Michael Tunnell

A LOT of things YOU take for granted on Mac and PC started in Linux, many moons ago.
Not everyone chooses an OS based on whether or not it has the latest greatest gimmick.

Yet they spend the time and effort to release and support their hardware drivers right alongside Windows.
It's not just the Linux community. Nvidia's kinda known to be a bit rude to everyone else. They did quite a bit to piss off Apple too, to the point that they now refuse to support any Nvidia hardware on their machines.

But your entire role in this thread has been to derail it, insisting that there's no legitimate reason to even entertain a discussion about Affinity on Linux. That's dumb. Unless you have special insider information from Affinity on the subject, you're not actually contributing anything to the discussion; you're just posting so people have to pay attention to you.
Yes, and your understanding of that market, I'm guessing, is based on news articles and public data that doesn't actually deep-dive into industry research.
I've done that second part. And I'm telling you your entire premise is flawed.
This alone shows how little you actually know or understand about Linux, and I'm betting you've also never actually written desktop software. You don't actually know what you're talking about on this one.
That wasn't my point though, was it? Why don't you re-read what I wrote and use context clues to understand why I mentioned this.
Is that what I said? You've come to a thread where people are discussing the merits and potential of Affinity on Linux, and your only contribution to this thread can be summed up as "shut up, nobody cares."
Rude.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha you are totally full of it, and this is enough evidence for me.
Linux is a VERY popular operating system for crypto miners, and Nvidia's GPUs have been held captive by the crypto market for several years now. Nvidia also continues to release - and support - a solid Linux driver, and they have contributed to Valve's efforts to make Steam cross-platform.
I know you really want to be the expert here, but you're not.

This is just an assumption based on no clear data. Linux is just a better platform for a variety of reasons but the drastically lower resources is a huge piece of why people switch over. You can save wasted resources from Windows and thus get better FPS in games and better rendering in various tools. The FOSS concept is not even known by a lot of people until after they switch to Linux. I switched to Linux prior to learning what the philosophy was for example.
There are many people who also want to switch to Linux but the only thing holding them back is needing a professional graphics tool. I know many many designers who are in that position. It's just a Catch 22.
Interestingly enough, the low resource need is a big reason why some industries use Linux heavily, take Disney for example. Disney uses Red Hat in their animation studios and computer graphics studios because it offers so much flexibility and lowers complex render times. If Disney sees the value for paying for Linux why would people think Linux is not viable?

There are people who want to use Linux but dont because they need specific programs and if they had an alternative they would use Linux. There are people who use it for FOSS and a lot who don't. I have been using Linux for over 20 years and I do not have a FOSS only requirement . . . and a lot of people are in my pragmatist position as well. I like the philosophy of Open Source but that doesn't mean its the only viable option to be successful on Linux. Linux is a very powerful OS and is arguably the best OS engineering of all the OS available but for some reason Desktop Linux just continues to lose where in literally every other form of computing on the planet, Linux is the dominant force by a lot.
Anyway, I already presented a way Serif could end this debate and definitively find out if Linux could be a viable option or not but nothing has come from it. Maybe some day, I wont be holding my breath for this but maybe someday Serif will realize there is a market willing to pay.

This is circular reasoning and is therefore flawed. You dont think Affinity should support Linux because the marketshare is smaller. You think the marketshare is smaller because the apps arent there for people to use Linux. This is an endless Catch 22 loop of reasoning.
If Adobe were on Linux, again I would not care if Affinity was or not. Affinity has the opportunity to take advantage of the lack of Adobe and become a bigger player and even a posterchild for promoting Linux.
Affinity is though so the debate for other apps is irrelevant to Affinity supporting it.
You realize that ONE PAGE on a website can be very long. . .. its not like printing where the pages are limited. This is a very sad argument. Also you realize that Wikipedia is not a good source for your argument. I didnt even know about this page and I've been using Linux for over 20 years. You are trying to claim this is a definitive list and you should most certainly know it isnt.
I mean it doesnt even have a Snaps & Flatpaks section.
please stop pretending your arguments make sense
 
I've also heard things claimed about Linux over the years too from people in your perspective. "Linux will never being for gaming" and now it is. "Linux is super hard, you always need a terminal" and no it doesnt.

Just because you have heard things doesnt make you right. It sounds like your information is based on years of out of date context. You even used package managment tools to sound informed neither of which are used anymore. Example: yum was replaced by dnf. apt-get was replaced by apt. You dont need to know these anymore thanks to the software stores and whatnot but you used them as examples of difficulty but really they are just proof you are out of date by many years.

This is circular reasoning and is therefore flawed. You dont think Affinity should support Linux because the marketshare is smaller. You think the marketshare is smaller because the apps arent there for people to use Linux. This is an endless Catch 22 loop of reasoning.
If Adobe were on Linux, again I would not care if Affinity was or not. Affinity has the opportunity to take advantage of the lack of Adobe and become a bigger player and even a posterchild for promoting Linux.
Affinity is though so the debate for other apps is irrelevant to Affinity supporting it.
You realize that ONE PAGE on a website can be very long. . .. its not like printing where the pages are limited. This is a very sad argument. Also you realize that Wikipedia is not a good source for your argument. I didnt even know about this page and I've been using Linux for over 20 years. You are trying to claim this is a definitive list and you should most certainly know it isnt.
I mean it doesnt even have a Snaps & Flatpaks section.
please stop pretending your arguments make sense
 
I've also heard things claimed about Linux over the years too from people in your perspective. "Linux will never being for gaming" and now it is. "Linux is super hard, you always need a terminal" and no it doesnt.

Just because you have heard things doesnt make you right. It sounds like your information is based on years of out of date context. You even used package managment tools to sound informed neither of which are used anymore. Example: yum was replaced by dnf. apt-get was replaced by apt. You dont need to know these anymore thanks to the software stores and whatnot but you used them as examples of difficulty but really they are just proof you are out of date by many years.

This is just an assumption based on no clear data. Linux is just a better platform for a variety of reasons but the drastically lower resources is a huge piece of why people switch over. You can save wasted resources from Windows and thus get better FPS in games and better rendering in various tools. The FOSS concept is not even known by a lot of people until after they switch to Linux. I switched to Linux prior to learning what the philosophy was for example.
There are many people who also want to switch to Linux but the only thing holding them back is needing a professional graphics tool. I know many many designers who are in that position. It's just a Catch 22.
Interestingly enough, the low resource need is a big reason why some industries use Linux heavily, take Disney for example. Disney uses Red Hat in their animation studios and computer graphics studios because it offers so much flexibility and lowers complex render times. If Disney sees the value for paying for Linux why would people think Linux is not viable?

There are people who want to use Linux but dont because they need specific programs and if they had an alternative they would use Linux. There are people who use it for FOSS and a lot who don't. I have been using Linux for over 20 years and I do not have a FOSS only requirement . . . and a lot of people are in my pragmatist position as well. I like the philosophy of Open Source but that doesn't mean its the only viable option to be successful on Linux. Linux is a very powerful OS and is arguably the best OS engineering of all the OS available but for some reason Desktop Linux just continues to lose where in literally every other form of computing on the planet, Linux is the dominant force by a lot.
Anyway, I already presented a way Serif could end this debate and definitively find out if Linux could be a viable option or not but nothing has come from it. Maybe some day, I wont be holding my breath for this but maybe someday Serif will realize there is a market willing to pay.

Not just Servers. like I said, it is the dominant OS for everything. Embedded, Supercomputers, Mobile (Android is powered by Linux), and so on. Desktop is only limited by availability of applications.
Because its true. No one looks at Windows and thinks "well this is engineering perfection". It is always "I need this specific app that is only on Windows or Mac". Windows has nothing to write home about other than it happens to have the widest userbase and thus has the widest catalog of apps. Its not like Windows earned that status, Microsoft paid for it with exclusive deals and institution lock-ins.
 
what? Linux has GUI, its not just a server system. Do you think Linux requires command line to use it? Linux is lower resources with GUI as well. Every single GUI in Linux is lower resource usage than Windows even the heaviest of Linux GUIs is still MUCH lighter than Windows. Storage is also a factor of waste too such as Windows requiring 40GB of space in order to just install it. Linux distros only need around 8GB to 10GB to install. Licensing cost is only for Enterprise. All of the desktop options from the big companies are free. Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE . . . are all free (gratis) thus zero licensing cost. They make money from Enterprise so desktop users can get it without cost. Yes management of hundreds/thousands of machines is easier on Linux but you dont need command line for that either. There are many GUI tools for Linux that let you do that very easily compared to Windows tools. That doesnt change anything related to resources though. A lot of people use Linux as a GUI desktop not related to automation or management of a huge set. This is another dismissive assumption. This is an assumption based on no data. I admit I also did that though so I guess you could say equally weak.
Your point negated nothing. It is obvious that app catalog is a factor . . . and if you missed it, that's the point of this thread. To help Serif see why being a part of the catalog building is valuable to them. The moment Adobe moves to Linux, Affinity will be irrelevant and I will cease to care if it supports Linux or not. People have argued if Adobe doesnt why should Serif and obviously thats why they should. If Linux had no future why would Valve spend $$ Millions to make Linux Gaming a feasible alternative to Windows gaming? It requires someone to try something and it either works or it doesnt. For Valve it has worked, gaming on Linux has increased from basically zero before Value to millions of gamers thanks to Valve.
Really? You are using the opinion of someone promoting Solaris (an Oracle product) as a way to prove Linux isnt good enough?

Linux has the argument of the best because of its growth and importance while also being better than Windows and Mac engineering. Its not dubious. What is dubious is you trying to negate my point about Linux importance using something that contradicts your own stance. You think Linux being a smaller marketshare means no one should care so you try to negate my point by using an OS with an even smaller marketshare? That seems a bit of a weird tactic. Plus Solaris has its own issues just like any software does.
Based on what do you say this? Qt yes. also .NET/C# and Flutter work on Linux as well. What exactly is missing that is a necessity in your mind? Side note: how is this related to Affinity line? On this forum, the only thing that matters is discussing the ease of development for Affinity . . . not the landscape of app development entirely.
 
Mac is a UNIX OS so its weird that you would use that term as a way to negate validity. Desktop Linux is not a pain and yes I do have people using Linux that are grandmas. The people in their 70s and 80s that I know using Linux love it because they don't have to deal with any Windows nonsense and they dont have to do anything with yum, or apt-get or any other command line stuff because command line is not a necessity that you think it is. I mean apt-get is not even used anymore on Ubuntu or Debian and it hasn't been for years, your info is very very dated.

This is circular reasoning and is therefore flawed. You dont think Affinity should support Linux because the marketshare is smaller. You think the marketshare is smaller because the apps arent there for people to use Linux. This is an endless Catch 22 loop of reasoning.
If Adobe were on Linux, again I would not care if Affinity was or not. Affinity has the opportunity to take advantage of the lack of Adobe and become a bigger player and even a posterchild for promoting Linux.
Affinity is though so the debate for other apps is irrelevant to Affinity supporting it.
You realize that ONE PAGE on a website can be very long. . .. its not like printing where the pages are limited. This is a very sad argument. Also you realize that Wikipedia is not a good source for your argument. I didnt even know about this page and I've been using Linux for over 20 years. You are trying to claim this is a definitive list and you should most certainly know it isnt.
I mean it doesnt even have a Snaps & Flatpaks section.
please stop pretending your arguments make sense
 
I've also heard things claimed about Linux over the years too from people in your perspective. "Linux will never being for gaming" and now it is. "Linux is super hard, you always need a terminal" and no it doesnt.

Just because you have heard things doesnt make you right. It sounds like your information is based on years of out of date context. You even used package managment tools to sound informed neither of which are used anymore. Example: yum was replaced by dnf. apt-get was replaced by apt. You dont need to know these anymore thanks to the software stores and whatnot but you used them as examples of difficulty but really they are just proof you are out of date by many years.

Making the graphic design sector be fully viable on linux is very different from "the year of linux" thing. Affinity is definitely not the last gear to making linux boom and multiply its userbase by 10x. We're just talking about the people who need a graphic design software, be it VFX artists, graphic designers who want to switch to linux or smaller businesses who'd rather get Affinity on a free OS rather than pay for adobe on windows. We're talking about very different goals here.

Not just Servers. like I said, it is the dominant OS for everything. Embedded, Supercomputers, Mobile (Android is powered by Linux), and so on. Desktop is only limited by availability of applications.
Because its true. No one looks at Windows and thinks "well this is engineering perfection". It is always "I need this specific app that is only on Windows or Mac". Windows has nothing to write home about other than it happens to have the widest userbase and thus has the widest catalog of apps. Its not like Windows earned that status, Microsoft paid for it with exclusive deals and institution lock-ins.
 
what? Linux has GUI, its not just a server system. Do you think Linux requires command line to use it? Linux is lower resources with GUI as well. Every single GUI in Linux is lower resource usage than Windows even the heaviest of Linux GUIs is still MUCH lighter than Windows. Storage is also a factor of waste too such as Windows requiring 40GB of space in order to just install it. Linux distros only need around 8GB to 10GB to install. Licensing cost is only for Enterprise. All of the desktop options from the big companies are free. Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE . . . are all free (gratis) thus zero licensing cost. They make money from Enterprise so desktop users can get it without cost. Yes management of hundreds/thousands of machines is easier on Linux but you dont need command line for that either. There are many GUI tools for Linux that let you do that very easily compared to Windows tools. That doesnt change anything related to resources though. A lot of people use Linux as a GUI desktop not related to automation or management of a huge set. This is another dismissive assumption. This is an assumption based on no data. I admit I also did that though so I guess you could say equally weak.
Your point negated nothing. It is obvious that app catalog is a factor . . . and if you missed it, that's the point of this thread. To help Serif see why being a part of the catalog building is valuable to them. The moment Adobe moves to Linux, Affinity will be irrelevant and I will cease to care if it supports Linux or not. People have argued if Adobe doesnt why should Serif and obviously thats why they should. If Linux had no future why would Valve spend $$ Millions to make Linux Gaming a feasible alternative to Windows gaming? It requires someone to try something and it either works or it doesnt. For Valve it has worked, gaming on Linux has increased from basically zero before Value to millions of gamers thanks to Valve.
Really? You are using the opinion of someone promoting Solaris (an Oracle product) as a way to prove Linux isnt good enough?

Linux has the argument of the best because of its growth and importance while also being better than Windows and Mac engineering. Its not dubious. What is dubious is you trying to negate my point about Linux importance using something that contradicts your own stance. You think Linux being a smaller marketshare means no one should care so you try to negate my point by using an OS with an even smaller marketshare? That seems a bit of a weird tactic. Plus Solaris has its own issues just like any software does.
Based on what do you say this? Qt yes. also .NET/C# and Flutter work on Linux as well. What exactly is missing that is a necessity in your mind? Side note: how is this related to Affinity line? On this forum, the only thing that matters is discussing the ease of development for Affinity . . . not the landscape of app development entirely.
 
Mac is a UNIX OS so its weird that you would use that term as a way to negate validity. Desktop Linux is not a pain and yes I do have people using Linux that are grandmas. The people in their 70s and 80s that I know using Linux love it because they don't have to deal with any Windows nonsense and they dont have to do anything with yum, or apt-get or any other command line stuff because command line is not a necessity that you think it is. I mean apt-get is not even used anymore on Ubuntu or Debian and it hasn't been for years, your info is very very dated.

Not just Servers. like I said, it is the dominant OS for everything. Embedded, Supercomputers, Mobile (Android is powered by Linux), and so on. Desktop is only limited by availability of applications.
Because its true. No one looks at Windows and thinks "well this is engineering perfection". It is always "I need this specific app that is only on Windows or Mac". Windows has nothing to write home about other than it happens to have the widest userbase and thus has the widest catalog of apps. Its not like Windows earned that status, Microsoft paid for it with exclusive deals and institution lock-ins.
 
what? Linux has GUI, its not just a server system. Do you think Linux requires command line to use it? Linux is lower resources with GUI as well. Every single GUI in Linux is lower resource usage than Windows even the heaviest of Linux GUIs is still MUCH lighter than Windows. Storage is also a factor of waste too such as Windows requiring 40GB of space in order to just install it. Linux distros only need around 8GB to 10GB to install. Licensing cost is only for Enterprise. All of the desktop options from the big companies are free. Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE . . . are all free (gratis) thus zero licensing cost. They make money from Enterprise so desktop users can get it without cost. Yes management of hundreds/thousands of machines is easier on Linux but you dont need command line for that either. There are many GUI tools for Linux that let you do that very easily compared to Windows tools. That doesnt change anything related to resources though. A lot of people use Linux as a GUI desktop not related to automation or management of a huge set. This is another dismissive assumption. This is an assumption based on no data. I admit I also did that though so I guess you could say equally weak.
Your point negated nothing. It is obvious that app catalog is a factor . . . and if you missed it, that's the point of this thread. To help Serif see why being a part of the catalog building is valuable to them. The moment Adobe moves to Linux, Affinity will be irrelevant and I will cease to care if it supports Linux or not. People have argued if Adobe doesnt why should Serif and obviously thats why they should. If Linux had no future why would Valve spend $$ Millions to make Linux Gaming a feasible alternative to Windows gaming? It requires someone to try something and it either works or it doesnt. For Valve it has worked, gaming on Linux has increased from basically zero before Value to millions of gamers thanks to Valve.
Really? You are using the opinion of someone promoting Solaris (an Oracle product) as a way to prove Linux isnt good enough?

Linux has the argument of the best because of its growth and importance while also being better than Windows and Mac engineering. Its not dubious. What is dubious is you trying to negate my point about Linux importance using something that contradicts your own stance. You think Linux being a smaller marketshare means no one should care so you try to negate my point by using an OS with an even smaller marketshare? That seems a bit of a weird tactic. Plus Solaris has its own issues just like any software does.
Based on what do you say this? Qt yes. also .NET/C# and Flutter work on Linux as well. What exactly is missing that is a necessity in your mind? Side note: how is this related to Affinity line? On this forum, the only thing that matters is discussing the ease of development for Affinity . . . not the landscape of app development entirely.
 
Mac is a UNIX OS so its weird that you would use that term as a way to negate validity. Desktop Linux is not a pain and yes I do have people using Linux that are grandmas. The people in their 70s and 80s that I know using Linux love it because they don't have to deal with any Windows nonsense and they dont have to do anything with yum, or apt-get or any other command line stuff because command line is not a necessity that you think it is. I mean apt-get is not even used anymore on Ubuntu or Debian and it hasn't been for years, your info is very very dated.

The better platform doesn't always win when competing with giants like Microsoft and Apple. They have licensing deals in place and paid promotion to the extent where alternatives cannot compete.
 
But it did get a good office suite, and it's one of the reasons why linux is a valid alternative for productivity reasons to the others. It's also how chromebooks can be actually usable machines when all they are is a linux based OS with a browser, deep google integration and access to the google office suite alternative. Linux is a competent competitor in all fields except graphic design.
 
1. You know linux is also a GUI operating system right? I'm not even sure what you mean by this terminology - all operating systems have the back end, which is just code, and the front end - the GUI. All operating systems use this combination, there's no other way to do it. Linux can just be used without the later. That doesn't mean that people don't use GUIs however, and considering lately with Steam's proton opening a lot of people up to the option of using a linux OS as their main OS distros have been getting more popular.
2. I doubt big companies give two shits about the cost of windows licenses. It is most likely the performance benefit that lets them output stuff faster that is the deciding factor, not licenses.
3. That's just because the windows tools (can't speak for MacOS as I've only used it for a couple of hours) aren't good enough. it's more of a failure of windows than a success of linux.
 
How does the previous statement negate this argument? You're arguing this will happen ad infinitum on the basis of it happening before, but chromebook's existence and popularity is proof enough that people didn't need MS Office specifically and they can do just fine with alternatives so they switched to a chromebook.
 
Arguably every OS will have "ugly code". If you think something in the kernel code is truly bad you're free to suggest an improvement. Try doing that with Microsoft or Apple when you do find an issue. The statement was "of the OS available", not the best OS that will ever be.
 
It's very much getting there. Distros like Deepin and Elementary OS are designed with the thought you'll be using their app store instead of running terminal commands (though you can do that just fine as well). Even Pop OS, one of the more popular distros at the moment, especially for gaming folk, has forked the Elementary OS app store.
Also I'm not sure why grandmas are into graphic design, but go get them grandma!

This is just an assumption based on no clear data. Linux is just a better platform for a variety of reasons but the drastically lower resources is a huge piece of why people switch over. You can save wasted resources from Windows and thus get better FPS in games and better rendering in various tools. The FOSS concept is not even known by a lot of people until after they switch to Linux. I switched to Linux prior to learning what the philosophy was for example.
There are many people who also want to switch to Linux but the only thing holding them back is needing a professional graphics tool. I know many many designers who are in that position. It's just a Catch 22.
Interestingly enough, the low resource need is a big reason why some industries use Linux heavily, take Disney for example. Disney uses Red Hat in their animation studios and computer graphics studios because it offers so much flexibility and lowers complex render times. If Disney sees the value for paying for Linux why would people think Linux is not viable?

There are people who want to use Linux but dont because they need specific programs and if they had an alternative they would use Linux. There are people who use it for FOSS and a lot who don't. I have been using Linux for over 20 years and I do not have a FOSS only requirement . . . and a lot of people are in my pragmatist position as well. I like the philosophy of Open Source but that doesn't mean its the only viable option to be successful on Linux. Linux is a very powerful OS and is arguably the best OS engineering of all the OS available but for some reason Desktop Linux just continues to lose where in literally every other form of computing on the planet, Linux is the dominant force by a lot.
Anyway, I already presented a way Serif could end this debate and definitively find out if Linux could be a viable option or not but nothing has come from it. Maybe some day, I wont be holding my breath for this but maybe someday Serif will realize there is a market willing to pay.

This is just an assumption based on no clear data. Linux is just a better platform for a variety of reasons but the drastically lower resources is a huge piece of why people switch over. You can save wasted resources from Windows and thus get better FPS in games and better rendering in various tools. The FOSS concept is not even known by a lot of people until after they switch to Linux. I switched to Linux prior to learning what the philosophy was for example.
There are many people who also want to switch to Linux but the only thing holding them back is needing a professional graphics tool. I know many many designers who are in that position. It's just a Catch 22.
Interestingly enough, the low resource need is a big reason why some industries use Linux heavily, take Disney for example. Disney uses Red Hat in their animation studios and computer graphics studios because it offers so much flexibility and lowers complex render times. If Disney sees the value for paying for Linux why would people think Linux is not viable?

There are people who want to use Linux but dont because they need specific programs and if they had an alternative they would use Linux. There are people who use it for FOSS and a lot who don't. I have been using Linux for over 20 years and I do not have a FOSS only requirement . . . and a lot of people are in my pragmatist position as well. I like the philosophy of Open Source but that doesn't mean its the only viable option to be successful on Linux. Linux is a very powerful OS and is arguably the best OS engineering of all the OS available but for some reason Desktop Linux just continues to lose where in literally every other form of computing on the planet, Linux is the dominant force by a lot.
Anyway, I already presented a way Serif could end this debate and definitively find out if Linux could be a viable option or not but nothing has come from it. Maybe some day, I wont be holding my breath for this but maybe someday Serif will realize there is a market willing to pay.

I would quite happily settle for the Affinity range of products, particularly Affinity Photo, just running well with Wine/Crossover. The different developers behind the PhotoScape, PhotoLine and Sagelight image editors all make the effort to ensure that their softwares run well with Wine/Crossover so that Linux users are not left out.

This is just an assumption based on no clear data. Linux is just a better platform for a variety of reasons but the drastically lower resources is a huge piece of why people switch over. You can save wasted resources from Windows and thus get better FPS in games and better rendering in various tools. The FOSS concept is not even known by a lot of people until after they switch to Linux. I switched to Linux prior to learning what the philosophy was for example.
There are many people who also want to switch to Linux but the only thing holding them back is needing a professional graphics tool. I know many many designers who are in that position. It's just a Catch 22.
Interestingly enough, the low resource need is a big reason why some industries use Linux heavily, take Disney for example. Disney uses Red Hat in their animation studios and computer graphics studios because it offers so much flexibility and lowers complex render times. If Disney sees the value for paying for Linux why would people think Linux is not viable?

There are people who want to use Linux but dont because they need specific programs and if they had an alternative they would use Linux. There are people who use it for FOSS and a lot who don't. I have been using Linux for over 20 years and I do not have a FOSS only requirement . . . and a lot of people are in my pragmatist position as well. I like the philosophy of Open Source but that doesn't mean its the only viable option to be successful on Linux. Linux is a very powerful OS and is arguably the best OS engineering of all the OS available but for some reason Desktop Linux just continues to lose where in literally every other form of computing on the planet, Linux is the dominant force by a lot.
Anyway, I already presented a way Serif could end this debate and definitively find out if Linux could be a viable option or not but nothing has come from it. Maybe some day, I wont be holding my breath for this but maybe someday Serif will realize there is a market willing to pay.

If that's the case then we have our answer. They refuse to let us prove it and thus they refuse to even consider it.
If that's how they look at it then it seems they do not care if there is enough people to sustain it or not, they just don't want to do it at all because the only thing they are willing to consider is stuff that will skew it in such a way to justify it to themselves to not do it.
If they genuinely wanted to know then they would allow us the chance to genuinely prove it but instead they want to put on tasks that will take a very long time to build momentum on the hope it will be enough. This is like a older sibling giving a video game controller to their younger sibling that isn't plugged in to trick them into thinking they are doing something while you know it accomplishes nothing.
Quick note to Serif: the argument of "we're better than crowdfunded software" is an excuse and bad one, because a lot of people have used crowdfunding as a way to gather interest and backing to become a massive success. Font Awesome for example did crowdfunding to find out if enough people would back it to justify extra work and when they did it we proved that we wanted them to and thus it was successful and it got even better. (for reference:  Font Awesome on Kickstarter = 35,550 backers. They only asked for a $30,000 goal and the total raised was $1,076,960 . . . for a icon set! They gave us the chance to prove we were willing to pay and we did.

The problem is that most people do not adhere to this at all, yet companies listen to the loud hardheaded people as if they represent us all. They don't. We talked about this issue in our recent episode of Destination Linux related to Open Source vs Commercialism, and the point comes down to the fact that Commercialism is not only a good thing in many cases but also required for sustainability. We received a lot of feedback in favor of this stance.
 
  
It highlights that there are very loud people who don't want to pay for stuff. Yea, thats true for every ecosystem but depending on where they ask the people are louder. They asked on Reddit. The r/linux subreddit is very often considered a problematic place even in the eyes of the majority of Linux users so they based their opinion on a place that is very loud and not open minded. They tried it to find out and realized that r/linux did not represent the ecosystem at all. This is the point.
 
  
Here's the problem, you can't find out unless you give us the option to tell you. Waiting on WINE to see if there is enough is a very bad idea. WINE usage would require to it to be worked on for support, then it requires users to know that WINE is working on it, requires users to know WINE has made it usable, requires users to know that Serif is using that data to make decisions on real support and etc. The amount of skewing of statistics is so high that using that as a basis is essentially creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The solution to find out is simple. Create crowd-funding campaign to gauge interest. You set the price for the campagin to whatever you think it will cost to do the development and we as a community promote the campaign to gather support. This allows us one thing to promote and allows us to consolidate the effort of people knowing where to go to share their support. It also is a method of seeing not only how many people want it but also how many people are willing to pay because we would have to put our money up in the campaign.
You find out how many Linux users are willing to make this happen, you can make larger tiers than regular price to see how many people are ultra-interested. All sorts of data can be used from them.
If the campaign is successful you get the money to make the software support Linux without worry about if there is enough people to justify it. If it isn't successful, no one loses any money and you get a definitive answer to the question "is there enough people in the platform to justify the upfront cost?".
I think any other method of trying to find out will take years and will be heavily skewed. This method will allow us to consolidate effort to promote it and gives us a chance to actually prove it.

Ideological zealots are problematic regardless of subject, my point is the Linux community is not filled with zealots. We are pro Open Source of course but pro open source does not equal anti-commercial.
I don't see where there is a PR nightmare possibility. They get good PR from letting us prove ourselves and if it fails they get good PR for at least giving us the chance. It sounds like they are worried about having their software compared to the jank stuff that is on Kickstarter and other services that are just scammy nonsense. They don't want a guilty by association outcome is what I think creates the hesitation.
However, there have been thousands of successful campaigns from reputable companies, otherwise those sites would have never worked and wouldnt still exist.
Ultimately, the only people who are doing ANY RISK at all is me and the Linux community. I am risking my reputation to promote a crowdfunding campaign that I have hope that it would work but no evidence that it would or not. The Linux community would be risking future companies using a failed crowdfunding campaign as a metric for not considering a Linux port of their software.
Serif is at risk of basically nothing if they handle it well and especially if they partner with me to promote the campaign.
I am willing to risk my reputation for proving the Linux ecosystem is strong enough to justify it if the company is behind the effort to find out. . . I am not willing to risk my reputation on a "maybe if this then we might consider thinking about it".

Linux operating systems typically do not have telemetry which means that market share is effectively unknown. What do you base the 3% on? NetMarketShare website? Are you aware of that website closed their efforts to measure that due to Google breaking functionality? Essentially, we have even less of an idea now. It's unfortunate that Linux ecosystem, doesn't really know how many users it actually has because it makes this discussion quite difficult to have. However, the 3% number is just a guess based on a network of websites that don't specify which sites and what target audience it relates to. It's fine to use that data to measure trending but that's all it really can do. You are saying the market share in general is around that but no one really knows what the actual number is.
With that said, it may be unreasonable to ask them to make it based on speculative data but I think it is totally reasonable to ask them to find out for themselves and stop using speculative data . . . because it's actually rather easy for them to put an end to this debate if they really cared to do that.
All they have to do is setup a crowdfunding campaign to find out. I explain more about how this works and why it should be done in this post.

The problem is that most people do not adhere to this at all, yet companies listen to the loud hardheaded people as if they represent us all. They don't. We talked about this issue in our recent episode of Destination Linux related to Open Source vs Commercialism, and the point comes down to the fact that Commercialism is not only a good thing in many cases but also required for sustainability. We received a lot of feedback in favor of this stance.
 
  
It highlights that there are very loud people who don't want to pay for stuff. Yea, thats true for every ecosystem but depending on where they ask the people are louder. They asked on Reddit. The r/linux subreddit is very often considered a problematic place even in the eyes of the majority of Linux users so they based their opinion on a place that is very loud and not open minded. They tried it to find out and realized that r/linux did not represent the ecosystem at all. This is the point.
 
  
Here's the problem, you can't find out unless you give us the option to tell you. Waiting on WINE to see if there is enough is a very bad idea. WINE usage would require to it to be worked on for support, then it requires users to know that WINE is working on it, requires users to know WINE has made it usable, requires users to know that Serif is using that data to make decisions on real support and etc. The amount of skewing of statistics is so high that using that as a basis is essentially creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The solution to find out is simple. Create crowd-funding campaign to gauge interest. You set the price for the campagin to whatever you think it will cost to do the development and we as a community promote the campaign to gather support. This allows us one thing to promote and allows us to consolidate the effort of people knowing where to go to share their support. It also is a method of seeing not only how many people want it but also how many people are willing to pay because we would have to put our money up in the campaign.
You find out how many Linux users are willing to make this happen, you can make larger tiers than regular price to see how many people are ultra-interested. All sorts of data can be used from them.
If the campaign is successful you get the money to make the software support Linux without worry about if there is enough people to justify it. If it isn't successful, no one loses any money and you get a definitive answer to the question "is there enough people in the platform to justify the upfront cost?".
I think any other method of trying to find out will take years and will be heavily skewed. This method will allow us to consolidate effort to promote it and gives us a chance to actually prove it.

I dont think they've even read anything in this thread for years.

That's a great post Michael, thanks for your level-headed thoughts on this matter.

If that's the case then we have our answer. They refuse to let us prove it and thus they refuse to even consider it.
If that's how they look at it then it seems they do not care if there is enough people to sustain it or not, they just don't want to do it at all because the only thing they are willing to consider is stuff that will skew it in such a way to justify it to themselves to not do it.
If they genuinely wanted to know then they would allow us the chance to genuinely prove it but instead they want to put on tasks that will take a very long time to build momentum on the hope it will be enough. This is like a older sibling giving a video game controller to their younger sibling that isn't plugged in to trick them into thinking they are doing something while you know it accomplishes nothing.
Quick note to Serif: the argument of "we're better than crowdfunded software" is an excuse and bad one, because a lot of people have used crowdfunding as a way to gather interest and backing to become a massive success. Font Awesome for example did crowdfunding to find out if enough people would back it to justify extra work and when they did it we proved that we wanted them to and thus it was successful and it got even better. (for reference:  Font Awesome on Kickstarter = 35,550 backers. They only asked for a $30,000 goal and the total raised was $1,076,960 . . . for a icon set! They gave us the chance to prove we were willing to pay and we did.