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Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

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Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#251

Post by andwur »

rockskon wrote: post #200
jmward01 wrote: post #127

This is the new way and we need to stop it now. Forget the 'is it legal or not' arguments, their lawyers will win. Just get mad and tell them this is wrong. Stop buying their #$@#$ software. Block them. This is what is wrong with cars too. Don't want to give them real time data on you and your passengers and instead try to disconnect the modem? Well, no car functionality for you even if it doesn't need it. -get mad-…

"Their lawyers will win" is plainly wrong assumption if something is clearly illegal.

Sadly that only works when all parties agree on the "clearly" part. They will lose, but only if you can endure years of squabbling in court and have unlimited funds for your legal team to prove that the aforementioned clearly really is clear. More likely they'll bleed you dry and force a settlement with an NDA bolt on. For a company like MS, pissing a few million down the drain on making life hell for litigants turns into a sound investment: no one looks at it and thinks "I want what they're having". This is where you would ideally have a government-backed consumer rights agency step in and take up the battle.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#252

Post by dreamcompiler »

They do this to Office 2021 routinely if your computer is offline more than about 30 days at a time. I run LittleSnitch to keep Microsoft blocked; my copy of Excel periodically goes into "read-only" mode. So I unblock Microsoft, let Excel talk to the license server, and then block Microsoft again.

Now Microsoft says my Excel will never work again. I'm pissed. Time for an FTC complaint.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#253

Post by fithisux »

There are many open source alternatives/upgrades to M$$$ products.

No reason to keep using them. Literally none.

I have been a happy exclusive only user of OO/LibeOffice since 2004. Some times I needed to use MSOffice for a paper. It was always problematic.

I haven't use VS since 2007. I migrated to gcc. Never had a problem.

SQLServer? Only for demo and at work just to pull or save data. Postgres always saved the day. Windows Media Player? MPClassic or VLC worked fine.

There maybe other alternatives I use without knowing. Always without problems.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#254

Post by rocqua »

wilg wrote: post #193
guidedlight wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been happening with Video Games for a while. There is a major initiative called "Stop Killing Games" which was triggered when Ubisoft bricked "The Crew" when servers were shutdown. https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ There has been some success. There is new legislation in California which has passed the Assembly. https://www.invenglobal.com/articles/22330/stop-killing-game... And there is a citizens initiativ…

[flagged]

If this removes people’s access to products (software licenses count as products here) someone payed fir once. Then you should only be allowed to do that if you enable people to continue using the product.

Releasing the server code should be a requirement. Software updates shouldn’t be required. Unless the product has a moment where it will stop functioning on the hardware it was build for built in (such as an expiring certificate).

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#255

Post by rocqua »

DrammBA wrote: post #198
wilg wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I think you should be allowed to stop supporting software or shut down your servers. That has nothing to do with Stop Killing Games.

At least the servers bit seems very related no? I’d love to know more though.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#256

Post by applfanboysbgon »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #246
wzdd wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every time someone imagines a country going after Microsoft You don't need to imagine it: the comment you are replying to links to a press release from a Government agency "going after Microsoft". And yet somehow we haven't seen Microsoft stop doing business with the Australian government.

If "going after" means continuing to give them more and more money, one might question what you actually mean by "going after" ...

"Going after" means enforcing the law against them. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#257

Post by fithisux »

shimman wrote: post #204
nine_k wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is big, internally incoherent (even inimical, according to some accounts), and people responsible for VSCode and WSL are likely totally unrelated to people determining when and how to crack MS's crown jewel, the Office suite, in an attempt to squeeze out a few dollars more.

Why are we acting like VS Code is nothing but a way to stop independent developers from selling their tools? Things like VS Code literally destroy the cottage industry and likely has held back our industry by several decades. MSFT needs to be at least six separate companies: Windows, Office, GitHub, Visual Studio, Xbox, and Azure. That would kneecap the company and destroy its parasitic blight on our industry for sev…

I started migrating away for VSCode, piece by piece.

But if you need it:

Theia/Positron/VSCodium

For Python/Julia? Many alternatives. For C family? Similar Java/Go? Similar.

Re: Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion

#259

Post by fithisux »

kuerbel wrote: post #225
hbbio wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OnlyOffice is better than LibreOffice for people who want a more direct alternative to Microsoft Office https://www.onlyoffice.com/ (it's AGPL... there is an ongoing dispute with a fork now)

The fork is called EuroOffice and will be released next month. Onlyoffice is from Russian developers and includes binary blobs, it's not fully open source.

What blobs?
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