Linux

But why??? LibreOffice is great, isn't made by Microslop, and doesn't use that god-awful ribbon bar.

If people want to run MS Office and Linux allows them to do so, that's a good point for Linux, whether it's good taste to do so or not...

Let's try running some windows only viruses on Linux next.

I really dislike microsoft office, but the unfortunate reality is that it is used everywhere and it is such a disadvantage not to have, onlyoffice works great for me but the risk of things not looking right when sharing with someone with office is quite big. So I really like this progression, needing to run a full windows emulation to get office is a pain.

Why would anyone want to run Office 365 on Linux?

This might be useful for some Linux users who want (but don't need) to run Microsoft 365 occasionally, but actually relying on this kind of hack is a terrible idea.

Once fully implemented, this will help draw in people into Linux, as many shudder at the thought of switching to the platform because their preferred office suite doesn’t work here.

I certainly hope this doesn't "help draw in people into Linux". It's sad to think about people and organizations switching to Linux on the basis of someone misleading them into thinking that relying on this kind of thing is a good idea because when it breaks it will give them a bad impression and they'll blame "Linux" instead of Microsoft (or Bottles or whoever told them it was a good idea).

When the lack of a Linux version of a specific proprietary program is the blocker preventing someone from switching to Linux, relying on a workaround which remains unsupported by the proprietary/adversarial software vendor is... a recipe for a bad time.

Even if this mostly works today, it is extremely likely that (either intentionally or inadvertently) Microsoft will break it in the future.

So, although I do see how this can be useful for some people when/while it works, in my opinion Linux and the world at large would be better off if this software didn't exist. I hope Microsoft breaks it sooner than later!

I think people should instead work on alternative applications to have compatibility with the file format.

I hope this never happens to me

You know what? That was a great article. Well researched and not too wordy, so I didn’t get bored. If you skipped it and came straight to the comments, you should click it, Adblock or not.

There’s so much slop out here, we should let them know we like this.

Anyway, as for the content of the article… meh, I don’t care about Office but it would be good for Linux in general to have it working.

I guess I'm the only here, but after years of running LibreOffice, I still miss MS Office.

Don't get me wrong, I can do everything I need in LO, but MSO is still better imo.

Nothing is like Excel and it's macros (I know, old school, but I can't get macros as complete in LO). And I miss Word's "page layout" where you can just center a text to a page vertically. Details, but still things I miss.

their preferred office suite

Usually it's not "their preferred office suite" but "office suite they are forces to use at work". MS Office usage is high because of network effect, not because any other office suite is worse.

I use LO Writer for any document I write (or work with) myself and it's perfectly fine. The only reason I keep MS Office is that I need to work on documents other people write (or need to work with).

Of course there are people who actually prefer MS Office, but it's similar to Windows itself: most people did not choose it, they either don't know there is an alternative or are forced to use it for compatibility reasons (at work). It's rare that anyone actually "prefers" MS software.

Personally, I think this is good. Obviously most people here already use some libre alternative or just access this via the web or dual boot, but most non-computer savvy people are dead set with keeping to what they already use either because of work or simply being more comfortable sticking with what they know.

Plus, there's probably cases where the web versions aren't going to be viable. Kind of ironic that so many linux people simultaneously make fun of the ChromeOS workflow where everything depends on browser-based services while dismissing people who can't switch fully because needing the MS suite with "just use the browser version".

For context, CodeWeavers sells a paid Wine product, CrossOver, and its database still lists Microsoft Office 365 on Linux as "Installs, Will Not Run," last tested against CrossOver 26.3.0.

Office 365 does run in CrossOver, just poorly. They've also recently dropped support for it in CrossOver 26, and AFAIK CrossOver 27 won't be able to run it at all.

So it's good to know that Bottles has effectively replaced it.

If this was still like 2010 I actually would have thought this is pretty nice but office went to complete garbage just likee everything else MSFT has touched this past decade.

Even on windows I've seen random people using libre office instead.

The last time I opened excel it actually died trying to handle my copy paste of a simple list.

Do copilot next!

My expectation is that MS will replace Windows with Linux within the decade with a Windows lookalike theme and Windows style desktop. They will run a Rosetta like VM to keep old apps running. It will be much cheaper, Linux can do anything that Windows can, with much less development costs. They might say that Windows needs at least 16GB RAM to keep that VM running smoothly, plus some new CPU and GPU to keep the hardware industry happy. They will still make it so that Office will only run on their version of Linux.

FUCK microsoft, btw

Yeah, no.

Tool suites like Photoshop, they don't bother for a Linux version (and it's historically grown, the original devs probably long retired).

But Microslop? They really don't want their products on Linux. As soon as it gains traction, MS will break it.