Why do some continue using Microsoft Office on Mac?

[jfreedle2]

Most certainly not idiots. However they still need to eat. So either (a) they are contributing to FOSS in their free time, and can only do so much, or (b) someone is paying them to do this full time. It can be a foundation like Mozilla, or a corporation that has vested commercial interest in a specific kind of FOSS, or some group of rich criminals or an unnamed spy agency that see this as a great way to snoop on devices. Most contributors probably fall into (a). But the bottom line is, there's never been real emphasis on security in FOSS space, starting with Linus Torvalds himself. Which is why I no longer run a Linux OS on my main home machine. Now, of course Windows and (gasp !) even Mac have vulnerabilities as well. But they are taking a whole lot more serious approach to it now than 20 years ago. FOSS is largely stuck in the mindset of 30 years ago.

Here's some food for thought.

The US military wants to understand the most important software on Earth

Open-source code runs on every computer on the planet—and keeps America’s critical infrastructure going. DARPA is worried about how well it can be trusted

www.technologyreview.com

The idiots are not the experts that write the software, but the novices that have knowledge of software design or any aspect that would make them intelligent. They took a class in coding and believe that they are an expert software engineer and can make coding changes to open source software. Linux has never proven itself to work outside of a virtual machine, so other than running on a Raspberry Pi, I will not be running Linux on any hardware for the next eon, after that it might be questionable.

 

[Wheel_D]

Several posts in this thread casually mention WordPerfect as an apparent alternative to the likes of Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

No—unfortunately, regrettably, emphatically no.

As a decades-long WordPerfect user, let me note that neither WordPerfect itself nor WordPerfect Office overall have received any serious development in ages. Indeed, the suite's last genuine update was the release of WordPerfect Office 10 in 2001.

No kidding—22 years ago.

Oh, sure, Corel/"Alludo" still sells it. Until now, they've been diligent about changing WP's version number, essentially charging full price for re-releasing nearly identical software every two years. (The've tightened restrictions on "upgrade" pricing and other discounts.)

You'll notice that I wrote "nearly identical." To ensure that we WordPerfect peasants faithful feel extra-charmed, the company has occasionally thrown in a token change, from basic .DOCX compatibility to rudimentary multi-monitor support.

Just don't expect any patches, OK? They haven't bothered with bug-fixes for several years.

 

[ipaqrat]

Most certainly not idiots. However they still need to eat. So either (a) they are contributing to FOSS in their free time, and can only do so much, or (b) someone is paying them to do this full time. It can be a foundation like Mozilla, or a corporation that has vested commercial interest in a specific kind of FOSS, or some group of rich criminals or an unnamed spy agency that see this as a great way to snoop on devices. Most contributors probably fall into (a). But the bottom line is, there's never been real emphasis on security in FOSS space, starting with Linus Torvalds himself. Which is why I no longer run a Linux OS on my main home machine. Now, of course Windows and (gasp !) even Mac have vulnerabilities as well. But they are taking a whole lot more serious approach to it now than 20 years ago. FOSS is largely stuck in the mindset of 30 years ago.

Here's some food for thought.

The US military wants to understand the most important software on Earth

Open-source code runs on every computer on the planet—and keeps America’s critical infrastructure going. DARPA is worried about how well it can be trusted

www.technologyreview.com

SE Linux, FIPS 140, and DISA STIGS have combined to keep Linux tight for decades, certainly no worse off than modern BSD Unix that underpins MacOS. The Idea is to default all the security features to ON, instead of OFF. Frankly, once you STIG an SE Linux server and enable FIPS 140, oh boy, you will understand why more agencies DON'T. In the struggle, we find that, mainly, it's the commercial software vendors that force you to break security, even the major vendors of SECURITY SOFTWARE 😖. Same goes for Unix, Windows and Mac.

That old MIT Tech article just rehashed the same threadbare generalities about FOSS in general, and glued 'em together with clickbait FUD. Coming out of Covid, I guess MIT needed the clicks or something. That article made it sound like DARPA dropped some revelatory **** over mojitos in the club house.

Like what happened to CISA's former director, Chris Krebs, many profoundly smart, experienced personnel were purged, or quit, the former Drumph administration. Everyone knows that smart people are a threat to all aspiring authoritarian dicktaters. And Byeduhn obviously has not impressed them sufficiently to rejoin the ranks as GSS or SES. They're gone now, and the current generation feels shocked and horrified because they're noobz.

OpenSource provides a security advantage that is fiendishly difficult to enumerate in terms of $$$: Transparency. You can validate what's in it. No guessing. Then you seal your perimeter with a good architecture (zero-trust, malware prevention, secure DNS, real time file integrity checking, and code execution controls, etc., etc.).

As ever, security budgets are a tough sell. Security procedures are tiring. Successful outcomes sound like silence. People don't get promoted for silence.

So, yeah, in short: Mac OS and MS Office for the win.

 

[jfreedle2]

Several posts in this thread casually mention WordPerfect as an apparent alternative to the likes of Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

No—unfortunately, regrettably, emphatically no.

As a decades-long WordPerfect user, let me note that neither WordPerfect itself nor WordPerfect Office overall have received any serious development in ages. Indeed, the suite's last genuine update was the release of WordPerfect Office 10 in 2001.

No kidding—22 years ago.

Oh, sure, Corel/"Alludo" still sells it. Until now, they've been diligent about changing WP's version number, essentially charging full price for re-releasing nearly identical software every two years. (The've tightened restrictions on "upgrade" pricing and other discounts.)

You'll notice that I wrote "nearly identical." To ensure that we WordPerfect peasants faithful feel extra-charmed, the company has occasionally thrown in a token change, from basic .DOCX compatibility to rudimentary multi-monitor support.

Just don't expect any patches, OK? They haven't bothered with bug-fixes for several years.

This is similar to Microsoft not really updating Microsoft Office since 1997. Sure they have changed the interface, but that is it.

 

[Wheel_D]

This is similar to Microsoft not really updating Microsoft Office since 1997. Sure they have changed the interface, but that is it.

As much as I dislike Microsoft, I'm compelled to disagree; the two situations are quite different.

Historically, when MS releases new versions of Office, they've included documentation that touts new features and refinements. It's a practice that Corel stopped decades ago, because, for all intents and purposes, each "release" of WordPerfect Office contains no changes. It's a comparison of actively developed software versus abandonware.

If Microsoft pulled the same shenanigans with Office that Corel/"Alludo" has committed with WordPerfect, MS Office would be laughed off the market.

 

[jfreedle2]

As much as I dislike Microsoft, I'm compelled to disagree; the two situations are quite different.

Historically, when MS releases new versions of Office, they've included documentation that touts new features and refinements. It's a practice that Corel stopped decades ago, because, for all intents and purposes, each "release" of WordPerfect Office contains no changes. It's a comparison of actively developed software versus abandonware.

If Microsoft pulled the same shenanigans with Office that Corel/"Alludo" has committed with WordPerfect, MS Office would be laughed off the market.

Microsoft is often laughed at in the market.

 

[jlc1978]

Oh, sure, Corel/"Alludo" still sells it. Until now, they've been diligent about changing WP's version number, essentially charging full price for re-releasing nearly identical software every two years. (The've tightened restrictions on "upgrade" pricing and other discounts.)

My experience with Corel is once they get ahold of a product the product is essentially dead. They simply want to milk them as a cash cow with little if any development. Fortunately, none of their products are must haves since there are plenty of better alternatives, FOSS and proprietary.

Microsoft is often laughed at in the market.

Yet it is the defacto standard. MS products are good enough for most users and by virtue of being the defacto standard using Mac Office is a necessity for most people in the business world.

Apple's suite is great if you don't need to exchange documents, which saves a user some money; and I used to recommend it or Open Office to friends who had college bound children. Of course, many schools now include an Office license as part of tuition so there is no need for an alternative.

There was a time AppleWorks was one to the best available productivity suites, but Office now rules and will be hard to dethrone.

 

[jfreedle2]

My experience with Corel is once they get ahold of a product the product is essentially dead. They simply want to milk them as a cash cow with little if any development. Fortunately, none of their products are must haves since there are plenty of better alternatives, FOSS and proprietary.



Yet it is the defacto standard. MS products are good enough for most users and by virtue of being the defacto standard using Mac Office is a necessity for most people in the business world.

Apple's suite is great if you don't need to exchange documents, which saves a user some money; and I used to recommend it or Open Office to friends who had college bound children. Of course, many schools now include an Office license as part of tuition so there is no need for an alternative.

There was a time AppleWorks was one to the best available productivity suites, but Office now rules and will be hard to dethrone.

And yet people still laugh at Microsoft Office and I moved on from using the garbage in favor of something better, Apple iWork. It is easy to dethrone Microsoft Office, just refuse to use the garbage. It was easy for me because it was not available until much later and it is much less capable than Apple iWork.

 

[jlc1978]

And yet people still laugh at Microsoft Office and I moved on from using the garbage in favor of something better, Apple iWork. It is easy to dethrone Microsoft Office, just refuse to use the garbage.

Unfortunately, if you need to send documents to someone using Office, Office is really the only reliable method; even then sometime the Mac->Windows transfer results in some weirdness.

Given how many people use Office, walking away is not possible for most people using Macs for work.

It was easy for me because it was not available until much later and it is much less capable than Apple iWork.

Depends on what you need to do. For me, Numbers can't hold a candle to Excel; though for many people Numbers would be more than powerful enough. It all depends on the use case.

 

[jfreedle2]

Unfortunately, if you need to send documents to someone using Office, Office is really the only reliable method; even then sometime the Mac->Windows transfer results in some weirdness.

Given how many people use Office, walking away is not possible for most people using Macs for work.



Depends on what you need to do. For me, Numbers can't hold a candle to Excel; though for many people Numbers would be more than powerful enough. It all depends on the use case.

You do not need Office to save as an Office format. Unless they are editing, which is rare, I will send the file as a PDF. It is actually easy, I have moved away from Microsoft Office eleven years ago and have not looked back. Excel may have more features, but not as many on the macOS as it has on Windows. Those “features” are used by <1% of people so they are a complete waste of space. There are better alternatives for those features that might be used once in a blue moon. But if you want to continue to give a Microsoft your hard earned money, that just says that you do not value your time and money. I guess if everyone is jumping into a wood chipper than you will follow them because that is what everyone else is doing.

 

[jlc1978]

You do not need Office to save as an Office format.

Except the format is not always fully compatible and results in weird formatting at time, something that is unprofessional in a work environment.

Unless they are editing, which is rare, I will send the file as a PDF.

Collaborative editing in a business environment is more commonplace than rare, so pdfs are a non-starter. You may get away with pdfs but in many situations they are not an option. For me, pdfs are only used once the final document is approved; even then we need an Office version for future editing if needed.

It is actually easy, I have moved away from Microsoft Office eleven years ago and have not looked back.

Great, it works for you; which is why I said it depends on the use case.

Excel may have more features, but not as many on the macOS as it has on Windows.

Yes, feature parity is an issue in some cases; also between the Web and Live versions and the desktop.

I've had to do some work in the Windows version in a VM for that reason.

Those “features” are used by <1% of people so they are a complete waste of space.

Maybe, but when you need them you need them. One of those features is macros, which I bet are used by way more than 1% of the users, even if they never touch VBA.

There's a reason serious development work is done in Office, with a whole industry sprung up around it, and not Numbers/Pages/Keynote. They are fine for what they are intended for, but not a serious challenger for Office.

There are better alternatives for those features that might be used once in a blue moon.

However, if you use them regularly, work arounds are a PIA and mean you cannot share a file with an Office user. n some cases, there isn't an acceptable alternative.

But if you want to continue to give a Microsoft your hard earned money, that just says that you do not value your time and money.

Considering I make a good living using Office the small amount I pay for it has a huge ROI. It's a business decision, if I could do the same with Apple's suite I would but the bottom line is Apple's suite pales in comparison to Office for my use case. No doubt many others have reached the same conclusion.

For example, I created a product that takes survey data, graphs answers, does comparisons, formats comments and then the result is exported to word as a report where you can add additional narrative. World and Excel automatically link and update the report, and macros handle a lot of the analysis and formatting automatically.

I've actually tried to do the same thing I do in Office in Excel/Pages, but it simply is not possible without a whole lot more work, which would be a waste of my time to try to do.

I guess if everyone is jumping into a wood chipper than you will follow them because that is what everyone else is doing.

Ad hominem attacks do nothing to advance your position.

When something establishes itself as a standard in teh business world, you sue it. Simple economics dictate that. I'm not sure why you are so hurt that someone doesn't share your opinion on Apple's suite, but one's experience and choices depends on their use case.

I've recommended Apple's suite to people who do not need the capabilities of Office or are only using it for tehir own use. It's a great value for what it does, but not an Office replacement for many users; it all depends on the user's needs.

 

[saudor]

Given how many people use Office, walking away is not possible for most people using Macs for work.

And more so in corporate when most of the computers are PCs running Windows. Stuff like openoffice is basically only usable for the casual user and for those, google docs/sheets will likely meet their needs

 

[jfreedle2]

Except the format is not always fully compatible and results in weird formatting at time, something that is unprofessional in a work environment.



Collaborative editing in a business environment is more commonplace than rare, so pdfs are a non-starter. You may get away with pdfs but in many situations they are not an option. For me, pdfs are only used once the final document is approved; even then we need an Office version for future editing if needed.



Great, it works for you; which is why I said it depends on the use case.



Yes, feature parity is an issue in some cases; also between the Web and Live versions and the desktop.

I've had to do some work in the Windows version in a VM for that reason.



Maybe, but when you need them you need them. One of those features is macros, which I bet are used by way more than 1% of the users, even if they never touch VBA.

There's a reason serious development work is done in Office, with a whole industry sprung up around it, and not Numbers/Pages/Keynote. They are fine for what they are intended for, but not a serious challenger for Office.



However, if you use them regularly, work arounds are a PIA and mean you cannot share a file with an Office user. n some cases, there isn't an acceptable alternative.



Considering I make a good living using Office the small amount I pay for it has a huge ROI. It's a business decision, if I could do the same with Apple's suite I would but the bottom line is Apple's suite pales in comparison to Office for my use case. No doubt many others have reached the same conclusion.

For example, I created a product that takes survey data, graphs answers, does comparisons, formats comments and then the result is exported to word as a report where you can add additional narrative. World and Excel automatically link and update the report, and macros handle a lot of the analysis and formatting automatically.

I've actually tried to do the same thing I do in Office in Excel/Pages, but it simply is not possible without a whole lot more work, which would be a waste of my time to try to do.



Ad hominem attacks do nothing to advance your position.

When something establishes itself as a standard in teh business world, you sue it. Simple economics dictate that. I'm not sure why you are so hurt that someone doesn't share your opinion on Apple's suite, but one's experience and choices depends on their use case.

I've recommended Apple's suite to people who do not need the capabilities of Office or are only using it for tehir own use. It's a great value for what it does, but not an Office replacement for many users; it all depends on the user's needs.

Nobody has noticed the difference in the formatting of the exported documents yet, but I have not used esoteric formatting. Primarily because most of my work is limited to APA Style which is against anything that you could not do on a typewriter. No attacking implied, just stating an observation in a way that Microsoft Office users could understand. I was one of those people for 27 years before I upgraded eleven years ago and Microsoft Office was not available on the iPad. From using Microsoft Office since 4.3 though Microsoft 365, I can see that very few users truly need Microsoft Office in any capacity and would be served better by using Apple iWork over spending hundreds of dollars needlessly. I am an introvert and I could care less about what other people choose. I made my decision and I am just pointing out that most people do not need Microsoft Office but use it because they just do not care to learn about other more economical options to accomplish the same tasks. Also pointing that as a member of everyone, I am not using Microsoft Office and no organization on the planet can change that decision.

 

[Wheel_D]

My experience with Corel is once they get ahold of a product the product is essentially dead. They simply want to milk them as a cash cow with little if any development. Fortunately, none of their products are must haves since there are plenty of better alternatives, FOSS and proprietary.

Corel acquired WordPerfect in 1996, initially investing serious resources into its development. For the first few years, the company seemed to regard WordPerfect as a truly market-leading product.

I'm worried about Parallels. No doubt it's a terrific piece of software, but I don't want to support a company that treats its customers with such thorough contempt.

 

[jfreedle2]

Corel acquired WordPerfect in 1996, initially investing serious resources into its development. For the first few years, the company seemed to regard WordPerfect as a truly market-leading product.

I'm worried about Parallels. No doubt it's a terrific piece of software, but I don't want to support a company that treats its customers with such contempt.

That is why I have preferred VMware Fusion over Parallels Desktop in the past, but until Fusion 13.5, they did not have a process to download Windows and it was not as feature complete until now.

 

[StellarVixen]

I will stop using Office on Mac when Pages and Numbers start offering proper .docx and .xlsx support.

I'll be here waiting, Apple

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Microsoft is often laughed at in the market.

And then they still buy it. Numbers (and the others), don't hold a candle to Excel.

I have 15 collaboratively-edited excel sheets running currently, with tracking. There isn't another choice.

You do not need Office to save as an Office format. Unless they are editing, which is rare, I will send the file as a PDF. It is actually easy, I have moved away from Microsoft Office eleven years ago and have not looked back. Excel may have more features, but not as many on the macOS as it has on Windows. Those “features” are used by <1% of people so they are a complete waste of space.

It's not rare in the business world, and it's massively more than 1% of said group.

I am an introvert and I could care less about what other people choose.

I'm an extrovert and I don't care what other people choose. I choose what works and Office works for me...and Apple's suite doesn't.

 

[jlc1978]

Nobody has noticed the difference in the formatting of the exported documents yet, but I have not used esoteric formatting. Primarily because most of my work is limited to APA Style which is against anything that you could not do on a typewriter.

Simple formatting is usually not a problem, but once you do anything beyond that problems can occur, such as strange page breaks, font compatibility, etc.

No attacking implied, just stating an observation in a way that Microsoft Office users could understand.

No worries. Hard to get context in a forum post. We good.

I was one of those people for 27 years before I upgraded eleven years ago and Microsoft Office was not available on the iPad. From using Microsoft Office since 4.3 though Microsoft 365, I can see that very few users truly need Microsoft Office in any capacity and would be served better by using Apple iWork over spending hundreds of dollars needlessly.

Like I said. A lot depends on how you use it. At home, or even a small business that produces its own correspondence, invoking, etc. could be well served by Apple's suite; and I've often made those recommendations.

I do wish Apple had a decent database as part of the suite, such as the old Bento. A Visio style application would be nice as well but that is much more niche than a database.

The challenge is when you get beyond that into places where MS is entrenched, or need to do more complex things that Apple simply cannot do easily or at all.

I am an introvert and I could care less about what other people choose.

Same here, as my clothes and car would attest. However, I am forced to work in an MS world... (Sounds like a line form a song)

I made my decision and I am just pointing out that most people do not need Microsoft Office but use it because they just do not care to learn about other more economical options to accomplish the same tasks.

"Most people" depends on the "most people" use case. It's not a simple matter of some investigation and seeing the light.

Also pointing that as a member of everyone, I am not using Microsoft Office and no organization on the planet can change that decision.

And I support your choice for you. Everyone needs to get what works best for them.

That is why I have preferred VMware Fusion over Parallels Desktop in the past, but until Fusion 13.5, they did not have a process to download Windows and it was not as feature complete until now.

I'v used both over the years, mainly Parallels but will give Fusion another go. I'm tired of Parallels needing to be upgraded every 3 years or so and the lack of a full featured non-subscription model. I bought the basic version years ago (I may have actually got it fr free when I was writing articles) and have done the periodic paid upgrades but teh constant "Your software won't work (Yes it does) You need to upgrade now!!! (No I don't) nags.

As long as I can get Win ARM up and running Fusion will meet my needs because I only run Office, Visio, and PowerBI Desktop, none of which require a huge amount of power.

I will stop using Office on Mac when Pages and Numbers start offering proper .docx and .xslx support.

I'll be here waiting, Apple

That's a show stopper fro many people.

 

[SnowCrocodile]

SE Linux, FIPS 140, and DISA STIGS have combined to keep Linux tight for decades, certainly no worse off than modern BSD Unix that underpins MacOS. The Idea is to default all the security features to ON, instead of OFF. Frankly, once you STIG an SE Linux server and enable FIPS 140, oh boy, you will understand why more agencies DON'T. In the struggle, we find that, mainly, it's the commercial software vendors that force you to break security, even the major vendors of SECURITY SOFTWARE 😖. Same goes for Unix, Windows and Mac.

That old MIT Tech article just rehashed the same threadbare generalities about FOSS in general, and glued 'em together with clickbait FUD. Coming out of Covid, I guess MIT needed the clicks or something. That article made it sound like DARPA dropped some revelatory **** over mojitos in the club house.

Like what happened to CISA's former director, Chris Krebs, many profoundly smart, experienced personnel were purged, or quit, the former Drumph administration. Everyone knows that smart people are a threat to all aspiring authoritarian dicktaters. And Byeduhn obviously has not impressed them sufficiently to rejoin the ranks as GSS or SES. They're gone now, and the current generation feels shocked and horrified because they're noobz.

OpenSource provides a security advantage that is fiendishly difficult to enumerate in terms of $$$: Transparency. You can validate what's in it. No guessing. Then you seal your perimeter with a good architecture (zero-trust, malware prevention, secure DNS, real time file integrity checking, and code execution controls, etc., etc.).

As ever, security budgets are a tough sell. Security procedures are tiring. Successful outcomes sound like silence. People don't get promoted for silence.

So, yeah, in short: Mac OS and MS Office for the win.

So basically, you're saying that MIT spreads FUD, DARPA doesn't know what it's doing or why, you can validate what's in code even if you don't have the necessary level of expertise, and Open source is inherently more secure despite allowing code to be submitted by anonymous contributors from all over the world, and not having enough security research resources to possibly keep up with the sheer volume of contributions. Got it.

 

[ipaqrat]

So basically, you're saying that MIT spreads FUD, DARPA doesn't know what it's doing or why, you can validate what's in code even if you don't have the necessary level of expertise, and Open source is inherently more secure despite allowing code to be submitted by anonymous contributors from all over the world, and not having enough security research resources to possibly keep up with the sheer volume of contributions. Got it.

Whoa, Snow. Gettin' things a little twisted, there.

• I said THAT article was FUDdy. We all (including some pals in DARPA) thought so years ago when it was first published. It was plainly clickbait for budget wonks.
• I know, rather personally, that DARPA and US Military IT in general is packed with skilled people who know how to review code and do security. DISA is the real deal. Civilian leadership, however, had been undeniably cored out during a particularly dark time, and not only in DHS/CISA.
• I didn't say OpenSource is inherently more secure. I said there's a particular advantage in transparency. OpenSource isn't inherently weak, either. SolarWinds and Microsoft Azure sure ain't FOSS.
• I didn't think one would need to state that skills and tools are essential for effective code review. But there, now.
• No one can possibly keep up, or needs to keep up, with "the sheer volume of contributions". One keeps up with what one approves for their FISMA system boundary, using the right tools for the job. However MITRE gets as close as humanly possible. Perhaps they will soon leverage AI to find more vulnerabilities and publish more CVEs, but humans will be in the compliance loop for a long time to come.
• NIST 800.53 Rev 5 already has a new control family for Supply Chain Security. 800.53 going back to Rev 3, afaik, had controls for software code review, calling out FOSS in particular. But THAT's where leadership and budgets can be a let down.

 

[jfreedle2]

I will stop using Office on Mac when Pages and Numbers start offering proper .docx and .xlsx support.

I'll be here waiting, Apple

Apple supports docx and xlsx as published. Microsoft would need to ensure that nothing was in the formats that was not published, which is not likely.

 

[jlc1978]

Apple supports docx and xlsx as published. Microsoft would need to ensure that nothing was in the formats that was not published, which is not likely.

And that's teh rub. If you need to ensure compatibility, you need Office. Doesn't matter if MS extends its formats beyond the published specs; but even so I the current iteration sometimes files get mangled in the conversion. That is why Apple's suite is generally not usable for many users. Doesn't make it not viable solution for some users, but it answers teh question posted long ago by the OP.

I know, rather personally, that DARPA and US Military IT in general is packed with skilled people who know how to review code and do security. DISA is the real deal. Civilian leadership, however, had been undeniably cored out during a particularly dark time, and not only in DHS/CISA.

You point out a fundamental problem with getting stable long term senior leaders. Once talented people leave due to the political climate it's tough to replace them or lure them back.

 

[MacBH928]

. InDesign was the most horrible application that I have ever tried to learn. It was like Adobe specifically designs applications to not be user friendly.

Have you seen GIMP? I appreciate the effort on taking on such big task to compete with Photoshop but that app is one of the most horrible user friendly application. I can't even tell what the icons do by looking at them.

I like LibraOffice as an alternative to MS. Back in my tech support days, I often used OpenOffice (this was well before the Libra fork) to recover MS Office Documents that were otherwise hopelessly corrupted.

Fore free LibreOffice is nice but if it does what Office does, why would anyone pay for Office aside from collaboration? Can't really do most of what Office does even on the excel side of things?at least for 80-90% of customers.

Linux has never proven itself to work outside of a virtual machine, so other than running on a Raspberry Pi, I will not be running Linux on any hardware for the next eon, after that it might be questionable.

idk, I heard the web runs on Linux servers.

Several posts in this thread casually mention WordPerfect as an apparent alternative to the likes of Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

No—unfortunately, regrettably, emphatically no.

So who is still buying and why they insist on WP? Coming to think of it, word processors from 2001 could do pretty much everything modern ones do. If its not broken, why fix it!?

Most certainly not idiots. However they still need to eat. So either (a) they are contributing to FOSS in their free time, and can only do so much, or (b) someone is paying them to do this full time. It can be a foundation like Mozilla, or a corporation that has vested commercial interest in a specific kind of FOSS, or some group of rich criminals or an unnamed spy agency that see this as a great way to snoop on devices. Most contributors probably fall into (a). But the bottom line is, there's never been real emphasis on security in FOSS space, starting with Linus Torvalds himself. Which is why I no longer run a Linux OS on my main home machine. Now, of course Windows and (gasp !) even Mac have vulnerabilities as well. But they are taking a whole lot more serious approach to it now than 20 years ago. FOSS is largely stuck in the mindset of 30 years ago.

Here's some food for thought.

The US military wants to understand the most important software on Earth

Open-source code runs on every computer on the planet—and keeps America’s critical infrastructure going. DARPA is worried about how well it can be trusted

www.technologyreview.com

How is FOSS does not have emphasis on security when I hear all the servers are running some sort of Linux and Red Hat was sold for $34B! All those corporates are using unsecure software!?

 

[jeffpeng]

Linux has never proven itself to work outside of a virtual machine

This might be the most factually incorrect thing I've read on the interwebs. Then again: I don't Wikipedia much.

Linux is running the most computers on the globe by a freaking longshot. It's not even a competition.

 

[jameslgleason]

Are the apple equivelant apps such as numbers, keynote and pages not good or the same as Microsoft office?

Work compatibility. Simple. It's not my choice.