Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Recommended Posts

Guys. Linux is the future. You may not see it at the moment, but you are trusting Apple way too much. What if your golden ecosystem breaks down?

 

The thing is that I know lots of people who would be willing to purchase this software for even more than the original price if it was available for Linux. The Linux community is not cheap. If there is a quality product that is worth it, we're gonna buy it. And I'm pretty convinced Affinity is. When I read about it, I was super excited because as a young alternative to Illustrator, Sketch and Vectormator, there would be a chance of Affinity being more modern and also supporting other Unices than only Mac OS. See, the world of Unix is so unbelievably huge, yet you are concentrating on such a tiny subset of it. The programming effort is tiny, many Unix programs are portable between systems without any modifications. Since Mac OS is practically a BSD-Rip-off, the programming effort of porting Affinity to Linux is tinytinytiny And you could be one of the first innovative companies offering a consumer-application for Linux, which would probably not only make huge waves in the Linux community itself, but also the whole industry, which will also gain you lots and lots of customers.

 

Unless you were dumb enough to use native Apple-APIs of course. Then you're f****d.

 

In that case I would advise switching as soon as possible, as painful as it might be. It will save you lots and lots of problems and lots of future pain. I can only advise you to look into Qt, which is by the way also cross-platform-compatible. Yes, I'm even talking about Windows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

The backend, which does all the work, can be built and run on any platform, but do not underestimate the amount of work that goes into writing the frontend - the bit you interact with... It's everything that appears to the user - specialised controls which take a very long time to get right - and they're only any good at all when they're right. That's the area that we would have to spend a large investment in developing, not the backend itself. It's not out of the question if it makes sense financially, but I think the question is whether it would make the money back?

 

Thanks :)

Matt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

In fairness, Linux has been "the future" for years - but it still isn't converting many people.  Mainly because most flavours of it have always been so impenetrable for anyone that is not a tech geek.  I think we can be sure that OSX is going to be around a while yet - while it may be Unix under the hood, the user experience is so much better.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having lived though the "dark times" of the Mac (around the late '90s), I cannot count the times the Mac (and Apple) were left for dead and the heralds of doom and "don't trust Apple" crowd were proven wrong.

 

The OP seems to be just stirring up a bunch of FUD* and, IMHO, has absolutely no place in this forum. It's a distraction and a bit of ephemera to entertain me over a bout of insomnia. 

 

 

-----

*Not Elmer, silly wabbit, but Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A practice a certain maker of an OS and office software perfected the practice of in the 80's. 

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been a Mac user since 1989 (and was a DOS and Windows user before that).

Also, I already "test-drived" some flavors of Linux.

 

That being said, I lost count (and now I mostly ignore) the many, many times that Windows and Linux users said that their OS was the best and that Mac OS would die out.

 

Most Windows users that switch to Mac OS (for personal or professional reasons), never want to go back.

 

Linux users like that Linux is so fast and free. Well, as a freelancer, the FREE part attracts me a lot. But there just aren't professional viable options. I need a specific set of professional tools to be able to do my work and they simply don't exist in Linux. Running a virtual machine in Linux just to have those apps when I can easily have them running native on Mac OS is not an option.

 

So, Linux is nice. But not for everyone. Specially for professionals in some areas that require specific tools.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

I think Tony said that we would at least consider any platform where we can make our investment back.  So, for Linux - that'll be $100,000 a copy for each of the five users for us to break even.   ;)  :P

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to chime in briefly, as an illustrator/designer/developer, I would personally love to have a great vector program for Linux because:

 

- You don't seem to have many of the limitations and controlled experience as you do with Macs.
- I like using the command line for things like web development task running/workflow.

However, I imagine supporting a Linux version would slow down feature enhancements/updates and it would be less robust.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

And another Kickstarter to write an app store for Linux...?

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

500k seems reasonable. There were about 16k votes on getsatisfaction for adobe to port cs to linux alone before it had to be closed because of the overwhelming response - and Im pretty sure there are some windows users too who want affinity on the os of their choice (although a bad one :P)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

The Ubuntu software centre is pretty poor - you are just presented with an alphabetical list of apps.  There's nothing like what the Mac app store offers in terms of categorising and presenting the apps.  You can't quickly find top rated apps in sub categories, paid or unpaid, etc.  And it all looks very much like a simple database output.  Or separate open source from commercial.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Coding specialized software only for Win and OSX doesn't change anything special on the market. 

In general the majority of the users will not abandon Adobe only because Affinity is cheaper(including me and other my friends).There is a lot of great applications for osx. Why to fight with them, instead of grabbing all the linux market? I talk about Affinity Photo because in vector field we have Inkscape and Xara. It is not a top priority. Linux is a great platform in 3D area and vfx but It would be nice to have a software for editing bitmap images with professional level.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So you need 10k plus buyers of Affinity photo to justify working on a linux version. I am not aware of user statistics and such but I don't think this is an unrealistic target. Linux users who like the OS and what it offers but have to move to WIN for some design apps are hungry for a native design app family. Something dependable, fast and functional.

I have interacted with a few devs online and seen fewer yet in action. I have only a vague idea about the juggling of applications and interfaces. Tho I feel the buyers are out there at the price point that you are willing to sell, more than 10k - maybe, at least 10k - definitely.

 

What wud it require to convince you about the no of users willing to buy Affinity - a pledging paltform, a simple poll or something else ?
Please point out to me if I am being naive about the numbers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to get in my two cents worth and perhaps correct some of the misinformation presented in this thread:

 

- Professionals do use Linux. In fact, a lot of professional tools have been ported to Linux over the past 10 years or so. In order of popularity -- programmer tools (obvious, I guess), engineering tools (electrical/electronic/physics/math/<and so on>), web and graphic design tools, et cetera. 

 

- No need to 'write' a app store replacement...as someone has pointed out. I would respond to the 'ubuntu app store sucks' comment with -- Look at the desktop clients that have been done for Mint Linux (and most other distributions) as they are as feature rich as any 'app store' and the code is free to use (as is the case with most of the Linux desktop improvements).

 

- The kickstarter idea is a great suggestion! Would take a lot of the guess work (mostly incorrect guesses) out of the business case side of things...right?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to chime in here, this program would be an amazing photoshop replacement if it could be brought into Linux for the Visual Effects and Commercial industries. 90% of most vfx pipelines are Linux based, and users requiring photo editing software like texture artists or matte painters either have to use Krita (cumbersome and difficult to transition between for PS users) or use dual boot machines, which cost precious time. Get a couple larger vfx studios involved and your $500k development cost would be easily achieved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally have never met any professional graphic designers who use Linux and I've been in graphic arts since before Linux existed. I have met a few graphic artists (very few) who play around with Linux but I've never met one that actually used programs in Linux to make money. I'm not saying that they don't exist but I doubt that the market is very big (at least for a vector application, a photo app might be another story but I doubt it). Just my thoughts. 

 

Hokusai

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hokusai, it is not strange that you didn't find any of the professional graphic designers who use Linux, because there is no good software for desktop publishing yet. Personally I convinced two people to buy a Mac instead of windows. I know some pople that would like to work on linux but Adobe Photoshop and After Effects is a problem. We are just forced to use Windows. OSX is good but expensive and when you want to build your custom hardware and you need a very powerful specs you are left alone. Poor reality. And for people who say that linux is difficult: If you are clever enough to learn the software, I hope you will learn linux as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.