, as can happen between different versions of MS software even within Windows.

[forrestcupp]

Not sure why Windows would be any more appropriate than Ubuntu with or without Microsoft Office for "serious college work" :)

What occasionally happens - for whatever reason - is that teachers etc. don't accept formats like .odt or there are some formatting issues, as can happen between different versions of MS software even within Windows.

Yeah, but have you ever tried to save a document with bullet points to docx from LibreOffice and open it in any MS Office? It's not functional for saving docx files, and not really for xlsx files, either.

[montag dp]

Not sure why Windows would be any more appropriate than Ubuntu with or without Microsoft Office for "serious college work" :)

What occasionally happens - for whatever reason - is that teachers etc. don't accept formats like .odt or there are some formatting issues, as can happen between different versions of MS software even within Windows.

Not occasionally - almost all the time. That's the main reason I use Excel and PowerPoint. The other reason is that those two are, quite simply, better than the libreoffice versions (IMO, of course).

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

No, indeed but if MS Office was ported, you would produce exactly the same documents. That's why I didn't understand the comment.

With LibreOffice, I tend to convert the final documents to PDF, as the people I send files to don't need to edit them.

To be honest, MS Office is better software but I've created beautiful documents with LibreOffice which were actually better than what I produce with MS Office because I was obliged to do some creative thinking. After all, it's all about end result.

For the record, I hope it is ported and I would buy it. But I don't see it happening.

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

If anyone has Microsoft Office already, you would be silly to ditch those better tools for something good-but-not-as-good purely on principle.

However, if you are deciding whether or not to buy MS Office, try to exhaust LibreOffice before you part with your hard-earned cash.

[forrestcupp]

Not occasionally - almost all the time. That's the main reason I use Excel and PowerPoint. The other reason is that those two are, quite simply, better than the libreoffice versions (IMO, of course).

Right. And PowerPoint is another thing. Impress is a crappy substitute, especially if you have to use PowerPoint files.

[Dr. C]

What is the point of expanding the Linux user base at the cost of getting more addicted to MircoSoft's closed formats? Don't get me wrong, I am not hard line like Richard Stallman, while I prefer open source I do use proprietary software. The problem about Office is that MS is trying to make its closed formats the standard in what happen to be very important area of day to day computer use, and most users actually do not need the bells and whistles of MSO for their purposes. They pay/pirarte MSO and contribute to its ubiquity just because everyone says they must have it.

The difference between MS and other companies that make proprietary software is that not everyone goes out of its ways to undermine open standard and inter portability like MS. MS doesn't just make closed source software, it is an aggressive monopolist.

As I said, if you must run MSO, there is WINE.

Microsoft Office on GNU/Linux is a double edged sword for both sides.

[doorknob60]

Right. And PowerPoint is another thing. Impress is a crappy substitute, especially if you have to use PowerPoint files.

Exactly. I use LO Writer all the time, and it works great. I submit assignments as PDF and all is well. Even on the accasion I need to handle with .doc or .docx, it's usually fine. With Powerpoint however, files I create in Impress are almost guaranteed to look bad when I open them in PowerPoint, which obviously is bad when you need to present something. What I've been doing is either Google Drive (which works great for collaborating with people, and will look the same anywhere), or do it in LibreOffice off of my laptop (which can be inconvenient). If they released a full Office for Linux, I would probably end up buying it. Yes, MSO is overpriced (especially the non student versions), and uses annoying semi-closed formats, but it's still the best out there.

[Copper Bezel]

No, indeed but if MS Office was ported, you would produce exactly the same documents. That's why I didn't understand the comment.

With LibreOffice, I tend to convert the final documents to PDF, as the people I send files to don't need to edit them.

To be honest, MS Office is better software but I've created beautiful documents with LibreOffice which were actually better than what I produce with MS Office because I was obliged to do some creative thinking. After all, it's all about end result.

For the record, I hope it is ported and I would buy it. But I don't see it happening.

Yeah, I actively use both - MS Office for working with others' files, particularly for commenting on students' essay drafts, but LibreOffice for my own documents, most of which need to end up as .pdfs anyway. I'm completely content with MSO (or really, just Word) in Wine except for the possibly-not-irrational fear that it's going to break somehow and I won't be able to fix it. I'd love the chance to purchase a native version, and I'd be a little more confident that it wouldn't just stop working someday, but that also wouldn't change the fact that the bulk of my own documents would still be managed in LibreOffice. (Or, really, whatever alternative presents itself, because it's not as if the feature suite of LibreOffice or MS Office is particularly dear to me, and I have MS Office to deal with the cases where I just have to have MS Office.)

[monkeybrain2012]

Exactly. I use LO Writer all the time, and it works great. I submit assignments as PDF and all is well. Even on the accasion I need to handle with .doc or .docx, it's usually fine. With Powerpoint however, files I create in Impress are almost guaranteed to look bad when I open them in PowerPoint, which obviously is bad when you need to present something
So if you create your presentation in Impress and open it in Impress it would be fine?
Why does Impress get blamed for poor compatibility with something which is designed to defeat compatibility and inter-portability?

FOSS will continue fall behind if they have to spend so much time and resources worrying about reversed engineering MS's closed format. The compatibility problem would disappear if the world stops being so addicted to Ms.

[cloroxX]

Ah, let em keep there mainstream hard to use software.. I hated that latest microsoft office update anyway, I'll stick to libreoffice.. I have no problems with it. Let me guess.. it will cost at least 50$$ as well??


I will say I have not used anything more than the libreoffice writer although, but I would probably still go with the free software libre offers and just deal with the disadvantages.

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

Impress is getting better and better.

[Sylos]

Wouldnt purchase it if they did release it. My needs are fairly limited when it comes to office software - basic word processing, the odd spreadsheet - nothing fancy. MS office doesnt do any of those things better than Libre Office in my opinion. Thats not to say my opinion would be the same if my needs were more in depth - then I would probabbly say MS Office was better as it handled more complex tasks better (that seems to be what others are saying so I'll take it on face value).

I prefer to support the FOSS community and keep going with OO or LO. And it means I can keep a nice clean, windows free PC.

Cheers

[lancest]

So if you create your presentation in Impress and open it in Impress it would be fine?
Why does Impress get blamed for poor compatibility with something which is designed to defeat compatibility and inter-portability?

FOSS will continue fall behind if they have to spend so much time and resources worrying about reversed engineering MS's closed format. The compatibility problem would disappear if the world stops being so addicted to Ms.

Exactly.

LibreOffice + Google Docs is a great combo for me.
Having my work (pres,docs,spreadsheets) available online anytime, anyplace, w/ anybody on any computing device IS SUPREME.
MS Office wouldn't do me much good. Google drive rocks for Android tablet somewhat also.
BTW- theming on LibreOffice 4 is sweet!

[sn0v]

LibreOffice is really good enough for most users (especially with the improved .docx support in v4.0). Moreover, this is probably going to end up expanding Linux's base more (and with the arrival of Steam on Linux and the Windows 8 mess, maybe harm Windows' install base?) since a lot of people don't become familiar with LibreOffice until after switching to Linux. I've tried (and failed) to get people to switch but failed simply because MS Office/games aren't available on Linux.

They eventually switch for other reasons (dev work etc) and end up loving it though :D

[Primefalcon]

libreoffice is good enough for me, if I needed office I'd buy it, more stuff available for Linux the better

[the8thstar]

I run Office 2007 with Wine. It's stable and reliable and the format output is not a cause for worry (unlike LibreOffice). However I regret that the first loading time is always so important (damn wineserver). Also integration with Unity is lacking.

Were a Linux version to be written, I'd hope for it to launch as fast as it does in Windows or OS X. And that it would integrate nicely with Unity (or else).

[eriktheblu]

For my uses, the office software included with Ubuntu is more than adequate for home use. At work, they provide the MS office pro suite.

If it becomes available for Linux, I would buy it if and only if I could get it under the Home Use Program. It would be worth $10 for me to have Access to play around with at home (not that Access is good, it's just what I know) but not at full price.

[azangru]

libreoffice is good enough for me, if I needed office I'd buy it, more stuff available for Linux the better

Completely agree. I am fine with LibreOffice, but it's a comfort to know that if I needed MSOffice terribly, I could get it without booting into Windows.

[mamamia88]

I don't see what they have to lose at this point. As more and more options come out there market share will decrease more and more. Eventually google docs,their own free online service, libreoffice, and heck even the free version that comes with some pcs will either kill off office entirely or have it be a very niche product. They might as well expand to linux to offset that somewhat. And have you tried the mac version? It's horrible compared to the windows version I'm sure the linux version would be similar

[forrestcupp]

Yeah, I actively use both - MS Office for working with others' files, particularly for commenting on students' essay drafts, but LibreOffice for my own documents, most of which need to end up as .pdfs anyway.If you have and use MS Office, why do you bother using LibreOffice for your personal documents? I don't see any draw there, when you already have MS Office. It's awesome if you don't have Office, but it's not like it's better in any way.


So if you create your presentation in Impress and open it in Impress it would be fine?
Why does Impress get blamed for poor compatibility with something which is designed to defeat compatibility and inter-portability?Like it or not, the rest of the world uses MS Office. It's definitely not LibreOffice's fault, by any means. They're doing an awesome job with what they have to work with. But compatibility is important.


LibreOffice is really good enough for most users (especially with the improved .docx support in v4.0).So they just recently improved .docx support? That's a great step for them if they did. It was atrocious last time I used it.

[landersohn]

I whole heartedly agree with monkeybrain2012 on proliferation of MS formats and don't like the idea. Having said that: in my business I need to deal a lot with people who don't even now what ubuntu oir linux or libreoffice is, so i must deal with MS Office.
Running office under wine works ... for the most part! there are glitches like crashes when doing "Save As" and stuff like that. Nothing that can't be worked around but it's cumbersome.

In regards to Impress being "blamed" for poor interop some posts ago: If Impress claims to be able to save as PPT or PPTX than it should work! if it doesn't - and I don't disagree that that's because of MS proprietary formats - then don't claim it does and don't offer the option. Simple as that.

[Copper Bezel]

TL;DR: All word processors suck. They are all exactly the same application, except that some of them suck very slightly less in some specific niche case that you don't need. I do need some of those niche cases, though, and so I find that I use a different very large, ostensibly generalist tool for each of the many different sorts of small, specific tasks I perform in word processors.


If you have and use MS Office, why do you bother using LibreOffice for your personal documents? I don't see any draw there, when you already have MS Office. It's awesome if you don't have Office, but it's not like it's better in any way.
And that's the central problem with LibreOffice as a product, that it doesn't offer anything new that MSO doesn't, which consigns it to knockoff status. That's why MSO interoperability is its most crucial feature, and why Linux users and people who can't afford Office constitute the entire non-business market for the app.

It's not quite true, though, for my purposes; MSO is still a non-native app that behaves strangely under certain conditions, and although both interfaces are awful, Office's is a little more obtrusive. I haven't messed with customizing the ribbon in Office, where in LibreOffice I at least have a simple toolbar with my most commonly used features, including a quick PDF export button.

Plus, put simply, I have absolutely no interest in locking myself into MSO formats the way the business world already has. If I keep my stuff in OpenDocument XML format, I know for certain that I'll at least be able to read it in the future, which isn't necessarily true with documents in the current iteration of Office Open XML.

In general, though, most of what I do in my life that isn't talking in front of a group of people, whether for work or for fun, is making words with my fingers. I find that I need specialized tools for different kinds of situations. I'm typing this post in Tomboy Notes, which is quick and minimal and disposable and can do basic formatting if I need it. Drafting longer documents or journaling goes into Google Drive - again, basic formatting, minimal interface, disposable, and searchable "documents" instead of "files" that I need to keep track of myself, but a more distraction-free view and greater portability.

Then there's the weak link, LibreOffice, which performs just a bit more than the absolute minimum requirements of document creation for work with only an alarming amount of cruft and fuss, giving me an almost painless interface where I can do proper document formatting, print, and export to .pdf so that I can post or send assignment sheets and forms for my students and view them on my tablet through Dropbox. It has an interface that's just a little cleaner and requires just a bit fewer pixels than does Word, and because it has a daemon mode, I don't have to remind myself to leave a window open when I'm switching between documents. It's slightly more granular in control than Drive (for instance, in that it supports paragraph spacing between list items.) The abhorrent customization options, which actually provide an interface worse than manually editing config files, actually do manage to save me almost as much time in common tasks as I spent setting them up. I could almost do these things with Drive, and I could take the nuclear option and do everything with MS Word, but neither one would be quite as simple, efficient, and consistent in that role, which is to say, I find that LibreOffice actually sucks slightly less than the alternatives in some narrow niche cases that I personally spend a lot of time in.

What I should do is to learn LaTex. What I want for personal and paper-document-creation tasks is something like this mockup for an elementary desktop word processor (http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Writer-Concept-351501580), or possibly the Citrus interface for LibreOffice, although I'd really like to get away from the cruft entirely.

Since I use any and all comments and markup functions only in Word, a functional Abiword would fit the bill, too. In fact, when I launch Abiword, it looks exactly like the application I want - it even uses GTK icons in the toolbar! And the zoom level automatically follows window size! It's almost as if there's an attempt at a graphical interface. But then I try to do something, like type a thing or open a file, and it breaks, or it somehow otherwise fails to complete the desired task. (This is more true in 12.04 than elsewhere, due to the "stable" version being the development release, but it's been my experience with Abiword broadly since 9.10, and I'm also aware that it's a uniquely dysfunctional project.)

While I'm dreaming, I'd really love a word processor with tear-off tabs. I've never even seen this feature, common to all text editors and all web browsers but for some reason no word processors, proposed, although it's technically a feature present in Firefox + Drive. (As is always-saved functionality, which is another feature that just seems bloody obvious to me but is apparently unthinkable in a word processor.)

[KurtisHarmsNYC]

I have a really hard time believing this is true (although as a brand-new Linux user this would make my day! I am used to Libreoffice from Windows, though)

There are two things that don't make it seem valid:
1) Office is Microsoft's biggest, guaranteed money-maker. Linux is a platform with many opportunities for turning a proprietary product into a few product, but not the other way around and
2) There are other platforms that would definitely receive priority over Linux (ie. iOS)

[MadmanRB]

And that's the central problem with LibreOffice as a product, that it doesn't offer anything new that MSO doesn't, which consigns it to knockoff status.

Calling libreoffice a knock off is such a blanket statement, not to mention a stupid one.
One can apply this argument to any open source alternatives to existing Microsoft software.
Hell it can be applied to linux itself and is unfair to the developers.

[llanitedave]

Sure, we can say Windows is a knockoff of a "real" operating system.

Personally, I have a choice, because I can use MS Office at work, or I can use LibreOffice for the same functions. I actually prefer LibreOffice. I use Calc rather than Excel, and I've found no difficulties when moving complex formula-containing cells back and forth. I use Write rather than Word whenever possible.

And I try to avoid Access on general principle -- I can use Postgresql for free and get better functionality.

I use LibreOffice because I think the interface is more intuitive (although far from perfect) and less of an obstacle to my work flow. That MS ribbon is simply an assault on my senses. LibreOffice mostly stays out of my way and lets me do what I need to do.

It's not a knock-off. I use it on its own terms because it's a better tool for me, not merely a free one.

[Copper Bezel]

2) There are other platforms that would definitely receive priority over Linux (ie. iOS)
iOS is already in the pipeline, though (thus receiving higher priority) along with Android. I mean, that is the priority hierarchy: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, desktop Linux. We'll have to wait and see where Windows RT fits into that chain for devs who aren't Microsoft.


Calling libreoffice a knock off is such a blanket statement, not to mention a stupid one.
One can apply this argument to any open source alternatives to existing Microsoft software.
Hell it can be applied to linux itself and is unfair to the developers.
No offense, but you're not really following my argument. There's a distinction being made that's exactly not a blanket statement, and that distinction is made is both in the bit you quoted as well as the original bit I quoted from forrestcupp, which is why I was talking about it.

If Linux really was a free clone of Windows, then it would indeed be a knockoff, and all the people using it would be using it because it's free and Windows is expensive, but that's actually very much not the case. For instance, I use Linux because I feel that it's a better operating system, or, more objectively, better suits my uses, than Windows. What forrestcupp is saying is that that no one could ever say that of LibreOffice as an alternative to MSO. I responded that there are minor differences that I appreciate, as llanitedave says above. It clones the Office 2003 interface, which is slightly less annoying than the Office 2010 interface, and some things are organized a bit more sensibly.

Fundamentally, though, it is a feature-for-feature clone, and making "free alternatives" to things that don't bring any new ideas to the table is expedient, but never pretty. It means that some big company (say, Microsoft) doesn't get to decide how a whole industry (say, intra-office paperwork, or college writing) is run, and that's important, but it doesn't bring new innovation and diversity to the market.

And yeah, you could apply that criticism to things that aren't LibreOffice. You could possibly say it of "some GNU alternatives to existing Unix software," with only the caveat that they've managed to become a good bit more important than the originals since the actual cloning happened. You could have said it of the Linux kernel a couple of decades ago, but I think it's managed to distinguish itself a little, too.

You could not make that criticism of any and all "open source alternatives to existing Microsoft software." We don't see that complete lack of creativity and lock-step imitation of a commercial product in any major end-user package on Linux to the degree that it's true of LibreOffice. Even Lotus Symphony at least innovates in the UI.

The last innovative thing that LibreOffice (then OpenOffice) did was to implement an open XML standard for their document filetypes. Microsoft cloned it within a year. That's because OpenOffice had brought a new, sellable feature to market. It was a very good thing. We now have a thread on the release of LibreOffice 4.0 (which, I'll admit, I took the trouble to install.) See anything in the release notes that looks like a threat to Microsoft Office? I mean, hey, you can skin it now, right? That's innovation! Gee golly, I'll never use my computer the same way again.

[MadmanRB]

The theming is just to make it look a little better, people keep on calling libreoffice old fashioned so there you go.
I rather have that then have the crappy ribbon

And yes I hate the ribbon, sorry but as a UI it is totally cumbersome and its hard to find certain functions like the spellcheck.

[Copper Bezel]

My very limited understanding based on a comment somewhere is that the theming wasn't a major feature that took a lot of dev time. It was just the closest thing to a new feature I could find to ridicule, which was also the point.

And yeah, the MSO ribbon is cumbersome. I don't use it myself when I'm using Word - partly because there are so few features I need, I end up just using the accels for everything. The ribbon was meant as a solution to the problem of a bunch of ugly toolbars and obscure menus, but I don't feel that it was highly successful. LibreOffice has yet to make the fatal error of trying to improve in this area.

People call LibreOffice old-fashioned because it is. If any simple aesthetic change would help to change that, it'd be replacing those goddawful toolbar icons, either with the system icon theme or with in-house mono icons, but I swear that the devs are as attached to those colorful little reminders of the mid-nineties as Gnome is to its little gray trash-bag folders. But, again, a really not-old-fashioned interface might start with something like the one used in Google Drive, or Citrus (http://clickortap.wordpress.com/citrus/), or the elementary Writer (http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Writer-Concept-351501580) mockup I referred to earlier. Now, that's not quite fair, of course - those interfaces are built around feature sets that people actually use, so they wouldn't really apply directly to LibreOffice's feature set, but you get my general point.

Hell, add Abiword to the list of pretty word processor UI mockups. It looks exactly like a very sensible application window on my screen, but then fails to do anything. = P

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

LibreOffice is a productivity suite that seeks to meet the needs of a user-base whose conception of what a productivity suite should offer has generally been moulded by Microsoft Office.

That's all.

LibreOffice is not obliged to innovate since it is not a commercial company. Non-commercial incentives to innovate boil down to whether something is fit for purpose. LibreOffice remains fit-for-purpose, except for 100% binary compatibility with Microsoft Office documents.

Am I the only one though who has sent a CV written with Word on a PC running Windows to an employer then viewed the same CV in another version of Word on another computer running Windows and seen significant differences in formatting that would damage your chances of getting any job? Things like replacing smart bullets with a random character or changing the amount of words on a line so that your paragraphs or columns are messed up.

So let's not exaggerate Microsoft Office's compatibility with other versions of itself

[prodigy_]

Microsoft does have a Linux department
Yeah, a bunch of people entirely focused on how to 3E (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish) Linux.

[Copper Bezel]

LibreOffice is a productivity suite that seeks to meet the needs of a user-base whose conception of what a productivity suite should offer has generally been moulded by Microsoft Office.
Yeah, that's problem #1. The same effect is much less in the iWork suite, however. In any case, if LibreOffice chose to do their own marketing work and figure out what use cases their software was being applied to and suss out what users were actually looking for, I imagine that they'd put a very different product to market. I mean, seriously, I'm being told that I'm being disrespectful to the devs' efforts, but if the devs are working hard to clone an MSO feature that LibreOffice's own users don't actually use, what good is that work doing?

And why follow the office suite model at all? Would it not make infinitely more sense to tackle each use case in a separate project? Think of Totem and Rhythmbox, the Gnome alternative to Windows Media Player. I see no obvious benefit to bundling them together as a "suite" or a single app. Clearly, the Gnome devs don't, either. So they don't do that.

I want the guy who decided that LibreOffice needed a help agent off the project so that the guy who coded it can do something meaningful with his time. Bonus if they're the same person.

I mean, it could be much worse - it could be Abiword, where resources are spent on designing and updating an internal format instead of on building compatibility either with .odt or .docx, and where users are encouraged to use "collaboration" features that only work with other people using Abiword. It could be also Abiword, where recent documents are neither reported to the desktop nor handled internally because the devs just don't use that feature very much. It could even be Abiword, where the devs routinely argue with bug reporters. At least LibreOffice does have a sense of trying to fit into an ecosystem and a userbase. But they could be a bit smarter about it.

Bonus if they could actually think of something to call themselves that doesn't announce knockoff status. How far would Mozilla have got themselves with Free Explorer?


LibreOffice is not obliged to innovate since it is not a commercial company. Non-commercial incentives to innovate boil down to whether something is fit for purpose.
And yet it's essentially a flagship product, since there aren't any other major office suites or even stand-alone word processors, presentation makers, or spreadsheet apps for Linux. It's this thing that no one likes and everyone has to have installed, the same as MSO on a Windows machine. To me, that adds up to a real opportunity - a real chance to shine - that's being utterly wasted.

Non-commercial software does innovate. Linux desktops continue to exist because of innovation. Firefox, Android, Chrom[e/ium], and RHEL, the big free software projects that matter, are real market forces because free software has shown the capacity to innovate. Out of those four, one can attribute a lot of its success to just being a more available alternative - Android - but that's not permitted it to slack or made it any bit less innovative than the others.

It'd be nice to be able to add a desktop Linux to that list.


Am I the only one though who has sent a CV written with Word on a PC running Windows to an employer then viewed the same CV in another version of Word on another computer running Windows and seen significant differences in formatting that would damage your chances of getting any job? Things like replacing smart bullets with a random character or changing the amount of words on a line so that your paragraphs or columns are messed up.
I've experienced a hell of a lot of this, and it's fairly depressing. MSO has some very serious issues within itself as a product. That LibreOffice can come as close as it does to following Office Open XML spec certainly is laudable. It's unfortunate that this one area where the LO team puts so much of their effort is really one of the difficult ones to get any proper credit for. The difficulty of the task is visible to the user only when it fails.

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

No, I think you're right in the sense that LibreOffice should stop following Microsoft's lead and think entirely in terms of the needs of its own user base.

We've done well in Linux when we address a problem from our own perspective with our own strengths and not sought to replicate what other OS's have.

I don't think it's fair though that you don't rate desktop Linux. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are fully viable for conventional desktop computing.

[SeijiSensei]

If it becomes available for Linux, I would buy it if and only if I could get it under the Home Use Program. It would be worth $10 for me to have Access to play around with at home (not that Access is good, it's just what I know) but not at full price.

I've never seen Access packaged in any version of Office except the Professional ones. It's hardly something that a "home" user is likely to need, so Microsoft charges accordingly. However it does seem to be available with Office 365 (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/compare-microsoft-office-products-subscription-plans-FX102898564.aspx) if you pay the $100/year subscription fee.


And I try to avoid Access on general principle -- I can use Postgresql for free and get better functionality.

For some tasks, Access can be very useful as a front-end to PostgreSQL via the ODBC driver (http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/odbc/versions/). I have a database with many relational tables and sometimes find it easier to design a complex, multi-table query using the Access GUI than writing a lengthy SQL statement by hand. You can tell Access to display a query in SQL and then copy it into a script for later use or use it to create a view. Access+Excel is also a convenient method to import spreadsheets into an existing database.

I would never use Access for the database itself. I only use it as a client to PostgreSQL.

[CharlesA]

For some tasks, Access can be very useful as a front-end to PostgreSQL via the ODBC driver (http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/odbc/versions/). I have a database with many relational tables and sometimes find it easier to design a complex, multi-table query using the Access GUI than writing a lengthy SQL statement by hand. You can tell Access to display a query in SQL and then copy it into a script for later use or use it to create a view. It also provides a convenient method to import spreadsheets into an existing database.

I took a class that used Access to do exactly that. It was.. interesting to say the least. I don't think I've touched Access again. :P

[Copper Bezel]

No, I think you're right in the sense that LibreOffice should stop following Microsoft's lead and think entirely in terms of the needs of its own user base.

We've done well in Linux when we address a problem from our own perspective with our own strengths and not sought to replicate what other OS's have.
Yeah, that's what I'm on about. I feel that most major end-user apps on Linux manage more or less to do that, and I don't see it in LibreOffice. I'm not really sure who they're marketing toward, but it's definitely not the home users that Ubuntu and Gnome are targeting these days.

I'm not really sure who is LibreOffice's user base, though. I suppose it's also possible that they're just not the project we should be looking to as the home-use office suite (but if that's the case, the ideal fit is still a product that doesn't yet exist.) I honestly felt like there was some fear that services like Google Drive and Office 365 would take over as the only ways of doing word processing on home computers, but I don't think that's bearing out, and I still think there's a real value in a home-use-targeted office suite.


I don't think it's fair though that you don't rate desktop Linux. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are fully viable for conventional desktop computing.
Yeah, that was a cheap shot. But no desktop Linux is a market player the way those four are, so we end up with this sense of either panic (Gnome) or contingency planning for sudden and astronomically unlikely success (Ubuntu) in the desktop Linux world.

[llanitedave]

The last innovative thing that LibreOffice (then OpenOffice) did was to implement an open XML standard for their document filetypes. Microsoft cloned it within a year. That's because OpenOffice had brought a new, sellable feature to market. It was a very good thing. We now have a thread on the release of LibreOffice 4.0 (which, I'll admit, I took the trouble to install.) See anything in the release notes that looks like a threat to Microsoft Office? I mean, hey, you can skin it now, right? That's innovation! Gee golly, I'll never use my computer the same way again.

I guess that makes MS Office the knockoff, then. Right?

[Copper Bezel]

No, it means that OOXML is a knockoff of ODF. A fairly blatant one, really, and a rather nasty land-grab by Microsoft when they easily could have just adopted ODF (and presumably 3E'd it.)

Seriously, I just don't see this as a normal competitive relationship between two pieces of software. If Android gets X feature, the next version of iOS will probably have some equivalent, and that's cool. The reverse is generally true. But LibreOffice gets its five-year goals from the latest MSO's release notes. And then the format fight and IBM getting ISO to accept ODF, triggering Microsoft to engineer OOXML on the same plan and take it to ISO as well, was OO finally actually doing something original, but also something with some political power to it, and MS moving to quash it.

Of course, the resulting situation is fairly a silly mess of principle and spite. Microsoft could have been a community member (hah) and just adopted the de jure standard of ODF in 2005, or the Open Document Foundation could have realized that they got what they wanted, an open XML archive format for all documents ever as a de facto standard, and dropped ODF in favor of OOXML. Either one can still do this right now, and consumers of both products would still immediately benefit.