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.

Agree to disagree on this front, as I think it's an important thing to worry about. I don't believe MS would ever go to extremes as to revoke licenses for the sake of it but it's certainly a possibility that they may be forced to do for whatever reasons, be it legal or political. The difference really is with open source, I take ownership of the software, if I don't agree with the developers of that software I can fork it, I can do all the same with it. Look at Blender or Gimp as an example if I wanted to I could rebrand and sell the software (would be extremely shady and morally wrong to do that but you know what I mean). You have far more control over Linux than you do over windows. Even down to the smaller details like changing things on your desktop which you can't on windows because you're not the one in control of it, MS are. Anyways, like I said previously my intention was not to do a windows vs mac vs linux thing, it was to point out that everyone has their own terms, their own preferences, their own needs. MS doesn't fulfill my terms, needs or preferences and so I use linux. I'd use Mac but then I'd be kinda back to square one but with no control over my own hardware lol

You aren't. Sure, if you purchased the affinity suite you're certainly helping towards funding them for you, but if I also purchased the suite what makes you think your "funds" are any more or less important than mine? You are effectively funding your own needs just as I am mine. You also aren't in charge of Serifs money (presumably) so I don't know why you'd be trying to gatekeep how they spend it.

I see this thread turned into a windows vs linux fanboy style flame war and I'd like to just step in and say people should take a breath. If you use Windows and you love it and would never switch to anything else, good for you! You have the Affinity Suite on your OS of choice. This kind of topic is not about you and you gain nothing from trying to gatekeep what Serif does. You already got what you wanted from the start. This thread is about the people that daily drive a different OS that is severely lacking in the photo/vector editing side of things. I'm one of those people and I've made do with what I have (I use substance designer, krita and darktable for my image needs). It would be absolutely fantastic to have a good image manipulation software like affinity but even more so, I'm really missing affinity designer. I honestly think affinity would dominate the space if they made linux versions of their suite. It would be the best. There is practically no competition. As for people who are saying no one uses linux so Serif shouldn't bother, that hasn't stopped Autodesk from having Maya or Houdini, it didn't stop Epic's Unreal engine or Unity engine having native linux versions. It didn't stop FOSS projects like Blender, Godot, Gimp and Inkscape either. There's all kinds of professional software that has linux native versions that are maintained to this day alongside windows and mac versions, from massive corperations to non profits. I don't think anyone can say "no one uses linux" because obviously, we do. The desktop marketshare is rising to 5% if it's not already there, and for gaming it has overtaken Mac. There are whole companies banking on Linux like Valve, System76 etc. It's not dead and it's not dying, the linux marketshare is ever growing and IMO shouldn't be ignored. My reasons for using linux is because it's faster, sleek and completely under my control. I don't agree to the windows ToS. Anyone that uses windows has no control over their system, heck you don't even own windows, you are licensed to it which MS can revoke at any time they want. I'm a professional game developer (3d artists specifically) and I, along with many others, are fast realising this is an option we can take. This thread isn't about what is better out of linux mac or windows. mac and windows users already got what they want from Serif. Please stop bothering to gatekeep and let people discuss the topic at hand, which is that linux users want and need a suite like affinity and would welcome Serif!

They could very literally have made affinity work like native through wine tbh. I know Serif said they won't be supporting linux, but it could have been kinda simple. Like some of the latest and greatest videogames that are being released with day 1 steamdeck support are actually just windows games, even though steamdeck is linux. That's how easy things are getting. Serif could dedicate a little time to wine development specifically for their product and be done, everyone on linux would have a working suite worth using. Heck my company doesn't support a linux version of our game, but when it stopped working on steamdeck after an update my colleagues went out and got a steamdeck, fixed the issue and released a patch *just* for linux support, despite being a windows game. This honestly is how it should be. with software development. Devs should be passionate about getting their product into the hands of people that want it.

yup, thats really their own failing though and now they're limited with what the can do with the software they've made. It's a shame because affinity suite is great but yea, if they didn't have the foresight to make their software cross platform then it's a real shame. It seems to be unnecessarily hard work for Serif to support just the three platforms (windows, mac and iOS). Strange they'd support iOS but not android either, considering android has a larger market share than iOS.. if their reasoning is that there's more people on mac than linux.

yea from my experience the devs are very stuck in their way and don't want to change some things. Took years to get TGA support for example, despite it being an industry standard format used in multiple industries like TV and videogames. It's really strange to me why they wouldn't want to cater to such large industries but their answer is always something like "this is a photo editing software for photographers", as if photoshop isn't exactly that too.

Charging for every major version is fine for a couple of reasons; 1) it's normal in the software world and devs need money somehow 2) the alternative is a subscription model... so maybe stop complaining 3) you still own v1, you can still use v1, you aren't forced to pay more unless you want v2

looks like no changes to channels

Yea, I've accepted that Serif have chosen not to support the Linux platform (regardless of if I disagree with that choice it's theirs to make). No need to act out and try to punish them for it. I just wish they'd develop their applications in such a way that it would be truly cross platform (or at least make it work via wine)

I disagree that comparing gimp and blender is unfair. I specifically said gimp needs to have that backing to succeed, not that gimp isn't succeeding despite having some kind of backing. Also if the "default" is not user friendly thats the problem of the application not people IMO. Why would it be non-user friendly by default on purpose?