Posted on 08/14/2013 1:07:50 PM PDT by ShadowAce
Victory can be defined in countless ways, of course, but here in the Linux blogosphere, Microsoft's recent release of its core Office app for Android is a pretty good example. "Linus won a long time ago," said blogger Mike Stone. "Android is flying high, Linux is dominating on servers and supercomputers. Linux pretty much mops up every market it's in."
What a difference a day makes, as the old saying goes -- or, perhaps more aptly here in the Linux community, what a difference an app makes.
Which app, you may ask? Why that would be Microsoft Office for Android, of course -- the arrival of which a few weeks ago has caused no shortage of jubilation in the Linux blogosphere.
"The father of Linux, Linus Torvalds, once said, 'if Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won,'" noted a recent article on Muktware, for example. "Microsoft yesterday released one of its cash cows, Microsoft Office, for Android.... So, it looks like Linus has won."
Scarcely had those words hit the Linux news wires when cheers could be heard down at the blogosphere's rowdy Punchy Penguin Saloon. They hit Slashdot soon afterwards, and it's been pandemonium ever since.
'Everyone Wins Using Linux'
"Of course Linus has won," exclaimed blogger Robert Pogson, for example. "He won when he chose a Unix-like kernel; he won when he chose GPLv2; he won when he shared development with the world; he won when distros sprang forth to share the goodness in a practical way."
Torvalds also won "when IBM and other big businesses endorsed GNU/Linux as mainstream, viable and useful; when SCOG sued the world over Linux, crashed and burned; when Sun open-sourced StarOffice and GNU/Linux had a smooth office suite used by the big guys and $free for the rest of us," Pogson went on.
"He won when Dell and Asus offered GNU/Linux to consumers; when M$ made sure Linux would run on its OS virtual machines; when Google, IBM and a bunch of other large organizations adopted GNU/Linux on their desktops; and when big-name games began to be ported to GNU/Linux," he added.
In short, "this guy just keeps on winning," Pogson concluded. "M$, OEMs, retailers and others would be wise to get out of his way or follow his lead because there's no telling how far Linus will go. At the same time, his world is not winner-takes-all -- everyone wins using Linux."
In fact, "Linus' statement really was satisfied as soon as Microsoft bought Skype, which still to this day has a Linux version," noted Linux Rants blogger Mike Stone.
"Even ignoring Skype and Office entirely, while that particular statement isn't satisfied, Linus won a long time ago," Stone added. "Android is flying high, Linux is dominating on servers and supercomputers. Linux pretty much mops up every market it's in."
The desktop computer is "the exception, not the rule, and the rule is Linux is kicking the tail of anyone or anything that tries to compete with it, and there's no sign that's changing any time soon," he concluded. "Congratulations, Linus."
Similarly, "we could say, 'Yes, Linus won' because Microsoft has released a version of Office (sort of) for 'Android Linux,'" Google+ blogger Brett Legree told Linux Girl.
At the same time, however, "we would also be able to say, 'No, Linus didn't win' because there is no *desktop* version of Microsoft Office for GNU/Linux," Legree added -- "well, except that there kind of is and has been for a while unofficially, since many people (including myself) have been successfully running the Windows version of Office on Linux (GNU!) via Codeweavers' CrossOver or Wine for years.
"So in conclusion I'd say, 'Yes, Linus won a while ago.'"
Indeed, "the issue of doing larger and more complex documents remains for corporate users and educational centers," agreed Google+ blogger Gonzalo Velasco C.
"We need a good office suite, and there are two ways that's possible: 1) Microsoft gets the clue and ports their Office suite fully for Linux; or 2) people start using LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Calligra, AbiWord... whatever," he explained.
"The second option is already a reality," Gonzalo Velasco C. pointed out. "The first is the only way Microsoft will keep floating, because their OS has lost most users' trust."
Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien could see it both ways.
"It depends on how you measure 'winning,'" O'Brien told Linux Girl. "The platform shift from desktop PCs to tablets and phones has removed a big advantage Microsoft had, and on these new platforms Linux in the form of Android has a very strong position."
In the enterprise space, however, "I don't see any serious erosion of Microsoft's market anytime soon," he added. "The fact is that you cannot replace the functionality and integration of Outlook, SharePoint, Office, etc., with any FOSS solutions right now. Where I work (enterprise IT department), everyone is salivating for Surface Pro tablets because of that tight integration."
Of course, "you still have to have a Windows Office 365 subscription, no matter where you access Office 365 from," Slashdot blogger yagu pointed out. "This seems hardly a Microsoft app for Android as much as it is Microsoft making sure their 'pay-for' products are 'pay-for-able' everywhere."
In other words, "this is about as momentous a victory for Linus as it is for Microsoft to have Google create Chrome browser for Windows," yagu added. "At best, this is a non-event. At worst, this is an oblique insertion of Microsoft 'ick' into the Android universe.
"When Microsoft really starts writing Android apps (this one isn't), we can talk," yagu concluded. "Until then, it looks like Microsoft is just hedging its bets by making sure even Android users can still buy Microsoft products anywhere."
Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol had a similar take.
"No, Linus did not win anything," Ebersol told Linux Girl. "That thing of MS Office 365 is just a Web interface. The old wolf (more likely Wile E. Coyote) is up to his old tricks.
"Besides, in a world of Free Office suites (AOO, LO, Calligra Suite), who needs Windows, Gates and MS Office?" Ebersol concluded. "A lot of people don't... me included."
It's hard to say who has won yet, "but it seems Microsoft is doing everything it can to make sure it loses," consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack opined.
"While I believe that smartphones and tablets will cut into the PC market, I don't believe that the PC market can be killed just yet since there are way too many people who need to input data quickly and as ergonomically as possible," he explained. "No one has come up with an interface that spans both form factors without being terrible on one or both.
"The problem here is that Microsoft panicked and released something so hideous that no one wants and somehow they still think their mistake was small enough for a minor course correction," Mack added.
Microsoft should start by "gathering up everyone who has been advocating for the 'Charm Bar' and its predecessors and firing the lot of them," Mack suggested. "And while I'm at it, no one -- I mean NO one -- wants Microsoft to be 'cool,' and they need to give up trying."
Finally, Microsoft needs to remember that "users don't like change -- they really don't," Mack concluded. "Users don't want to learn their computers -- it's us geeks who like to try new things. The rest of the world just wants the computer to get work done or entertain them. Microsoft: please take the hint already and stop messing with the interface."
Last but certainly not least, Google+ blogger Rodolfo Saenz took a big-picture view.
As in a chess game, "there is a beginning, a middle game and an end, and we are reaching the end of the game," Saenz told Linux Girl.
"Microsoft is still powerful and has the capability to adapt, but in my opinion their Achilles' Heel is their closed-code, charge-for-everything philosophy," he concluded. "That is a tough one to fix." 
Anyone paying for MS Office 365 deserves to give away the money
Is this true? I work in health care, and I don't know of any hospital that runs all Linux... But maybe it is just health care. This isn't a troll post, this seemed like an over the top statement, but it could be my ignorance.
I work for a very large hospital, and we run a LOT of Linux.
Servers, not desktops.
I met Linus in 1991 online. Way smart dude. We ported our code from SCO to one of the first distros back in the day.
Suffice to say Linux has been very very good to me.
Still waiting to see the mythical open source Exchange killer.
Linux is running behind the scenes. Its running on the data warehouses and webservers. We switched to SUSE Linux from our proprietary flavor of Linux several years ago. I don’t know of any clients that run their desktops on Linux though which is where Linux falls short. Android is of course a Linux based operating system and is dominating both tablets and smart phones.
I think the French police uses all Linux on their desktops now. Or are moving toward that goal.
What do you mean by “falls short”?
Games probably?
When someone comes out with a true normal every desktop version of Linux for the PC, then they will have won the battle, not before.
For me this is the money quote from the article. Every time M$ releases a new version of anything they break the user interface. What reason was there to learn a whole new interface between office 2003 and office 2007? NONE. They didn't add any features that couldn't be put into the same menu system. How about between 2007 and 2010? Same deal.
Every time they change versions they cost me about 6 to 9 months of lost productivity trying to figure out how to do what used to be simple to do but which is now nearly impossible. And that's just in getting the screen to look the same way it did before! The only thing M$ could do to regain any of my trust would be to release Halo 3 to the PC. lol
Yes...we are a good sized hospital doing 350-400K exams per year (in my department) and we use almost no Linux except in rare, proprietary vendor cases.
I know they are far more prevalent in places that are doing web hosting and such, but is that blanket statement true?
Your user interface may be Windows, but are you sure about the back-end processing?
I only meant that it falls short in people adopting it. I do believe that android which is a Linux variant shows that it is completely possible that Linux could come to dominate the Desktop.
Ubuntu has apparently raised $9 million so far in developing it’s own smart phone.
IMHO your situtation is typical.
In-house IT shops I don’t think like the idea of having no specific vendor that has control over the development of software they use.
Open source has “become” consortiums of major industry players. To the consortium members, it provides a better oligopoly sitution, where they are not taking on the risk of their own proprietary software architectures losing in the marketplace.
It also allows them to conveniently “miss” a version here and there when writing drivers. Since the developers are mostly their paid employees, they direct what they work on. And they can still keep their hardware specifications as trade secrets, so it’s very difficult for anyone but them to write drivers.
The standard tactic for maximizing revenue when selling hardware is to make the hardware obsolete, even before it’s physically worn out.
User can’t make use of graphics card because they upgraded their software. User says hey, let me buy a whole new machine, latest version of OS.
Which may not even be utilizing certain hardware components !
Oh, too slow, buy another new machine.
Meanwhile...
We know M$ cuts the legs out from under would-be software entrepreneurs, i.e., those will little to no startup capital. You know, the guys who develop some new software application that skyrockets in popularity. Open source cuts these guys down as well. Cuz once it really becomes popular... the open source community will make a version that they give away for free.
While open source may cost M$ a little revenue, it actually helps M$ maintain its monopoly. Most of the folks using sophisticated open source software would never pay M$ the price it asks for comparable software, they would just do without or write their own.
Since M$ charges so much for their stuff, many smart folks opt for “free” software.
In the medical community, that is particularly prevalent.
Good summary.
When someone comes out with a true normal every desktop version of Linux for the PC, then they will have won the battle, not before.
I don't really buy the entire "battle" scenario that these articles promote in the first place. The only "battle" I care about is my choice, and that was won when an alternative was made available which I could download and use with freedom. I honestly don't understand why anyone would ever care whether any OS dominates the market or represents any particular size of it so long as their preferred option is out there to be used.
I saw on the web somewhere the statement that about .00001 percent of cars on the road are Ferraris. Does that make that company unsuccessful as an automobile manufacturer? Have they lost the battle? Hardly. For those who choose to drive a Ferrari I would be surprised if they feel that company to be anything but very successful because they have the option of driving one and love doing so more than likely. Should they care that more people, by gigantic margins, drive Toyotas or Chevrolets? I can't imagine why. The only problem is if Ferrari decided that this mattered and so changed their design and started making knock-off Chevies. That would be a lost battle. And the same is true for Linux.
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