Been using LibreOffice for years. Everyone should. If we don't vote with our choices companies like Microsoft will keep pushing the envelope until you have to pay a monthly fee to turn on your own computer.
Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
131–140 of 401 posts
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#132I’ve always bought a fresh perpetual license to office home and student with every new computer since 2005. That is four mac computers total and I assume ~$600 in office licenses over 21 years. Not a ton of money but not zero. My resume is typeset in LaTeX and I don’t make many slide decks for personal use. I figure I can get a decent Tex template. I don’t use excel much anymore. For my next mac I’ll probably just sk…
Use libreoffice, its good for the occasions you need actual office software instead of latex
Agreed, and before the naysayers start chiming in, I wrote my whole dissertation in LibreOffice Writer without any issues. LibreOffice is fine. My one and only gripe is that the resume templates are sorely lacking, but that's a community issue, not a software one.
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can do class action litigation, but that takes years and the lawyers collect 30-50% of any settlement. The economics for customers don't make sense.
The Office 2024 license quoted in comment [1] says that "class action lawsuits ... aren't allowed" (but only if you live in US). Truly free country where you a free to even waive your right to sue. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48341968
> Truly free country where you a free to even waive your right to sue.
Yep. It's difficult to say that the folks in the country are free when they often have to surrender their right to access the courts to get jobs, health insurance, medical care, access to telecommunications, shelter, delivery services, bill-payment services, etc, etc, etc, and obligate themselves to arbitration that nearly always gags both parties.
AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion was a monstrous decision. Arbitration was always an option. If you have to force people to choose the dispute resolution option you claim is cheaper [0] and fairer, odds are good that it's neither of those things.
[0] Remember when -IIRC- Doordash plead with Federal court to permit it to move its mass arbitration into court because the arbitration was too expensive (and how they got their ass kicked out of court)? Remember how like a month later, all the arbitration companies magically got a "We will handle no more than twenty complaining parties at once. All yall bitches got to get in line." clause in their rules governing mass arbitration? Yea, "good" times.
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO it would be better if there was a general mechanism to prevent profiting from corrupt business practices. For example, a court could determine how much money Microsoft made by selling perpetual licenses that turned out to be a lie, add interest, add a 50% penalty, and require Microsoft to pay all of that into a trust to be collected by any customers harmed. The point would not be so much to help the customers but…
You can do class action litigation, but that takes years and the lawyers collect 30-50% of any settlement. The economics for customers don't make sense.
Right. And IMO it works poorly. It’s extremely common to see a settlement such that the company still ends up ahead on its problematic behavior.
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#135When did "hate the customer" become a thing?
The phrase "there's a sucker born every minute" is well over two centuries old.[1]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#136Been using LibreOffice for years. Everyone should. If we don't vote with our choices companies like Microsoft will keep pushing the envelope until you have to pay a monthly fee to turn on your own computer. https://www.libreoffice.org/
Same. There is literally nothing I need from Microsoft Office that I can't do just fine in Libre Office. Happier to be using free open source software too.
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#137If not for the fact that some commercial software addons work only in Excel I'll be using only Libreoffice for everything. In fact that's the only major thing that's stopping me from totally abandoning Windows for Linux as well.
I'm guessing that's the situation for several others though there could be other use cases that's Excel only.
Instead of pressing Microsoft, it would probably make sense to force such vendors (SAP, Oracle etc) to release their office add-ons for Libre office.
That'll kill two very profitable birds with one stone.
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#138Been using LibreOffice for years. Everyone should. If we don't vote with our choices companies like Microsoft will keep pushing the envelope until you have to pay a monthly fee to turn on your own computer. https://www.libreoffice.org/
Other options include Calligra (especially on KDE) https://calligra.org
And Macs are bundled with Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, all of which are excellent.
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#139How quickly certs went from "securing your software" to "securing our business model".
It was never about security. '"Secure" boot' is older than this and was the same trick, they would ideally not allow you to boot anything that wasn't signed by them. It is already very frustrating that you have to go out of your way to enter the UEFI and disable it. For everyone but the technical user, their goal is already accomplished.
Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Microsoft 30 years ago was the gold standard for bending over backwards for backward compatibility And for reselling you the same office suite every couple of years. (Full disclosure, I worked there in the 2000s... So if anything I should be biased the other way.)
Right, but if you bought office 2000 it was established that you would get to keep using office 2000 for as long as you wanted
Correct, but my point was if they had taken measures to counteract that nobody would have been surprised.