Affinity products for Linux

[LondonSquirrel]

1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

Why don't you want Linux to be used?

I am not bothered if there is a Linux version or not. The technical problems can be overcome.

The problem in a nutshell is this: Linux users completely oversell the desktop market share that Linux has. It's about 1% overall. It's not worth devoting time to making commercial Linux apps. It distracts from the bigger markets of Windows and macOS. But Linux people like to shout. The market share of Linux today in 2021 is not much different to its market share 20 years ago. The touted 'year of the Linux desktop' has been around for two decades. 

Linux has its place. But making commercial desktop apps for Linux has been in nearly all cases a distraction and a failure for those involved.

[Pufty]

11 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I am not bothered if there is a Linux version or not. The technical problems can be overcome.

The problem in a nutshell is this: Linux users completely oversell the desktop market share that Linux has. It's about 1% overall. It's not worth devoting time to making commercial Linux apps. It distracts from the bigger markets of Windows and macOS. But Linux people like to shout. The market share of Linux today in 2021 is not much different to its market share 20 years ago. The touted 'year of the Linux desktop' has been around for two decades. 

Linux has its place. But making commercial desktop apps for Linux has been in nearly all cases a distraction and a failure for those involved.

Too bad that more keep switching then, I guess. Have you tried Linux, because I'm pleasantly surprised that it's easy. IDK anything about 2 decades of linux desktop, but recently tried it and it's a pretty honest sell.

[MattyWS]

16 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I am not bothered if there is a Linux version or not. The technical problems can be overcome.

The problem in a nutshell is this: Linux users completely oversell the desktop market share that Linux has. It's about 1% overall. It's not worth devoting time to making commercial Linux apps. It distracts from the bigger markets of Windows and macOS. But Linux people like to shout. The market share of Linux today in 2021 is not much different to its market share 20 years ago. The touted 'year of the Linux desktop' has been around for two decades. 

Linux has its place. But making commercial desktop apps for Linux has been in nearly all cases a distraction and a failure for those involved.

not developing for linux because of a small market share is shortsighted IMO and I've said exactly why that is a few times here A market only exists after developers make a market usable... That's serif in this case. I don't know about the last 25 years of linux but I do know about the last 5 or so years and Linux is just as capable as windows and mac, just as simple to use (I find macOS more difficult to use than something like POP, Mint or ZorinOS).  Anyway if you really want to argue numbers then Serif should only develop for windows. MacOS holds a tiny share as well. Thats bad because no one wants to see a monopoly or duopoly. People are only using windows and mac because of software support. I don't want to be forced to use either of those. No one wants to be forced to use an OS.

Where are you getting stats that developing for linux results in failure? Lots of creative software exists on Linux alongside Windows and Mac without a problem. Substance, Unity, Unreal, Houdini, Blender all work great and is a handful of the software that are cross platform, I fail to see why Serif would fail in this area alongside them. 

Anyway, I see your points, but I disagree with you on a base level. Your reasoning is flawed IMO.
 

[nBlaze]

11 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

not developing for linux because of a small market share is shortsighted IMO and I've said exactly why that is a few times here A market only exists after developers make a market usable...
 

You're very emotional about it, but yeah, that does ring true. If the app support was there, I'd probably use Windows Mobile much longer than I did. I still prefer it over Android or iOS, but low market share and lack of developer support killed it.

But it's kinda chicken or egg situation - even before it lost majority of app support its market share was quite low.

As for the Mac vs Windows... it's a different ballpark.
Windows is the default desktop system with a majority of market share, BUT that includes not only creatives, but also everyone from accountants and gamers to soccer moms just harvesting virtual tomatoes on Facebook.
And you can't throw a MacBook without hitting a creative of some sort. Total market share is much lower than Windows, sure, but what share there is is basically your target audience.

As for Linux sure, this thread is a proof there are creatives who want to use it. But we're still like 1% of 1%.

[MattyWS]

I wouldn't say I'm emotional about it, but I'm certainly passionate about not having to use Windows.  I've dedicated a lot of my time to ensuring my own privacy, security and reasonable anonymity going forward in a way that doesn't inconvenience me, this was a choice I've made because I believe those three things should be the default and Microsoft doesn't. Apple is far better with this than MS but I chose Linux because I get on with it more than MacOS (though I have every other apple product, iphone, ipad, watch, tv etc). In the end it comes down to the fact that people should be able to choose the OS which is best for them and not be forced to use an OS they don't want to. Linux by default is secure and private.

The only reason I've not been inconvenienced by a lack of photoshop alternatives yet is because as a 3D artist I'll typically go to Substance Designer before I go to Phototoshop for texture packing, and I'll go to Substance Painter before photoshop for hand painted textures (both of which are on linux) and for most other things I can get away with using Krita for any hand painted 2D stuff. The inconvenience will come later when I need to use something like photoshop for touchups because I don't get on with Gimp (I've really tried).

When it comes down to it, Affinity photo and designer is a 'nice to have' for me more than a necessity but I'd still 1000% pay for it if it came to linux as I'm sure a lot of people would, since there just is no real competition for that kind of thing on Linux for professionals. There should be though.

[LondonSquirrel]

3 hours ago, MattyWS said:

not developing for linux because of a small market share is shortsighted IMO

That's what some people said 20 years ago. Wordperfect, then a serious product, tried and failed. Corel tried and failed. Borland's Delphi as Kylix, tried and failed. Xara tried and failed. And so on...

Then comes the support aspect. It can be seen in the forums that supporting Affinity apps involves to some extent knowledge about Windows and macOS and iOS. It is easy to imagine posts in the forums: I am trying to use AD on Ubuntu Shining Shark. Which kernel version are you using? Which drivers are you using? 

The market for commercial Linux software on the desktop is not worth thruppence. It is just too small to be bothered with.

 

[LondonSquirrel]

3 hours ago, nBlaze said:

1% of 1%

That is the truth.

Something that so many Linux enthusiasts just don't understand is that most people just want to do their work. They are not remotely interested in your new shiny icons for XFCE, or your new Ubuntu font (seriously...). macOS has a desktop which is barely customisable. That has not stopped it from being viable.

I've seen it all. Linux people promoting the use of BTRFS long long long before it was ready for prime time. The fact that you could lose your files did not matter to these people. You had to be seen to be supporting BTRFS because it was a Linux thing.

[MattyWS]

15 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

That's what some people said 20 years ago. Wordperfect, then a serious product, tried and failed. Corel tried and failed. Borland's Delphi as Kylix, tried and failed. Xara tried and failed. And so on...

Yet there are similar products that didn't fail, so what makes the softwares you mentioned failures the fault of Linux and not their own? 

 

17 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

 It is just too small to be bothered with.

I'll see if I can get this out of the way because I've repeated this a lot now;

developers don't make software because users don't use the platform because developers don't make software because users don't use the platform because developers don't make software because users don't use the platform because developers don't make software because users don't use the platform because developers don't make software because users don't use the platform because developers don't make software because users don't use the platform because developers don't make software because users don't use the platform because developers don't make software because....

Here's my take; It's not too small to be bothered with, it's too small because no one bothered with it. Saying not many people use it is (again IMO) not a valid point for the reasons I've just mentioned here.

[LondonSquirrel]

2 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

Yet there are similar products that didn't fail

Name a few...

[Renzatic]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Name a few...

Substance Painter and Designer, Quixel Mixer and Bridge, all the games on Steam and GOG with a Linux rev. Steam itself, which is now banking on Linux. It goes on and on...

[LondonSquirrel]

24 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

Substance Painter and Designer, Quixel Mixer and Bridge, all the games on Steam and GOG with a Linux rev. Steam itself, which is now banking on Linux. It goes on and on...

Substance Painter - on Steam.

Substance Designer - on Steam.

I don't know about Quixel Mixer and Bridge, I've never used them. I have no idea if they are successful on Linux. But looking on their web site, these appear to be free.

Steam for Linux also relies on Wine. So it's not a 100% native Linux app - it depends on Windows APIs.

[LondonSquirrel]

To expand my "name a few", can you name any Linux-only apps which are successful (in comparison to the thousands of Windows and macOS apps)?

[Renzatic]

38 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Steam for Linux also relies on Wine. So it's not a 100% native Linux app - it depends on Windows APIs.

No, Steam for Linux is a native app, and hosts native applications. You can use Proton to install Windows apps through it.

Plus, Substance Painter and Designer are also available standalone.

[Squirrel Logic]

53 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

can you name any Linux-only apps which are successful

That's not the point of this thread. People are not trying to make Affinity products Linux-only.

[LondonSquirrel]

25 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

No, Steam for Linux is a native app, and hosts native applications. You can use Proton to install Windows apps through it.

Plus, Substance Painter and Designer are also available standalone.

From Wikipedia: 'In August 2018, Valve released a beta version of Proton, an open-source Windows compatibility layer for Linux, so that Linux users could run Windows games directly through Steam for Linux, removing the need to install the Windows version of Steam in Wine. Proton is composed of a set of open-source tools including Wine and DXVK among others.'

I said that Steam for Linux depends on Wine. It is. The fact that it is bundled up nicely so you don't need to install Wine separately is neither here nor there.

[LondonSquirrel]

5 minutes ago, Squirrel Logic said:

That's not the point of this thread. People are not trying to make Affinity products Linux-only.

True.

Hopefully Affinity will look at Linux in the cold light of day and say to themselves: It's 1% of the desktop. And of that 1% how many will actually buy our software? Is this worth doing? 

Based on the past experience of nearly everyone who has dabbled in commercial desktop software, the answer is "no".

[MattyWS]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Substance Painter - on Steam.

Substance Designer - on Steam.

I don't know about Quixel Mixer and Bridge, I've never used them. I have no idea if they are successful on Linux. But looking on their web site, these appear to be free.

Steam for Linux also relies on Wine. So it's not a 100% native Linux app - it depends on Windows APIs.

well you're wrong about that you can just get the native linux versions of the applications from the substance website if you have a license like I do.

[LondonSquirrel]

16 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

well you're wrong about that you can just get the native linux versions of the applications from the substance website if you have a license like I do.

Actually I am wrong. And I refer you back to an earlier comment I made about certain Linux commercial apps ONLY running on certain Linux distributions. You took issue with that. Substance Designer:

 

[MattyWS]

9 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Actually I am wrong. And I refer you back to an earlier comment I made about certain Linux commercial apps ONLY running on certain Linux distributions. You took issue with that. Substance Designer:

 

I did, that's because you can just convert the file to run on debian based OS's, which is what I did. So it was a non issue for me. But wait, you say, people don't want to faf around doing that(!) Well, it's a good thing there are universal packages that run on all distros. 

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-convert-between-linux-packages-using-alien/

Ultimately, developers seem to do just fine making applications for linux. How do Applications like Blender work on every distro if it's so super difficult as you say? Why would Serif be any less competent at this?

[Squirrel Logic]

2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It's 1% of the desktop. And of that 1% how many will actually buy our software? Is this worth doing?

1% of the total desktop users does not equate to 1% of Serif's target demographic. Serif makes design software, not a universal application like a web browser, so you should be taking into account only Serif's potential customers in this argument, and not the entirety of computer users. The number of creative professionals that use (or want to use) Linux is higher than the total population.

The thing is, we don't know exactly what Serif's target demo is. If Serif is only interested in taking current Adobe users (who are ipso facto only Windows and Mac users), then yes, making a Linux version makes no sense. But I would assume that Serif is interested in more than Adobe's current customers that need design software: students, UI designers, front-end developers, film editors, 3D animators, software developers, and marginalized creatives.

I don't know what their target demo is, but I what Serif to know that there are designers who work in software development that want Affinity applications available in Linux, even moreso in web design. I know people who work in animation who would give anything to use something besides The GIMP at work because their 3D pipeline is Linux (Pixar, WDAS).

As someone who has a graphic design degree, who is currently working on 3D assets, does web design and front-end development as part of their job, I'm in Linux for 70% of my day. I spend $323 USD annually on software that I run in Linux (no VM, no WINE). It fluctuates every year, but this year I donated €40 to open-source software that I use in Linux and Windows. Not technically commercial software, but it's software I use commercially, and I gave them my money. That sounds like a business to me. It shows that if it was not open source, I would have paid at least that much money for the software. So abso-freaking-lutely, successful commercial Linux software exists.

Again, I get it. Serif might not care about large film or animation studios. They may not care about software developers. But I think it is the right of customers, and potential customers, to let Serif know that there's a need for it. So instead of pretending to know what Serif's demo is, accept that there is demand for it. The argument that an electric car shouldn't be made because not enough electric cars have been made doesn't make sense to me.

[Pufty]

Some guy said about naming a few programs on Linux and I could add that Blender works as expected. Davinci Resolve works with one caveat being video codecs. Those are the ones I NEEDED to make my switch and they work. All that's left is Affinity and I've got a flexible creative space.

Basic things like VS Code, all the office programs and anything else I need had replacements that worked fine too. Is it common to think that many programs won't run on Linux?

[LondonSquirrel]

4 hours ago, Pufty said:

naming a few programs on Linux

Naming a few commercial programs - ones that people pay for, showing that Linux desktop users are prepared in reasonable numbers to put their hands in their pockets and buy software licences. 

VS Code is free. DaVinci Resolve in the basic (but very capable) version is free.

You see here is the rub: if Linux desktop users are not prepared, in large numbers relative to their puny desktop market share, to actually buy software licences there is no point in Affinity making versions available for Linux.

[Pufty]

10 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Naming a few commercial programs - ones that people pay for, showing that Linux desktop users are prepared in reasonable numbers to put their hands in their pockets and buy software licences. 

VS Code is free. DaVinci Resolve in the basic (but very capable) version is free.

You see here is the rub: if Linux desktop users are not prepared, in large numbers relative to their puny desktop market share, to actually buy software licences there is no point in Affinity making versions available for Linux.

So why commercial paid? A lot of commercial products can be overpriced and both mentioned programs are really capable free programs. Blender is free, but I'm part of their development fund and Davinci Resolve is a future purchase. I like to pay for capable software, but it almost sounds like you'd like just about any level of software to be paid for. Reminds me of how apple released a very cheap monitor stand for your important monitor standing purposes.

 

Also, isn't wanting the software to be bought on Linux the whole point of this topic? I can still not pay and virtually/remotely use the software I already own for windows through Linux, but I like to own a snappy and respectable program. Still if nothing comes of it, I can go back to adobe and try that monthly overpay mess again.

[thedrumdoctor]

19 hours ago, MattyWS said:

I chose Linux because I get on with it more than MacOS (though I have every other apple product, iphone, ipad, watch, tv etc).

How do you cope with integrating iOS devices with Linux, or did you give up trying that one (like me)?

[LondonSquirrel]

25 minutes ago, Pufty said:

So why commercial paid?

You do realise the purpose of this thread is that Affinity makes versions of their apps for Linux? That means paying for licences. It would not be free.

27 minutes ago, Pufty said:

Also, isn't wanting the software to be bought on Linux the whole point of this topic?

Oh, you do realise.