It's hard to see how a port to Linux would ever make back the cost of porting it in the first place.

or how that really has any impact on the general "openness" of microsoft.

Well, if the company really is "open by default", they can open the source for Office, and the community can aid in the port.

And they could open-source all future Windows updates!

That actually sounds kinda fun, building your own Windows patches :')

Yes they do, you can get it on the google play store. Maybe not your preferred flavor of Linux, but Linux none the less.

Not even Google is investing in Desktop Linux, where is that official Google Drive client?

Google builds two of the perhaps most popular desktop linux's ... Android and Chrome OS.

And MS has the Linux Subsystem in Windows to run Ubuntu Linux binaries and is open source, so?

The Linux Subsystem in Windows is NOT open source. So what if they can run Ubuntu? So can VirtualBox!

And yes, I know the difference between virtualization and syscall emulation.

You are right, is not open source (yet), but you still can tun Linux binaries.

> (yet)

You seem hopeful of a thing few people are hopeful of.

> you still can tun[sic] Linux binaries

That does not make a platform open.

Also note that you can't run all Linux binaries. In this respect, my original comparison with VirtualBox gets even better, since with VirtualBox I can run whatever edition of Linux I want, with graphics and total, absolute control, and a faster filesystem.

Google's main apps are web based and for the most part OS independent

File sync is a behavior best done with a client app, as you can see with Drive apps for every other platform.

Chrome works pretty well on Linux.

So is Visual Studio Code, your point is?

As FT_intern said, most if not all of google's services can be found on the web, through chrome or otherwise.

VS Code is nice but not a full gateway into all of MS's stuff/services.

To OP's point, office online is free without a 365 subscription.

The parent post was edited.