Corel LINUX OS

Dennis J. Eberl dje at pcom.net
Sun Apr 9 23:20:24 EDT 2000


"[Darth] Snowbeam" wrote:

> > James Simmons wrote:
>
> >> Porting Office 2000 from windows to linux. Aint going to happen. I
> >> remember the talk about making a DirectX clone on linux. People where
> >> threaten with lawsuits.
>
> Dennis J. Eberl wrote:
>
> > I have no idea of what you speak. What is Direct X? Where is the lawsuit
> > issue? Microsoft has a much right as Corel and Applix to port their
> > software to run under an open source version of Linux, and they have
> > equal right to sell their own distribution provided they conform to the
> > licensing restrictions.
>
> James is actually quite right in his statement, chances of seeing Office
> 2000 or any of the older MS Office suites being ported over to Linux are
> slim. Microsoft itself won't do it, because that is the core of their
> business now.

This is where your logic is flawed. It is to Microsoft's advantage to have
a Linux MS Office port ready to go if Linux does in fact take over the corporate

and home desktops.

> They don't get money from the Desktop market, but the Office
> suite market is their main source of income and if unless they truly want
> to kill their desktop hold, they dare not port Office to Linux.

Huh? I'm not saying they should offer a Linux MS Office suite for one cent
less that they get for their Windows product.

> As for other companies trying to port Office over to Linux, do you hear
> "lawsuit" somewhere down the road ?

You miss my point. The problem is not that we can't get an MS Office clone
for legal reasons (who would bother/). Rather, the problem is that corporations
have no real incentive to change to Linux (except as a replacement for Windows
NT Server), because existing MS documents don't import without problems into
a Linux competitor's office application. What I am saying is that Microsoft,
being privy to trade secrets of their own software, is in a unique position to
make a 100% compatible MS Office for MS LINUX OS. Think about it.

> Microsoft will probably observe what happens with Corel Office 2000.

What will this tell them? Nothing useful. If Corel Office 2000 can't flawlessly
import MS Office documents it will languish and then die. Also, the moment
Corel achieves success, all Microsoft has to do is add new features to their
office suite to throw the balance back in their favor.

Still, Microsoft knows they are losing the OS war. So what. There is more money
to be made selling MS LINUX OS distributions than selling OEM Windows to
hardware makers. They can beat the price and break the back of Red Hat et alia
without coming close to violating any open source agreement.

> They
> will want to see if it succeeds on Linux, whether or not someone
> decompiles it to see the source and other issues like that.

I don't think they give a rat's petute what happens to Corel Office unless it
starts giving serious competition to MS Office. If someone decompiles Corel
code and is foolish enough to publish it in the public domain or reuse it in
any kind of produce (even "freeware"), I hope Corel sues their pants off and
puts them in jail.

> I fit goes
> smoothly, then only then will they consider creating a closed source
> Office 2000 for Linux. That's just they way the MS life is.
>
> ---------
> - [Darth] Snowbeam
>
> "It is not fear that keeps the elephant wary of the mouse, it is his
> wisdom that reminds him not to underestimate his opponent" -me

Sorry. I think the "way the MS life is" is to succeed at any costs and if
they need to eat soup with the Devil (Linux), Bill has a set of long spoons
ready at hand.

Dennis




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