alt Hacker NewsI feel qualified to opine on this as both a former power user of Word and someone building a word processor for lawyers from scratch[1]. I've spent hours pouring over both the .doc and OOXML specs and implementing them. There's a pretty obvious journey visible in those specs from 1984 when computers were under powered with RAM rounding to zero through the 00's when XML was the hot idea to today when MSFT wants everyone on the cloud for life.
Unlike say an IDE or generic text editor where developers are excited to work on and dogfood the product via self-hosting, word processors are kind of boring and require separate testing/QA.
MSFT has the deep pockets to fund that development and testing/QA. LibreOffice doesn't.
The business model is just screaming that GPL'd LibreOffice is toast.
[1] Plug: https://tritium.legal
Replies
> The business model is just screaming that GPL'd LibreOffice is toast.
Only if Word formats remain dominant. There might be hope with the EU moving off Word that an alternative, real standard might take root.
Microsoft may have the deep pockets, but there are Word documents that LibreOffice opens correctly, MS Word 2007 opens correctly, and MS Word 2024 doesn't.
*poring over
Lawyers also tend to pore a lot, so it's worth getting the word right! ;-)
There is an old post by Joel Spolsky that worked as PM in Excel a looong time ago, and he agree with you: "Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated? (And some workarounds)" https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/02/19/why-are-the-micros... (HN discussions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12471604 (393 points | Sept 2016 | 229 comments) and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=118909 (60 points | Feb 2008 | 20 comments))