Re: Mac port of MS software

> They eventually decided to allow Mac to use M$ software.
> Linus, on the other hand, usually needs a special version
> made for it.

MS Office for Windows and MS office for MacOS were developed around the same time. The MacOS version was actually released before the Windows version. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office#History

Earlier Macs used a different architecture than Windows computers (non-x86) so porting would require at least a recompile at least. Macs now use Intel x86 and x86-64 processors (maybe so they could run Microsoft Windows [?]).

Microsoft Office does work in Wine, which is a version of the Windows API for Unix-like OSes, and there is OpenOffice [as well as StarOffice, the commercial version]. LaTeX also works for creating documents and slide presentations, as does Google Docs. WordPerfect used to have a version for Linux. Also there is Abiword/Gnumeric and KDE's office suite. I found a list of Office apps for Linux here, and Wikipedia has one too.
http://tldp.org/FAQ/WordPerfect-Linux-FAQ/future.html#ALTERNATIVES