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Comment by pedrocr | Hacker News Reader

I'll believe Microsoft loves Linux when I can install Microsoft Office in my desktop Linux machine. Everything else is marketing.

Edit: to expand, the corporate world runs on Excel/PowerPoint/Outlook. Microsoft milks them on Windows/Office licensing and is very aggressive against organizations that try to do Linux deployments. They're a convicted monopolist that got away easily when at some point the option on the table was to split OS and Office into two different companies. If they want to continue to use Office to keep Windows dominant that's their strategy. WSL and their other "love Linux" efforts are all about making sure developers stay on Windows. If you want to do all that fine but don't patronize us by then claiming you love Linux.

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I would recommend against using Office 365 web ui for word/excel etc, I'd also recommend avoiding the MacOS Office build for the same reason:

They're both buggy as hell, the type of bugs that will make your document render in unintended ways when somebody opens it on the other side. At some point, Word for Mac decided to remove whitespace between words on my resume - I couldn't see them and generally exported to PDF, but I didn't hear back from prospective jobs that asked for a word format specifically.

Office 365 Web and desktop application really need a complete revamp, they have reproducible bugs and horrible UI/UX in edge cases.

I also really hate when Microsoft decides I want to store my sensitive data on their cloud for no apparent reason despite saving to local disk, it really seems like a 'whoops we accidentally did this but you should try it!' kind of move from MS. This is the perfect example of a monolithic application with chronic feature creep.

> I didn't hear back from prospective jobs that asked for a word format specifically

This almost always means you're speaking to a recruiter who is going to strip your identity from the resume so they can hold it hostage for an agreed commission. This also puts your submission at a disadvantage because you're automatically 10% more expensive than the next guy.

If you're submitting your job application, double check that you're submitting through the company's preferred channel. Look for the job on their own website. And be suspicious when they request an editable file format.

Thanks for the tip, I learnt this a long time ago, I've also moved into an industry where dealing with recruiters would probably indicate other issues like lack of ability to research prospective employers, etc.

I'm glad it's becoming more common knowledge though. Recruiters have long been redundant compared to job search websites like seek.

In some cases yes, but the majority of jobs are never formally advertised.

Where do you think MD (Managing Directors), CxOs and other high level people go for jobs?

The majority of them will get their next position through who they know, not a job board.

A good one though, very much worth it.

I was lucky enough that I never had to apply for a job with such requirements, but how does one learn about stuff like this?

In my case, it was what I discovered after having it explained to me during a job interview why the salary I was asking for wasn’t feasible. The company straight up said they couldn’t afford on top of the recruiter’s commission. I had assumed the recruiter was representing the company, but after that experience I spent time learning about the murky side of recruitment.

I had a really awesome boss who probably overshared about stuff like this but a lot of it also comes with general distrust in the business world. People are out to make a buck and they'll do it anyway they can. Every time you come across a business, consider how it works and where their profit comes from.

A tactic I've used in the past is buying a burner number (prepaid sim), called recruiters with a fake name, number and resume and asked them to provide details about the job which many of them name completely. The ones that don't generally indicate that other recruiters do exactly what I'm doing to them in order to steal clients.

I don't feel bad about screwing over an industry which has no place in the modern world, particularly when they're opportunistically trying to make a buck from me and/or my future company while adding very, very little value :)

Have friends that work/have worked as a recruiter :)

PDF files aren't safe either. Even if you gave them a JPEG, they'd just transcribe your data into their own little CV template.

Sure they can, but they'll still try for a DOC file because that makes their lives easier.

The answer isn't to try to "beat" the recruiter with PDFs and JPEGs; the answer is to run away and find a more direct path to the employer.

> I'd also recommend avoiding the MacOS Office build for the same reason

I never understood why they made it a effectively a different product. (Once you go past the trivial interaction) Different features, different behaviours, different problems. Why is excel for Mac not the same engine with a different UI?

Probably likely to do with the toolkit used to build the Windows version and inability or unwillingness to port it to Mac.

They really need to start from scratch and build solid, easily testable product because the current methodology doesn't work.

I especially love the bugs where when in one specific track changes mode typing in the comments section drops keys, or when using 'read aloud' the voice randomly changes gender. Office 365 on a Windows 10 LTSC virtualised host w/ no other software.

Honestly, Libre Office has better compatibility between office versions, then MS Office.

I also like Abi Word, but it's only a word processor, not a full suite. I keep it around because it will open damn near any word processing format.

> They really need to start from scratch and build solid, easily testable product because the current methodology doesn't work.

Isn't that exactly what you're trying to do with the web version

I actually thought that this is what they were doing:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-microsoft-is-taking-on-the...

Hmm... Maybe I'm using something from before this project was finished. The support pages claim that the latest versions have the same behaviours between Win and Mac for the features I was interested in. May be time to upgrade.

Given that Microsoft is a for-profit company, what's the financial justification for writing office for Linux on desktop? The market share isn't even a rounding error and you're talking about them investing tens of millions minimum into the development.

The fact they have office on Android, iOS, and osx proves it's about market share and common sense, not some fabricated hatred or fear of Linux on the desktop.

> what's the financial justification for writing office for Linux on desktop?

Well, the same argument could be applied to their open source contributions. Considering that [canonical corporate view is that] patented ideas are expensive to produce, and that exFAT is patented, what's the financial justication for open sourcing it (the specs or else)?

The argument is ultimately against "Windows love Linux". The thesis of the parent is just that they're doing unsubstantial moves (or worse, manipulative ones), and that if they "truly loved Linux", they would do something substantial, which, for the corporate world, is to support Office on Linux.

This argument can very easily be used against people who claim they love Linux and FOSS but they never really seem to be willing to part with the same amount of money other people are willing to give MS. Donating $300 for every copy of Libre Office you use would go a long way to making MS Office on Linux completely unneeded. Same goes for donating similar amounts for every Linux you install. I guess everyone's love has limits and it's usually money.

As for MS's contribution to open source you have to consider the difference in magnitude between the revenue that Office generates and the revenue that their other open source contributions do (would?). Then consider also the development effort involved.

It looks like OP just wants exactly what MS doesn't offer completely disregarding the alternatives, and I'm pretty sure they would not be willing to pay the markup for the extra development involved.

They don't have a mobile OS anymore. Apple is hardware-limited; there's a much larger buy-in required if you wanted to switch from Windows to MacOS than to Linux. And companies could save a LOT of money on computers if all they needed for software was Office and that were available on Linux.

yeah but the money they'd save is money that would go to microsoft through windows licenses and support, why would they want to lose that?

> you're talking about them > investing tens of millions > minimum into the development

Do you have a source for this hyperbole??

That’s what, a few dozen devs and infrastructure, probably? Not at all outlandish.

This seems oddly specific and arbitrary. What if the engineering effort in porting it over is not economically viable?

Given the direction they're going with the web versions of Office 365, it's entirely possible that the future involves them deciding porting stuff to the Windows version is not economically viable and relegate the native apps to legacy support like IE.

I've been 100% Office 365 web apps on Linux Chromium since around February. So far, I haven't hit a situation that has required spinning up my Windows 10 VM.

What do you do when you want to edit a document or compose an email offline?

I don't know. I'm in a US coastal megalopolis covered in cell data towers, so I haven't encountered that issue yet. I'm sure it will happen at some point, but I think the web apps have offline capability.

I am guessing Office 365 has some sort of offline capabilities. Maybe not?

For the email, can’t you write it anywhere? Difference is it’s not officially a draft in an email client.

Office 365 allows you to install the latest version of word excel ... too in addition to their web versions. It’s actually the superior part of the offering, even though Hm tends to focus on the web part (why superior ? Automatic upgrade to latest so no mismatch of versions inside your company, no expensive acquisition cost merely add less than ten euro a month to add a new user, disable the next month if it didn't work out).

The installer fails on wine last time I checked, but porting an installation from windows works fine, and the account and license connection is fine too.

Office 365 is 700 things all with the same name.

Office 365 web apps (free), Office 365 the monthly updating desktop Windows version of MSOffice (not free)

Outlook webmail works fine offline. You need to enable some setting though.

That's actually kind of happened. One note program is no longer part of Microsoft office anymore. Instead you are suppose to use the onenote app. It's a hassle but you can install the old program and it's still much better than the app

It's more likely that Microsoft Office will become 100% "cloud" based software.

That's never going to happen. The US government is a huge Microsoft Office customer, and national security-sensitive documents cannot be placed in a cloud that's not completely controlled by the government.

Sounds like they'd build a Gov-Office365 cloud if there's a deal just like AWS Govcloud.

They already do that - https://www.itnews.com.au/news/dta-becomes-microsofts-first-...

There’s already a US Government Community Cloud for moderate risk (.com) and a US GovCloid for higher risk (.us) workloads.

As with all things multicloud and Microsoft, it’s easy to get into trouble in the community cloud.

Have you heard of AWG Gov tier?

Maybe they don't want to deal with how shitty a graphical desktop environment is on Linux. I've largely given up on Linux with the exception of the terminal because of this. There are just too many graphical quirks and glitches.

I know that Linux is merely a kernel but I wonder how things would have played out if the kernel contained some form of graphical environment. There are so many competing environments that you have massive choice but also nothing that really works well either.

Pretty sure porting SQL Server to Linux was more than marketing.

Run SQL server on more cloud providers that way

Okay but this is the future of our industry. Are they just supposed to roll over or die?

Shouldn’t we appreciate that after decades of bad blood they’ve decided to now wise up? Shouldn’t we give the benefit of the doubt?

Companies have to face it. Community-which was once considered auxiliary bullshit that needed lip service—has now become the de-facto requirement for how to engage users and customers in a technology business. Now that we see them doing it we want to criticize them?

Companies are not people. They are not owed any second chances, olive branches, benefits of doubt.

Nothing is stopping any of MSFT's OSS-Forward ideas from being brought up by capable people in other contexts.

> Community-which was once considered auxiliary bullshit that needed lip service—has now become the de-facto requirement for how to engage users and customers in a technology business.

I don't know what you're referring to; I don't see any difference in community engagement in the industry on the whole compared to 10 years ago.

The only move towards "community" from big companies I've seen so far is that nowadays you can make a ruckus on twitter to make them care.

> Shouldn’t we appreciate that after decades of bad blood they’ve decided to now wise up? Shouldn’t we give the benefit of the doubt?

If they didn't supported SQL server o Linux then no one would use it, as using MS Windows on VMs forces an additional premium on deployment costs.

As I see it, supporting Linux on a specific use case is not a sign of wising up, but a desperate concession to try to stay relevant.

> As I see it, supporting Linux on a specific use case is not a sign of wising up, but a desperate concession to try to stay relevant.

Those are really the same thing, "wising up" and "trying to stay relevant".

Of course. Similarly, Linux is run more than Windows on Azure.

This also means the majority of OSes operating on a Microsoft proprietary cloud arch are based around a kernel whose governance is becoming increasingly influenced by - you guessed it - Microsoft.

I would settle for just Skype for Business on Linux. No excuses why it shouldn't be on there... and yet it isn't.

Skype for Business has been replaced by teams which is not much better and pretty much still an awful chat application.

Teams is worse in that it appears to actually be Electron instead of the semi-native (I don't think it's pure Win32, judging by the UI latency and appearance) Skype for Business.

Being awful is Skype's killer feature. You can't carpet-bomb with pings, you can't comfortably copy and paste code or logs into it, half of devs who use linux don't bother running it on a VM and instead use flaky third-party clients, it eats messages randomly, so long story short - people generally avoid it except for trivial shit. And on the odd day when they don't, I get a copy on Outlook anyway.

I've read some horror stories about Slack, and I shudder to think what would happen if my company moved to it.

only for the cloud version.

S4B server edition is still in active dev

You could use office 365 on your linux machine.

Offering a cloud service to a linux user is like tempting a vegetarian with meat.

Linux users often choose Linux because they want to be in control of their data and devices, cloud services are about giving control of that away to companies.

Linux is a kernel, it’s not a way of life. Chromebook and Android users are Linux users. People who use web applications that run on Linux servers are Linux users. Developers who use Vagrant or Docker on Mac OS, or Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows, are Linux users.

Microsoft may or may not “love” the tiny subset of users who run Linux-based desktops and are unwilling to use web applications. But that doesn’t mean they don’t “love” Linux as a foundational technology of modern computing.

You're being pedantic. "Linux users" in a post like this clearly means a specific thing. Context matters.

It means a specific thing, but the specific thing that it means is insignificant. The basic argument that “if Microsoft really cared about Linux they’d write native Office apps for Linux desktops” is myopic and, in itself, ignores the broader context of what makes Linux relevant in the first place. As you say, context matters—and context is exactly what I was providing.

Agree with you 100%. On a related note, it strikes me as wrong that so much of the discourse about Linux revolves around its suitability for general consumer desktop use.

People always talk about “the year of the Linux desktop” (and not always ironically!) but honestly, whether a random person can play 4k Netflix on their Linux laptop is like 0.1% of why Linux matters in the world.

> Linux is a kernel, it’s not a way of life.

You're being disingenuous. Linux users are users of Linux and software that runs on Linux.

In the context of service deployment, this clearly refers to users who need to deploy Linux VMs to run software that runs on Linux.

The kernel is irrelevant. This use case clearly refers to Linux distributions, which nowadays probably means Debian or a Debian-based distro. So obviously in this context a Linux users means someone who needs to deploy a Debian-based distro on VMs to deploy and run software on it. In fact, more often than not when people refer to running Linux they are actually implying that they need to deploy and run software on a specific ecosystem, such as a combination of a package manager, package repository, service manager, and even f Directory tree layout.

This is not a way of life or a cult. It's a technical requirement that must be met for people to do their job.

> Linux users are users of Linux and software that runs on Linux.

That's exactly the point I was making. People who run Debian-based desktops are a tiny subset of that group. Hell, I have a Linux desktop and not even I run Debian.

>Linux users often choose Linux because they want to be in control of their data and devices, cloud services are about giving control of that away to companies.

You may have been able to get away with that kind of broad generalization a decade ago (actually mo -- that's not true, AWS and Canonical's push to cloud started MORE than a decade ago. Google too. Let's call it 15 years ago), but that is certainly not the case now.

And frankly, I think putting Linux users in a box where only FOSS drivers are allowed (even though Nvidia GPUs are doing much of the best work for CUDA) and to use it you have to be lock-step with an ideology that very few people will ever be able to be "pure" enough to follow completely (assuming they want to follow that ideology in the first place), does the Linux ecosystem a major disservice.

I would posit that the vast majority of developers and end-users who access and use Linux on a daily basis are doing it at least in part through a cloud service -- whether its a cheap VPS or a large cluster of machines.

*Disclosure: I work at Microsoft on Azure. These are my thoughts and do not represent those of others. I primarily use a Mac but have been playing with/arguing about Linux for 20 years -- going back to when I was 15 years old. I also use WSL on Windows.

I also work on Azure, hi!

I have mixed feelings about closed-source blobs tainting my kernel. AMD did a terrific job open-sourcing their driver stack. I use Nvidia for deep learning out of necessity but I resent it, as I'm completely locked into X11 because they can't be assed to implement GBM. Nvidia has also gotten a stranglehold over the DL and HPC markets with CUDA, causing a chicken-and-egg problem where OpenCL isn't well supported because none of the cards that require it have serious power, and it's not worth AMD putting lots of money into the HPC market because it's locked into CUDA.

NVidia needs Linux more than Linux needs NVidia (imagine competing on HPC while running Windows-only!) And yet, they contribute nothing to the kernel and stymie efforts towards unified standards like GBM.

it's shades of DirectX all over again. that's the problem with tainting.

Well we are talking about using Linux on a desktop machine exclusively, only then a demand for a non-cloud version of MS Office would make sense, I think. This subset of people are probably more likely to care about control of their data that just some people that dual-boot or use linux on their android phone.

I think a significant number of Linux users don't care about this.

That depends. If they are a Linux user because Linux runs on their server, router, mobile phone or what not. Then you are probably right.

People that go through the trouble of installing Linux on a Desktop Machine, where Windows or MacOS was probably pre-installed, will either dual boot or use Linux exclusively. If they dual-boot, they will probably just use Office on the non-Linux System and not care.

But if they use Linux exclusively they will very probably care about the freedom and control Linux brings.

I still disagree. I used Linux almost exclusively because it made my job easier and I don't like switching between operating systems, and I use cloud services like Gmail and Dropbox. I also use the free version of onenote from ms. I just use whatever is convenient.

Then I switched jobs, they gave me a new MacBook that doesn't run Linux so I use osx.

Ten years ago I cared about privacy, now I feel like that ship has sailed. My own privacy is not that important. The privacy of my fellow citizens is gone. I mourn it kind of, but you can't close Pandora's box.

There are a gigantic number of people whose university or corporate IT department installs Linux for them on standard issue hardware which they use every day for their job. E.g. big companies whose programmers all develop on Linux machines, or most academics in programming-adjacent fields like statistics or machine learning.

Another category is people who installed it themselves because they like it better, but for non-ideological reasons. Like, a large chunk of programmers feel much more comfortable on Linux than Windows.

(I’m not sure what to make of your point about dual booting — it’s hard to believe anyone would “not care” about having to do a full reboot every time they wanted to do something as common as view an office document. Now “let me finish reading that interview candidate’s resume” goes from something I can alt-tab to while compiling into an ordeal of saving all my open work, rebooting, downloading and opening and reading it, rebooting again, reopening all my work...)

I fall into the another category. I use Linux because I like how I can customise heavily how it looks and have control over when updates are installed. I do some programming as well which does admittedly work better for me on Linux. I don't really care about the ideology. I use a Nvidia graphics card with closed source drivers because I want the best performance. Free and open source is nice, because I like how that works as an ecosystem but I'm never going to turn something I want down because its closed source. I considered dual booting for gaming but honestly enough works and as you say about rebooting just to open an office document, I don't feel like doing that just to play one game and then go back.

> want to be in control of their data and devices,

The other day there was a thread on HN about which laptop is great for Linux. Tons of people recommended Lenovo, a guy from Redhat said it's even the brand that's used internally and I got a little depressed and smh. Nobody mentioned superfish. Those glorious days of Linux are gone.

Redhat internally uses Thinkpads.

Superfish was on Ideapads, and it was bundled Windows software.

While both are by Lenovo, they are separate product lines.

"We are a totally trustworthy company, we screw only some of our customers."

In that segment? I would wonder something is wrong, if they didn't.

Ideapads are in market segment, that is extremely price sensitive, but not quality-sensitive. If the competition would cost 10 bucks less, it would be a huge win for them, so everyone tries to minimize price while preserving margins as much as possible.

In the end, these devices do ship with Windows, which has privacy problems anyway.

All this is moot, when you put Linux on it, which was the context we were talking about.

> In the end, these devices do ship with Windows, which has privacy problems anyway.

It does, but those are "theoretical" in comparison to the degree Lenovo stooped on, it doesn't excuse Superfish at all. Windows isn't a free for all platform, yet.

> All this is moot, when you put Linux on it, which was the context we were talking about.

_That_ time. I'll copy a response I provided two months ago as Lenovo on HN has become a seriously annoying groundhog day for me:

I can't know that whatever harmful and irrational environment that led to Superfish in IdeaPad won't affect ThinkPads in the future. Even in the most generous understanding where IdeaPad is a different, physically separate branch of the company, and Superfish was an act of incompetence and not outright malice I can't be expected to keep up with the insider intrigue of the company to notice any changes that could negatively affect me. More importantly, leadership is still responsible for setting irrational environment that lead to Superfish, whatever that environment was. This is a multi-billion dollar company, there is no excuse for such incompetence.

Every single company did stupid things in the past (not just CE/ITC companies; but the builder that built your house too, for example). You can be outraged by many things all of them did. By choosing, what you are or are not outraged, you are just rationalizing your preferences.

Was superfish stupid mistake? Yes, it was. Does it mean you should condemn the company for the rest of eternity? Probably not.

> Every single company did stupid things in the past

Perhaps there is some boundary that shouldn't be crossed. You seem to be arguing there isn't.

Perhaps global and successful companies should exercise some due diligence and have a department that would control quality and firewall wacky ideas.

Perhaps we as CEs should hold companies responsible so that they stop perpetuating never ending shenanigans that this industry is known for. If even we don't boycott bad actors how can we expect normal users to do it.

> Does it mean you should condemn the company for the rest of eternity? Probably not.

If they showed some contrition perhaps? Name and fire entire chain of people responsible for it and donate a year of their net income to foreign FOSS organizations - in ideal world the company should've gone bankrupt, so the penance should be hard. Then I'd be more ready to believe them they would do better in the future.

To each his own, in my opinion consumer market for laptops being a trash fire doesn't excuse putting malware on them.

Yes, it was stupid. Should that mean you are never going to buy thinkpad again? Probably not.

The whole point of being vegetarian is to not eat meat. That in no way is analogous to Linux and cloud stuff.

You seem to be talking about a subset of Linux users. And then a subset of that subset who find cloud apps as bad as vegetarians may find meat.

OT: I only need Outlook or at least a decent Groupware Client for EWS (EWS for Outlook Online Sync/the customer version)/office365. That does not have sync issues, etc. Bonus: if it can sync Contacts with Linphone. And I would pay for it after a 10days testing period. electron version is ok, but not preferred.

> I'll believe Microsoft loves Linux when I can install Microsoft Office in my desktop Linux machine.

I'll believe Microsoft loves Linux when I can install Windows after Linux and it doesn't mess up the bootloader as if it were the only game in town.

I'm not sure that "desktop Linux machine" is really a thing. I hate to feel that Linux has won servers and IoT, maybe mobile, but clearly lost desktop. Desktop is a dying thing by itself, so not bad after all.

they ported SQL Server but I doubt they would ever port Office. It would make more sense to use your browser to access online Office.

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