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Affinity products for Linux


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Hi @Noel Schenk,

They did not make any promise, but even if they did, it would cost a lot more than that.

As TonyB said on July 13, 2014:

Quote

It would cost in excess of £1,000,000 to develop and maintain the Affinity range of applications on Linux. As soon as we are confident we could recoup the cost then we would consider it.

That was in 2014 though. Five years later, they've emphasized their disinterest for a Linux version on multiple occasions.

On 6/11/2019 at 8:41 AM, Mark Ingram said:

Now, that was in 2014, and as the products have grown (and new products like iPad and Publisher have arrived), that cost will have risen, unfortunately.

(...) our limited resources are best spent working on other things right now.

 

A lot of Linux users (myself included) have indicated they would pay double the Affinity license fee for native Linux versions, as an incentive for them to port them. Affinity is probably honored, but it's frankly still not worth their while. I don't think we should beg a commercial party to develop for Linux if they don't want to any further. Everyone should be happy about it, and good lock to both parties otherwise. It's better for us (Linux users) to raise bounties on FOSS software for features you are missing and/or donate it to FOSS projects: Donate to GIMP, donate to Kritadonate to InkScape or donate to the Libre Graphics Meeting.

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The issue isn't really the money it's the support burden Serif would incur by transporting the app to yet another UI toolkit. (I know money is all wrapped up in that as well.) If like Babel, which is now Corel's AfterShot, or GIMP Affinity's products had been written with a cross platform UI toolkit from the start then most likely there would be a Linux version as well. But I suspect they are currently supporting two UI / OS versions and the buy in from the top for another one or to port to a cross platform UI toolkit just isn't there.

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Here's a graph of the world wide desktop market share over the last 12 months. Windows is about 50x higher than Linux. It's not that we're ignoring potential customers, it's just that the market isn't there. And a lot of people are talking about the raw cost of porting the software. Unfortunately just shipping a product doesn't stop costs at that point in time. There are on going costs for engineering, support, marketing, etc

Windows: 78.43%

macOS: 13.53%

Linux: 1.6%

image.png

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@Mark Ingram I do believe the farther you distance yourself from Windows, the higher the percentage of creative people is. 

If one in a thousand Windows users is creative, and one in two hundred OSX users is creative, it would mean that your Windows and OSX sales are approximately the same.

One in 20 Linux users would need to be creative to have an equal sales share, and that's not going to happen.

 

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1 hour ago, Mark Ingram said:

Here's a graph of the world wide desktop market share over the last 12 months. Windows is about 50x higher than Linux. It's not that we're ignoring potential customers, it's just that the market isn't there. And a lot of people are talking about the raw cost of porting the software. Unfortunately just shipping a product doesn't stop costs at that point in time. There are on going costs for engineering, support, marketing, etc

Windows: 78.43%

macOS: 13.53%

Linux: 1.6%

image.png

As for total domnination of windows i have no questions, but regarging macos numbers...

macs have weight only in us and some nothern European countries, more rich ones: norway, sweden, uk.

German prefer Linux. Fact.

But market share in the rest of the world is quite irreliavent. Evaluating appointed facts: provided chart looks pretty far-fetched and narrow-minded.

Don't understand stubbornness of Serif. Make kickstarter (like wise people saying), i bet you easily reach needed money bar.

'Nough said - already told my opinion in previous message.

I am out.

 

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1 hour ago, Mark Ingram said:

Here's a graph of the world wide desktop market share over the last 12 months. Windows is about 50x higher than Linux. It's not that we're ignoring potential customers, it's just that the market isn't there. And a lot of people are talking about the raw cost of porting the software. Unfortunately just shipping a product doesn't stop costs at that point in time. There are on going costs for engineering, support, marketing, etc

Windows: 78.43%

macOS: 13.53%

Linux: 1.6%

image.png

What happened in November 2018?

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  • Staff

At a guess it became incapable of recognising a build of Windows reliably. Add the increase in unknown to the Windows figure and it's basically a straight line on a shallow decline. (I have no proof of my theory)

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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I am surprised by the numbers of Chrome OS (maybe has to do with the "ease of use" perception...maybe 'cause is one of the cheapest ways to get sth to browse web and check mail with a 12-13 inches screen, and the dirty cheap thingy comes with it). I would have thought of them going way lower, at more distance from Linux.  (personally, I'd rather be a Linux user than a Chrome OS one. The latter is way, way too limited. At least "out of the box".).

About creatives being less in Windows (I'm not replying to anyone, but I guess I am allowed to say that the matter has "emerged" in this public thread, lol...) , I know way more Windows user artists (like me) , for video game art, than from Linux or Mac (by an extremely large number). I count in this old friends (forums, events, personal network), newer ones, but quite importantly, in the several game companies I worked at (the only linux ones were coders/sys admins, 100% of the cases. And maybe I had "bad luck", but not a single mac user). In g. design, advertising companies, from my experience from '95 till around 2k, it was mostly Mac, but there were a ton of artists, designers in my region working with Corel and PC. And a bunch of 'em (I've worked with everything) with Photoshop/Freehand/Quark (the PCs already were cheaper, in most cases). Then it started to swap, and today, most job offers expect you'll be working with PCs (be it graphic workstations or more regular PCs) , but still there are companies that warn you they will expect from you to be a 'Mac user'. In game dev, general software dev, web design firms, agencies, etc , I've seen them focusing massively in Windows, in my area (and in the capital city's job offers, they typically would show that, too).

I've found more the case of me evangelizing about the possibility of using Linux apps for "some" dtp work, games, web and general graphics. Was a tough fight with some bosses (did it not for any passion for Linux, but as was better option than some toy apps that the bosses wanted to purchase to save bucks, back in the day; PS  costed 800 - 600 bucks depending on the deal. ).

 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
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On 6/28/2019 at 6:53 PM, Michael S Harvey said:

I believe PageStream is still available on Linux although I don't think it has kept up with other professional DTP packages. Scribus may be the best bet in the long term for DTP. Powerful but lack a decent user interface design. Inkscape for Vectors with similar interface issues, GIMP is looking better these days but is RGB only, Krita is excellent compared to Corel Painter for quality purposes and of course LibreOffice is very good for office software if a little slow. 

Open BSD could be a good alternative for Serif to look at as Mac OS is based on a form of BSD. That might make it possible to port to a Unix clone which is used professionally but I'm not sure the customer base would make it worthwhile.

all these years of Linux and I had never heard of PageStream lol nice!

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Hi,

i'm a Mac user for around 30 years now and (with some years of Windows in between, because the Mac hardware was too slow) decided to want to get rid of Apple hardware now, because of the lack of product quality. I like the macOS, but i'm no longer willing to pay for expensive hardware that fails.

Also thought of Hackintosh, but in a production environment this seems not to be a solution.

So i've tested Windows 10. It's OK, but i don't like in app ads. And i don't like the look and feel that much. Especially if you have to go deeper into the system to config things.

I've tested Linux Ubuntu and i liked it, because it's free and for my needs it worked out of the box.

But the problem is that there are no Adobe products and there are no real alternatives to do pro graphics work. By that i mean that i need a flawless workflow to get files printed, imported, exported etc.

So i think if there would be a real pro graphics designer software in the Linux market, there would also be inducement to think about to change from macOS to Linux.

If you're a small company with 10 Macs and all of them run Adobe subscriptions, that is a substancial yearly cost factor. If i could switch to stable hardware and software on Linux, i would do that immediately.

So i think to look at the OS market percentages is the complete wrong way. I there would be an Affinity graphics suite for Linux that works flawless for pro productions needs there would be a lot of demand.

And yes, i understand that there is entrepreneurial risk.

Just my 2 cents…

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On 7/4/2019 at 11:32 AM, msdobrescu said:

Do stats in the field are misleading due to the fact that users are bound to Windows/Mac because of lack of this software on Linux?

How many would migrate, actually?

Probably there are some who would switch, but I really doubt that we're talking about a mass migration here. Apple and Microsoft have the most dominance in these fields because they've successfully attracted companies to develop for their platform and created an image of themselves that they are pro-creatives. I don't know the reasons why Linux hasn't been able to do the same, but the way I see it, it's really up to the platform itself to try and attract companies to develop for Linux, and change its own image.

I fully understand Serif's reluctance towards porting over the Affinity Suite, since Linux just isn't a large platform, and it is in fact a bigger financial risk than sticking to the most popular platforms they currently support. There are plenty of companies, big and small, which are not supporting Linux, and unless the image of Linux changes that makes it look more attractive, this fact will not change. I don't know a good solution to this problem, but I don't think this topic here will really solve it.

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Weren't Apple languishing at about 2% market share not so long ago? :-)

Also this graph probably doesn't show Chromebooks but that would be yet another porting exercise!

** ducks and exits rapidly stage right **

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20 hours ago, OS1 said:

The issue isn't really the money it's the support burden Serif would incur by transporting the app to yet another UI toolkit. (I know money is all wrapped up in that as well.) If like Babel, which is now Corel's AfterShot, or GIMP Affinity's products had been written with a cross platform UI toolkit from the start then most likely there would be a Linux version as well. But I suspect they are currently supporting two UI / OS versions and the buy in from the top for another one or to port to a cross platform UI toolkit just isn't there.

@OS1, I agree and the best that can be hoped for is that Serif would at least look into the practicality of making the rather good Affinity products work well with Wine.

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18 hours ago, Merde said:

What happened in November 2018?

@Merde, the short answer is a complete stuff up by Netmarketshare who noticeably overestimated the Linux market share (I suspect a change in measuring parameters/algorithms). They then compounded the issue by changing things and underestimating the Linux market share.

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11 hours ago, SrPx said:

I am surprised by the numbers of Chrome OS (maybe has to do with the "ease of use" perception...maybe 'cause is one of the cheapest ways to get sth to browse web and check mail with a 12-13 inches screen, and the dirty cheap thingy comes with it). I would have thought of them going way lower, at more distance from Linux.  (personally, I'd rather be a Linux user than a Chrome OS one. The latter is way, way too limited. At least "out of the box".).

About creatives being less in Windows (I'm not replying to anyone, but I guess I am allowed to say that the matter has "emerged" in this public thread, lol...) , I know way more Windows user artists (like me) , for video game art, than from Linux or Mac (by an extremely large number). I count in this old friends (forums, events, personal network), newer ones, but quite importantly, in the several game companies I worked at (the only linux ones were coders/sys admins, 100% of the cases. And maybe I had "bad luck", but not a single mac user). In g. design, advertising companies, from my experience from '95 till around 2k, it was mostly Mac, but there were a ton of artists, designers in my region working with Corel and PC. And a bunch of 'em (I've worked with everything) with Photoshop/Freehand/Quark (the PCs already were cheaper, in most cases). Then it started to swap, and today, most job offers expect you'll be working with PCs (be it graphic workstations or more regular PCs) , but still there are companies that warn you they will expect from you to be a 'Mac user'. In game dev, general software dev, web design firms, agencies, etc , I've seen them focusing massively in Windows, in my area (and in the capital city's job offers, they typically would show that, too).

I've found more the case of me evangelizing about the possibility of using Linux apps for "some" dtp work, games, web and general graphics. Was a tough fight with some bosses (did it not for any passion for Linux, but as was better option than some toy apps that the bosses wanted to purchase to save bucks, back in the day; PS  costed 800 - 600 bucks depending on the deal. ).

 

@SrPx, quite a few Chromebooks can now run Linux apps and for those that can't there's Crouton to help out there. A few of the online image editors are quite good and can be accessed by Chromebooks (Photopea, Pixlr, Sumopaint, etc).

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I have my doubts about performance with big (raster)  print files editing in browser based apps.... (also, I tried many of those,  and in every case I missed several important things... Meaning, (quite) more than what I miss with Affinity). It's happened to me every time I've tested one of those, both in 2D and 3D. Shall the things change with time, I dunno. But I tend to go for what currently works.

EDIT : Been a while since I last tested Photopea ... It is nice. But I just made a test now, a simple A3, and lay some brush strokes there, to see the behavior and performance.... Well, thanks, but no thanks.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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This discussion is much bigger than I expected :D

Linux is becoming a little bit more popular in professional businesses but for consumers it will stay with shitty WIndows and designers stay with fancy shining Mac OS overpriced Mac Pro.

The VFX industry uses Linux Cent OS as a standard and it would be good to have more alternatives to GIMP :7_sweat_smile:

The big question is if the effort is worth it for Serif.

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25 minutes ago, Pipeliner said:

shitty WIndows and designers stay with fancy shining Mac OS

I produce a lot of non-shitty graphic design and non-shitty illustration work with my shitty Windows (Indeed, worked for 4 Kickstarter projects (in two of them I did the majority of the graphic work), all of them successful, btw) . Since decades. Like me, tons of other graphic works specialists. In many fields.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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1 minute ago, SrPx said:

I produce a lot of non-shitty graphic design and non-shitty illustration work with my shitty Windows (Indeed, worked for 4 Kickstarter projects (in two of them I did the majority of the graphic work), all of them successful, btw) . Since decades. Like me, tons of other graphic works specialists. In many fields. 

If an OS has a bad architecture it doesn't mean that its users produce bad stuff. Tbh, I try to avoid Windows because for developments many errors appear that don't make much sense. Mac and Linux are much more stable.

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For video editing there's loads of choice from DaVinci's Resolve down but for DTP and photo editing the options seem to be far more limited. Personally I can get by with Corel's AfterShot for RAW pre-processing and GIMP, but I am not a professional.

This is a catch 22 situation.

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Just now, Pipeliner said:

many errors appear that don't make much sense.

That's true.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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