Michael Tunnell

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.

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.

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.

You should join the DLN Community then because that is a very welcoming place. In other places, there might be zealots popping out of no where but in the DLN Community, that stuff doesn't fly. DLN Community is about helping anyone who wants help on whatever they need it on and also having a community that is enjoyable to participate in.
like you said, if they can make it work on Mac and Windows they can make it work on Linux but I understand your overall point. I agree that they are possibly thinking about these types of things and that is what makes them hesitant. I just wish they would give us the chance to prove those fears, if they have them, are unfounded. . . . even if that means having a chat with me for 10 minutes on Zoom about it.

I've been dabbling with Linux about 4-5 years now. Been committed to it for about a month. For the most part, it's all a bunch of techy folk who like having full access to tweak their computers, always willing to help out someone who needs it.
...but on occasion, you'll be sitting there, minding your own business, when some guy who uses HURD pops up out of nowhere and tries to shiv you. They're rare, but they're around.
I'm gonna guess that they're considering the unforeseen circumstances. Like say they run this campaign, get their funding, gather a ton of goodwill from the community. The hype is huge. Everyone's all stoked about getting a good Photoshop alternative on Linux.
...and after a year, they find they just can't get it to work. We have Affinity on Linux, but it's a janky, buggy mess. No one's happy. Feelings are hurt. Serif takes a hit to their PR.
Now like I said, the chances of this happening are about slim to none. If they can get the program to work on Mac and Windows, they can get it to work on Linux with the same amount of time and effort. But considering how they're already pretty shy even talking about adding features to their already existing codebase unless they're 95% finished, and 99% certain it'll end up in the next point release, I imagine they spend a lot of time fretting over the what-if's, and probably wouldn't be too keen on throwing their support behind something they themselves aren't 100% sure of.

Hold up. The Free word in FOSS does not mean free as in money but free as in Freedom. Yes it was incredibly dumb for them to choose that term back in the day but that is what it means. Your scenario suggests one is for paid and the other relies on donations however you can absolutely have open source software that is also commercial. Bitwarden, Nextcloud, Docker, OpenStack, Vital synthesizer, and the list goes on. These are all open source software products that have a commercial model.
Yes, there is a subset of people in our ecosystem that doesnt understand this either but they are not the majority. Most people in the Linux ecosystem do not consider proprietary evil, most simply don't care.
There is zero risk involved at all. They either get the money or they get a definitive answer to end the debate. There is not risk in any way. Serif doesn't have to promote they are doing it, they can simply say "here Linux peeps, good luck". We will then take it from there and I guarantee I will get it in front of thousands of people in order to promote the campaign and Serif will be looked at as a company who is willing to let us prove ourselves and instantly get appreciation from the Linux community without having to write a single line of code.
I also never took it personally, I said we have our answer. Why bother trying to convince them still when they have been given a chance to find out and the only option they will consider is a method that skews it in the favor of No. This is not taking it personally, it's simply not continuing to waste my breath. (or types? in this case)
I did attempt to offer an example of a professional company who used Kickstarter to gauge interest and at no point did they look bad for doing so. I want Serif to give us the chance to prove ourselves and there is a simple direct way to do that . . . refusal to do that, is an answer in itself.
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Edit: let me clarify something. I am the host of 3 podcasts and I also have a fairly large YouTube channel that I can promote a crowdfunding campaign on. Obviously, I am not going to go on my shows and tell them about something that is so absurdly skewed. If there isn't a crowdfunding campaign to prove it and instead they insist on WINE as an option it would be like me going onto my show and saying . . .
"hey everyone, this company that makes this software has said they will maybe consider making a Linux version if we prove to WINE that they should make that company's software work under WINE and then have people pay for the WINE version and then based on how many people do that then they will consider making us pay for a Linux version?" . . . what?
vs
"hey everyone, there's this company that is doing something very awesome. they are letting us prove that Linux is a platform that should be considered in their development. They setup a crowdfunding campaign to see how many people in Linux community want some great software. All you have to do is pledge $50 to a kickstarter campagin and if we reach their goal, they will make a Linux version. Let's prove the Linux ecosystem is a platform worth developing for."

The first one, I wont do because I am not going to promote "let's get a 3rd party to do something for this company and hope its enough to get people to buy their stuff and hope that also is enough to convince them to do the work".
The second one, is "hey this company is letting us put our money where our mouth is" and since that's basically unheard of, even doing that is going to get points from our community.

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.

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.

Apparently some of the downvotes were because someone already posted about the thing the same day.
 
These have quite a high number of upvotes and comments, I hope this proves that the FOSS-focused people do not represent the entirety of the linux userbase.

Why would any Linux user put effort into finding out why something doesnt work when the company making it doesn't care to consider supporting it even if they do fix it? Your logic can be applied both directions. This kind of thing is a scenario where both sides need to be willing. Linux users are VERY willing to help provided that the company involved commits to at least having some interest. If there is no chance of even having interest then Linux community look for software where the company might.
In this case, Mark said they would talk to the WINE team if contacted. Luckily I have been in Linux for over 20 years and I know some people at WINE so I might be able to make that happen. So in this particular case the Linux community is reaching out and are more than happy to do so.
I saw Mark's comment and immediately reacted with excitement because its not about who needs to put the effort in more . . . it's a collaboration thing and Linux is all about collaboration. If a company is interested and willing to work with us we will do everything we can to make it happen. I mean a great example of that is Apple M1 Mac . . . Apple gave ZERO help with getting Linux on M1 Macs BUT they made it possible for us to do it if we want and there are already 2 projects making that happen. Apple didn't help but they got out of the way. This is not really possible for Serif to do because its proprietary software but knowing that our efforts isnt a complete lost cause makes us willing to attempt.
My real point of participating in this thread is just to see if Serif is willing to attempt it even if it takes involvement from us in some way. The answer is always no if you never ask the question so that's why I am here asking the questions.

This a very flawed way of judging interest. The community is very large, I mean it dominates literally ever form of computing except for the desktop so it's pretty significant. The size of the community should never be judged by how many people post on a forum thread, or vote on the WINEhq website. For example, I have never bothered to vote on the WINEhq website for any of Serif products, yet I have commented many times on this forum thread. There is no way to actually gauge interest without Serif themselves asking the question.
I switched to Linux well over a decade ago as my only OS and this was before Affinity Photo existed so I only heard about it last year. This means there are a LOT of people who would be interested but just dont know of the software because why on Earth would they be looking for Windows alternatives to Photoshop?
If Serif truly wants to know how many people are interested and if it is worth doing they should just ask the question to the Linux community. I have a podcast with a decent sized audience so I could get the word out of them asking the question but I do need them to ask the question and provide a way for Linux users to answer it.
Serif could go one step farther with a Kickstarter to not only see people's interest but also to let people put money where their mouth is and buy pre-orders of the software. I would gladly do that for example.
Serif has the ability to easily find out if it is worth their time or not but likely they will just assume it isnt because research is rare these days.

Why would any Linux user put effort into finding out why something doesnt work when the company making it doesn't care to consider supporting it even if they do fix it? Your logic can be applied both directions. This kind of thing is a scenario where both sides need to be willing. Linux users are VERY willing to help provided that the company involved commits to at least having some interest. If there is no chance of even having interest then Linux community look for software where the company might.
In this case, Mark said they would talk to the WINE team if contacted. Luckily I have been in Linux for over 20 years and I know some people at WINE so I might be able to make that happen. So in this particular case the Linux community is reaching out and are more than happy to do so.
I saw Mark's comment and immediately reacted with excitement because its not about who needs to put the effort in more . . . it's a collaboration thing and Linux is all about collaboration. If a company is interested and willing to work with us we will do everything we can to make it happen. I mean a great example of that is Apple M1 Mac . . . Apple gave ZERO help with getting Linux on M1 Macs BUT they made it possible for us to do it if we want and there are already 2 projects making that happen. Apple didn't help but they got out of the way. This is not really possible for Serif to do because its proprietary software but knowing that our efforts isnt a complete lost cause makes us willing to attempt.
My real point of participating in this thread is just to see if Serif is willing to attempt it even if it takes involvement from us in some way. The answer is always no if you never ask the question so that's why I am here asking the questions.

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

Let me clarify, this was a reason I had a developer tell me why they don't accept bounties. I am not throwing out anything, you said you don't know why they wouldn't and I gave you a reason. I think there can be value to them but there can also be downsides, just like everything really. There's also a legal grey area of whether or not these bounties are considered contracts depending on the country. This is another reason a developer said he'd rather not bother with the concept.
I agree. Back on topic of Affinity for Linux. I think there are more benefits to Affinity in doing so than downsides and I expressed why in this post but it's admittedly a bit long so no idea if they even read this thread anymore.

Why would any Linux user put effort into finding out why something doesnt work when the company making it doesn't care to consider supporting it even if they do fix it? Your logic can be applied both directions. This kind of thing is a scenario where both sides need to be willing. Linux users are VERY willing to help provided that the company involved commits to at least having some interest. If there is no chance of even having interest then Linux community look for software where the company might.
In this case, Mark said they would talk to the WINE team if contacted. Luckily I have been in Linux for over 20 years and I know some people at WINE so I might be able to make that happen. So in this particular case the Linux community is reaching out and are more than happy to do so.
I saw Mark's comment and immediately reacted with excitement because its not about who needs to put the effort in more . . . it's a collaboration thing and Linux is all about collaboration. If a company is interested and willing to work with us we will do everything we can to make it happen. I mean a great example of that is Apple M1 Mac . . . Apple gave ZERO help with getting Linux on M1 Macs BUT they made it possible for us to do it if we want and there are already 2 projects making that happen. Apple didn't help but they got out of the way. This is not really possible for Serif to do because its proprietary software but knowing that our efforts isnt a complete lost cause makes us willing to attempt.
My real point of participating in this thread is just to see if Serif is willing to attempt it even if it takes involvement from us in some way. The answer is always no if you never ask the question so that's why I am here asking the questions.

I might be able to make this happen. threads shall be pulled 😎
 
  
LOL that's messed up. You would stop using something because Linux users might get attention? That's a very weird perspective to me. We can't have nice things because you insist they care more about your needs when they dont even have a Linux version or even the inkling of considering one at the moment. Honestly, that's very messed up.

Why would any Linux user put effort into finding out why something doesnt work when the company making it doesn't care to consider supporting it even if they do fix it? Your logic can be applied both directions. This kind of thing is a scenario where both sides need to be willing. Linux users are VERY willing to help provided that the company involved commits to at least having some interest. If there is no chance of even having interest then Linux community look for software where the company might.
In this case, Mark said they would talk to the WINE team if contacted. Luckily I have been in Linux for over 20 years and I know some people at WINE so I might be able to make that happen. So in this particular case the Linux community is reaching out and are more than happy to do so.
I saw Mark's comment and immediately reacted with excitement because its not about who needs to put the effort in more . . . it's a collaboration thing and Linux is all about collaboration. If a company is interested and willing to work with us we will do everything we can to make it happen. I mean a great example of that is Apple M1 Mac . . . Apple gave ZERO help with getting Linux on M1 Macs BUT they made it possible for us to do it if we want and there are already 2 projects making that happen. Apple didn't help but they got out of the way. This is not really possible for Serif to do because its proprietary software but knowing that our efforts isnt a complete lost cause makes us willing to attempt.
My real point of participating in this thread is just to see if Serif is willing to attempt it even if it takes involvement from us in some way. The answer is always no if you never ask the question so that's why I am here asking the questions.

Why would any Linux user put effort into finding out why something doesnt work when the company making it doesn't care to consider supporting it even if they do fix it? Your logic can be applied both directions. This kind of thing is a scenario where both sides need to be willing. Linux users are VERY willing to help provided that the company involved commits to at least having some interest. If there is no chance of even having interest then Linux community look for software where the company might.
In this case, Mark said they would talk to the WINE team if contacted. Luckily I have been in Linux for over 20 years and I know some people at WINE so I might be able to make that happen. So in this particular case the Linux community is reaching out and are more than happy to do so.
I saw Mark's comment and immediately reacted with excitement because its not about who needs to put the effort in more . . . it's a collaboration thing and Linux is all about collaboration. If a company is interested and willing to work with us we will do everything we can to make it happen. I mean a great example of that is Apple M1 Mac . . . Apple gave ZERO help with getting Linux on M1 Macs BUT they made it possible for us to do it if we want and there are already 2 projects making that happen. Apple didn't help but they got out of the way. This is not really possible for Serif to do because its proprietary software but knowing that our efforts isnt a complete lost cause makes us willing to attempt.
My real point of participating in this thread is just to see if Serif is willing to attempt it even if it takes involvement from us in some way. The answer is always no if you never ask the question so that's why I am here asking the questions.

I stand corrected. 😎
Edit: I would like an updated response from the team. I expect the answer to still be no unfortunately but the issues addressed in 2014 have all been solved for developers so I am very curious what the opinion of the dev team is these days

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

It may also surprise Serif that Linux platform and the Mac platform are very very similar. A lot of works on one can work on the other so at least some percentage of Linux support is already there since they are essentially "platform cousins".

I know you're being very generous with the numbers, but only counting the number of people who a) use the affinity forums and b) have participated in this thread (most reddit users are lurkers, as a point of reference.) is a bit skewed. Not only that, but it's possible more people would consider linux as a switchable OS if it had this software on it.
Also, people here aren't asking for new apps built from the ground up, they want the current apps to work, either via a native port or by working with Wine and getting the issues that make it not work ironed out. This is a way smaller endeavour than a re-write of 3 apps, especially since in the marketing materials I remember serif boasting about how all apps use the same *platformless* base. It's not word for word what I remember reading, but surely modifying that base is all that's needed, right? At worst you could switch the efficient calls that have no WINE parity to less efficient ones for the port, until they get added to WINE.

Hi 👋🏻

The more I use Krita, the more I realize it's a better analog to Photo than I initially thought. It's geared more heavily towards digital painting than raw photo manipulation, but it can still do the latter fairly well. At the very least, it has some decent content aware/inpainting brush style tools, and honest to god non-destructive adjustment layers, both of which GIMP lacks.
I'd still rather have Photo and Designer in Linux, but I'm finding I can use Krita without feeling like I'm sacrificing all that much.
edit: You can even make it look pretty snazzy.

I like Snaps but it depends on the application whether Snaps are an issue or not. Some of the apps I use work fantastic as Snaps and some don't. I also think Flatpaks are a great option too and honestly I would prefer it if Affinity were to make a Flatpak version because it would pretty much cover all bases in regards to support and ease of use.
I don't recommend AppImages because they have no security mechanism and most don't even have a mechanism for updates. I'd rather use Flatpak or Snaps and then maybe an AppImage if there necessary but AppImages have a lot of issues unfortunately.