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Affinity products for Linux


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There are many people in the Linux community who are crying out for software like the affinity suit. Many people have mentioned that they think Linux users only want software that can be acquired for free and someone here referred to it being 'a badge of honour' for Linux users however this is a misunderstanding, a very vocal segment of the community stand by a 'freedom as in speech' philosophy. This is a very small number of people but they are willing to pay for software that is the wrong kind of free.

I know also that there are many Linux users who duel-boot or virtualise Windows (which means that they are buying the license for that as well as paying for software), this is not ideal and when decent software is ported over they are very keen to migrate over to it. The Affinity software is just the kind that a large number of people would love to be able to use on Linux and so long as enough people are made aware of it, many people would would choose it over its competitors if it was available for Linux.

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49 minutes ago, Electrolytique said:

There are many people in the Linux community who are crying out for software like the affinity suit.

I'm sure you're right.  I'm equally sure that there are many companies in addition to Serif who are capable of producing something to answer that cry - but they don't do it.  There may well be a gap in the market, but the concensus among the people in the know seems to be that it's not cost effective to fill it.

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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3 hours ago, Electrolytique said:

There are many people in the Linux community who are crying out for software like the affinity suit. 

That reminds me of a few decades back when people either bought VHS, Betamax or V2000  (I think that was the name) video players. Probably before your time ;)

The problem was, all the Hollywood films were on VHS format, so although VHS was the worst technically, everybody bought VHS machines because the bottom line was, people just wanted to watch films. The other formats just died out because 99.9 recent of people don’t care about the technology running the technology, they just want the technology to work and benefit them when they press the Start button.

Linux appeals to the .01 who prefer playing with technology than using it. Generally speaking, they are very poor customers. Surely the smart move is to buy the machine that plays the content, rather than buying the wrong machine and crying out about bad hardware (or software in this case) buying choices because it doesn’t play the content? 

BTW, I still have a Betamax machine in my loft, if anyone wants one?

 

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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Well, now you've poked the bear. I am so sorry to answer you ~ you definitely don't deserve it, but I will make an effort for everybody here. I will explain to you why do I chose Linux. Linux is not free as you think. You don't pay for it, but the time to learn it is consistent. Well, there is a gain here. The communities are usually friendly and willing to help you. You might start to understand the technology, even though you are not an IT specialist. But, first of all, Linux, not talking of its derivatives, llke Android, won't spy on you, or if it tries, will have somebody to point that out just by looking into its code. I am no paranoid. But other OSes along with searching engines, they try so hard to figure out what commercial to serve you, as they spend lots and lots of resources on your computer. And you pay for that too, meaning your hardware, the energy spent, the OS licensing (without saying OSX or Windows are free, the costs are included in the hardware acquisition, even as OEM). It is almost impossible to tune that lately, as these services become part of the OS cores, so will crash them if removed, if not illegaly (by the licensing). You pay for that as before, also, meaning you won't purchase some OS cheaper with your consent of collection all sort of information, oftenly not knowing what. Once, monitoring the OS because I've thought some malware was active, I've noticed accessing sites at boot time. So, Linux is my way just for that, I will not discuss here how flexible it is, how somebody could tune every software on it, in order to have only the necessary. Then comes the latter upgrading problems of Windows, for example, that requires having it the unique system and the one booting on a machine in order to keep it to date, and I have to wipe the bootloader and reinstall its bootloader just to go further with updating. Or its virtualization issues that send its boot in an infinite loop... etc. etc..
I let you, @toltec, to pay for these and more, as you are also ric$. Good luck.

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13 hours ago, Douglas Lassance said:

Sorry, I could not read all answers in detail but I wanted to point that you may not be aware that there is an industry called VFX, encompassing studios like ILM, Weta, Method, Disney, or Pixar. Those represent thousand of artist boxes all running on Linux with fully licensed software and who had to suffer for a decade with Gimp, Windows VMs or Dual Boots when willing to edit an image. These companies would certainly be delighted to purchase a large amount of Affinity Photo licenses to solve their problem. Just to clarify, organizations like those work with a high level of security and are generally operating on closed networks without direct internet access. For this reason, the browser market share charts I have seen floating around cannot be a good indicator for potential users running on Linux.

Hi Douglas,

I've already plaid the same as you. Just give up for Serif on Linux, their users aren't so open-minded. Thought their youngness of this company, they aren't following the open and positive attitude you can see elsewhere in the industry.

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3 hours ago, IanSG said:

I'm sure you're right.  I'm equally sure that there are many companies in addition to Serif who are capable of producing something to answer that cry - but they don't do it.  There may well be a gap in the market, but the concensus among the people in the know seems to be that it's not cost effective to fill it.

Quite, as so few companies have ported professional software to Linux, the success stories are also few. Add that to the amount of misinformation surrounding who uses Linux, it wouldn't look like it might be cost effective I agree hence why I thought I'd attempt to vocalise a desire for the product which, unfortunately, most people don't bother to do.

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13 minutes ago, NNois said:

youngness of this company

The Affinity suite is young, but Serif has been in existence for three decades.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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10 minutes ago, NNois said:

Hi Douglas,

 their users aren't so open-minded.

I picked up on that too. I find it perplexing that people take offence to requests for Affinity on Linux and get angry when someone else joins as that sort of behaviour isn't favourable to Serif as a company. If not enough people for a Linux port to be beneficial appear interested then surely we're easy to ignore and if enough do that means that it's in there favour to do so and the community scaring people off could be preventing the growth of the project.

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7 minutes ago, Electrolytique said:

Quite, as so few companies have ported professional software to Linux, the success stories are also few. Add that to the amount of misinformation surrounding who uses Linux, it wouldn't look like it might be cost effective 

My point here is that the software suppliers very probably aren't misinformed - they use sophisticated techniques to assess the market potential of a new product. 

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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1 minute ago, IanSG said:

My point here is that the software suppliers very probably aren't misinformed - they use sophisticated techniques to assess the market potential of a new product. 

True and I don't totally disagree  but when the data isn't really out there the results won't be as certain. I won't suggest that it will definitely be profitable for Serif to make a Linux port but Linux users like me expressing a desire to purchase the software to run on Linux still gives them additional data to process.

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2 minutes ago, Electrolytique said:

I find it perplexing that people take offence to requests for Affinity on Linux and get angry when someone else joins as that sort of behaviour isn't favourable to Serif as a company.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm not offended or angry!  I admit to feling a bit frustrated that so many people seem to think that Serif are incapable of understanding their own business, but that's just me getting old and crabby - it's not personal :)

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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7 hours ago, Electrolytique said:

I find it perplexing that people take offence to requests for Affinity on Linux and get angry when someone else joins as that sort of behaviour isn't favourable to Serif as a company.

I haven’t noticed any signs of people feeling offended by the requests, and I think the reaction (impatience rather than anger when others join in) is perfectly understandable, given that Serif staff have stated clearly that they’ve rejected the idea because they’ve determined that the potential market doesn’t justify the substantial investment which would be required.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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10 minutes ago, Electrolytique said:

True and I don't totally disagree  but when the data isn't really out there the results won't be as certain. I won't suggest that it will definitely be profitable for Serif to make a Linux port but Linux users like me expressing a desire to purchase the software to run on Linux still gives them additional data to process.

The company has stated clearly already that is having no intentions in doing a Linux version, several times, and since long ago.

 

Edit: Sorry, Alfred, didn't realize I cross-posted. 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
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1 minute ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

I haven’t noticed any signs of people feeling offended by the requests, and I think the reaction (impatience rather than anger) when others join in) is perfectly understandable, given that Serif staff have stated clearly that they’ve rejected the idea because they’ve determined that the potential market doesn’t justify the substantial investment which would be required.

Which ties nicely into my point if this is the case then our number of requests should remain insignificant and easy to ignore. There is a lack of data to suggest that it would of wouldn't work however a community showing interest is still something that Serif could choose to consider if it did reach high enough numbers.

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2 minutes ago, Electrolytique said:

Which ties nicely into my point if this is the case then our number of requests should remain insignificant and easy to ignore. There is a lack of data to suggest that it would of wouldn't work however a community showing interest is still something that Serif could choose to consider if it did reach high enough numbers.

Serif obviously think they have enough data to reject the idea. Even if it were just about money (which it isn’t) your “community showing interest” would have to comprise upwards of ten thousand users willing to pay US$50 each.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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6 minutes ago, Electrolytique said:

Which ties nicely into my point if this is the case then our number of requests should remain insignificant and easy to ignore.

True. And this forum topic would probably be much shorter if the rest of us who have accepted Serif's statements that they're not going to do a version for Linux would simply start ignoring posts here and not responding to them :)

-- Walt
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24 minutes ago, Electrolytique said:

Which ties nicely into my point if this is the case then our number of requests should remain insignificant and easy to ignore. There is a lack of data to suggest that it would of wouldn't work however a community showing interest is still something that Serif could choose to consider if it did reach high enough numbers.

I think I saw on a Serif video somewhere that Affinity sales across all platforms have reached 1 million. There have been 20 or so Linux users “crying out” for Affinity on Linux.

Still a way to go then ;)

Maybe you should start a forum (please don’t take it as an invitation to post on questions). Maybe when it reaches 100,000 or so Serif will reconsider. Although I doubt they have enough staff/time to develop it.

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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12 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

True. And this forum topic would probably be much shorter if the rest of us who have accepted Serif's statements that they're not going to do a version for Linux would simply start ignoring posts here and not responding to them :)

Would you deny me one of my few remaining pleasures?:61_sob:

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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Ha, they will buy not.  Smith Micro put out an Anime Studio Pro Linux version for 1 maybe 2 releases and dropped it for lack of sales. Xara released a Linux version and it died also. Several companies have tried the Linux market and then killed them off for lack of sales. You now have several groups that are actively trying to develop software for Linux that matches what is available in the commercial market and they are struggling because no one wants to support them. I hear users here say they can get half million dollars for a Linux version but I say they are dreaming. Just look at Synfig Studio the premier 2D animation software being developed for Windows, Mac, and Linux. They barely get $50/mo worldwide in support. 

If just 10 users on this forum would donate a mere $5/mo for its development then they will start nightly Linux builds of Synfig Studio.  Do you think you can get just 10 people on this forum willing to part with what would be about the cost of a cup of coffee.  It won't happen and surely wouldn't be very prosperous for Serif to release a Linux version of their product line. When it comes to putting money down this is when Linux users go into hiding. ;)

Synfig Donations.JPG

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27 minutes ago, msdobrescu said:

Synfig? People here look for Affinity products on Linux, not Synfig, so I would not expect them to pay for Synfig. Synfig it is already under Linux. This is offtopic or at least a false argument.

"This forum" refers to the linked Patreon page, not the Affinity forum.  It's an interesting figure.

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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27 minutes ago, IanSG said:

"This forum" refers to the linked Patreon page, not the Affinity forum.

I didn’t read it that way at all! I understood @InfoCentral to be saying it’s unlikely that even as few as 10 Linux users on this Serif forum would donate a mere $5 per month for development of Linux builds of Synfig Studio, and that therefore the chances are very small that Serif could persuade thousands of Linux users to shell out tens of dollars for an Affinity app.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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