MattyWS

Affinity staff really should have made this announcement a little ahead of time, or you know, at all. Also, please dear god don't go subscription model... This is the one thing that sets Affinity apart in a good way from adobe. With that said though I wouldn't mind if you guys made the affinity suite web based as well.

That's a fair enough response. If Serif don't want to even think about or consider it then there is nothing else to talk about I suppose. Granted, it's not the response I was hoping for. I was kinda hoping to get an idea on potential milestones that may give some indication of where Serif may be at a turning point on this but I suppose it can't be helped.

If you aren't interested in the topic, I would say the best thing to do is not get involved in the topic. ^^

Wasn't the question of if they currently have plans and unless you're a developer I don't think you're qualified to answer the question of this topic. If you aren't interested in the topic, I would say the best thing to do is not get involved in the topic. ^^ I don't wanna come across as a jerk by repeating this, but it seems pretty consistent that any topic here about linux devolves into windows and mac users hating. I don't go into every other topic on this forum to tell people how much I hate their needs, questions or feature requests, I'd suggest everyone not do that either.

Wasn't a question about wine or asking serif to make a linux version like the other topics, I'm talking about what conditions need to be met for Serif to make a native version. I'm also not interested in a debate about if it should be done, and the other linux topics have devolved into a bunch of Windows nuts trying to convince everyone that linux sucks. I'm not interested in that noise. If you aren't interested in the topic, I would say the best thing to do is not get involved in the topic.

This is a direct question to the devs and/or moderators here that can answer for them. Not a debate topic. What conditions would need to be met for Serif to make a linux version of the affinity suite? How much of a global market share would linux need? If Adobe suddenly decides to make a linux version? A kickstarter campaign to guarantee the funds needed, removing all risk? Would it take Serif themselves becoming financially comfortable enough to be able to experiment and expand? What needs to be done to get a Linux version?

Aye I agree the linux market share is tiny and possibly not many people on linux will buy serifs products yet, but I think there's two thoughts from me here; First, the investment into a very rapidly growing platform. Say what you will about 1% rise in a year it's still a lot of people (1% is ~80,000,000 of the world!) and it's fast growth for a platform that does no marketing. Getting into this now will ensure dominance on a potentially large userbase in the future. Second, I think it's just good practice to develop cross platform earlier rather than later. It'll only get harder to port to linux and android further down the line. Other companies have not had much of an issue supporting multiple platforms, and some extremely corperate companies have linux versions of their software so it can't be that financially stupid (look at Autodesk and SideFX for example).

Yea notice how no one is calling it a Windows religion or Mac religion, despite how this topic is to specifically discuss linux and there are windows crusaders in here going "NooOoOoOOoOOoo" for zero gain other than to try to thwart linux users and dissuade Serif? If using a different OS to you counts as a religion in your head while you are going out of your way to do this, you need therapy, because I doubt linux users are going into every other request topic and saying "NO serif shouldn't add this feature they need to spend their money on me and my OS instead" like you're doing here. It's strange, the mental gymnastics I've seen you and others do on these forums trying to gatekeep how Serif spends their time and resources. Heck this topic is specifically asking the best ways to run the software on linux regardless of official support and thanks to people like yourself it's devolved into a thread about why you don't like linux.

Just to throw this out there as well, I agree that not 100% of linux users would buy affinity products, but also, how many windows or mac users would buy affinity products either? My guess is a higher percentage of mac users would buy than the percentage of windows users for sure. Given how windows is basically the default I would imagine the very vast majority of users could not care less about photo editing. At least Mac users are more likely to be the target audience for Serif, windows users are fragmented to all kinds of people from your grandma to public library users.

I think this is incorrect. Mac and Windows have about 87-88% global desktop share. with linux rising to around 4-5% not including chromeOS which is also just linux (it is, get over it), which is around 2-3% and the rest is unknown (though I don't know if steamdeck is counted, it's technically a linux desktop but I doubt most people use the browser so they may not get counted). If we're being conservative here linux is 6-7% desktop share really, give or take a few million steamdeck users if they were counted. I'm curious about the remaining ~6% unknown desktop share though. They're desktops, but those who care enough to mask themselves are probably the paranoid linux crowd lol... Which would make the linux share more like 12% but we'll never know that for sure. The stats I think are based on desktop browser use. RIP FreeBSD, clearly dead in the water.

What do you mean? Multiple threads with many pages on the topic shows that there is an interest. I'm trying to understand the thought process you are suggesting the devs looking at the forum and being like "Damn, there's a ton of people wanting this thing, lets never do it".

When you say it flashes, like what constantly or every time you move the cursor over it or just once in a blue moon?

This is probably because linux users actually want to use linux, while most windows users are stuck with what they got from the store. I've noticed the loudest anti-cross platform people in this forum often say they totally daily drive Linux, but if that were true they wouldn't be so against their favourite softwares coming to Linux. Best guess is they just use windows and want to get a leg up in the debate like "guys come on I totally use Linux daily and it's awful no one should use it, I should know because I totally use it myself, please don't make software for me or Linux even though i totally use it." - Seems sus. Cross platform software should be encouraged and celebrated.

I'm more than willing to have an open discussion so long as you are willing to stop making insulting assumptions about my intelligence. It's ok if you disagree, but I've pointed out a bunch of different for profit softwares that are cross platform with no problems. Why would sidefx or autodesk develop their software for linux alongside windows if it was going to cost them money over time? These are for profit companies. And if it were such a huge problem to do, why are these companies still successful and still developing for linux?

This isn't really a concern. Sure the cost to port it initially will be high, but to maintain it alongside mac, windows and ipadOS afterwards will even out over time and they will get customers from linux coming in, which may be small to begin with but a fine investment. Also as I mentioned in my initial post, the distribution of cost didn't seem to affect other companies making software cross platform. Look at Unreal, Houdini, Unity, Blender, Maya. Completely free software like Godot and Gimp as well, why aren't they worried about "funds"? It's a poor excuse and a non issue when other companies seem to have no problem doing it IMO. If it makes you feel any better though I'd gladly pay 4-5x more for a linux version of the affinity suite, as others probably would. Because there is no competition, it would be amazing to have and well worth the money. I dunno where people get this idea that the tens of millions of people that daily drive linux wouldn't pay for software... The gaming market has already shown otherwise, Linux is now more profitable than Mac is for games, this alone would suggest linux users pay for stuff just fine.