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Affinity for Linux


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3 hours ago, Renzatic said:

My previous offers still stand, Serif.

I've got $150 right here in my hand. I could spend it on pizza. I could spend it on movies. But I'm not. This is my Affinity Linux fund. If you make them, I'll buy your software a 2nd time, and I probably won't even complain that much.

Serif always has launch offers, so if the regular price is $150 you’ll have plenty left over for a pizza or two. Not so sure about the movies, though, given the price of admission these days.

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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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21 hours ago, Snapseed said:

@Blende21, that's nothing. I have three rows of somewhat older AMD chips arranged in parallel and they serve as the space heater in my living room. They truly belt out heat and Intel's got nothing on them.

(Hint: that was an ungood not-joke)

The original iMac (the candy coloured ones) was referred to as the Apple Space Heater after the version 1.1 came out.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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23 hours ago, Snapseed said:

You're definitely seeing the pattern there.

There will still be plenty of choice of image editors, digital audio workstations, desktop publishers, etc, for Arm Macs so most people won't notice the difference but some areas will definitely suffer not least because of Apple's deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL open standards.

It is likely that there will be fewer AAA games ported over to Arm Macs although Arm Mac users will now have full access to Apple Arcade games.  Similarly, the move to Arm chips is highly likely to limit the availability of 3D compositing software, 3D modelling software,  special effects software and other scientific and technical software that is currently available on the macOS platform.

It also won't be possible to use Boot Camp any more to get access to professional Windows software that way either for obvious reasons. Autodesk have already stopped producing their Alias and VRED software for Macs and that is just the start of things to come. I don't doubt that Tim Cook and others have already done their analyses about the pros and cons of this move and they've obviously decided to go ahead even though there will be significant drawbacks for a minority of customers.

That leaves the Windows and Linux operating systems as the only home for high end professional and technical software and that's where there's some opportunity for Linux market share growth to take place.

There's a huge mass (proportionally, in the reduced numbers that graphic professionals are in the entire population, that is) of creatives of several fields that don't want to/can't use other thing than a mac (while I've seen tons of linux and windows users handling a mac with ease, tho). I've even passed quite well full job interviews  (those with many tests and that) to be fully discarded just because my OS of choice, (said to my face, not something I "suspect") that the one I was more used to, was Windows with Linux a close second, not Mac OS (have handled it quite, though). Of course, the  deep stupidity of the interviewer there (I remember in one of those cases he was actual designer) is remarkable, but that's how far many go with this.  I've yet to find the opposite case, as most of the bosses in interview processes I've been at (assisting or not),  that you wouldn't handle Windows wouldn't be the criteria, but if you knew your way with Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects (which run perfect in both platforms), etc, for the field and profile, and what projects and experience you'd have. Add to it how much of an allergic reaction seem many mac users to have with Windows. I doubt the Mac world is going to change badly in numbers, as I suspect if Apple moved to ARM, they surely have some ace up their sleeve: I don't know what's going on with the ARM new CPU designs, for example, maybe nobody but them knows. And I'd like if it'd all were to be reduced to Windows and Linux systems (I like 'em both...and Mac OS, I just don't like Apple's prices and general line of action) but I don't see that coming. Also, Apple was already not super strong in 3D at least in middle end (game production, etc). In high end they'll surely have the stuff planned, besides since always that area being very custom solutions based. With Intel CPUs security issues lately (less bad in AMD's, but I believe ARMs were the only ones free of the issues) and its race with AMD, not too strange that Apple wants to have more control over that critical part of the hardware. AMD would have been a winning bet (and would have allowed them to cut prices, or be able to do so, specially in higher end machines with many cores...imagine Epyc servers in a Mac Pro, or even just threadrippers), but I think there are a few things that Apple thinks wont play well with Apple's requirements (security, etc). Or who knows, maybe AMD denied an offer...

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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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18 hours ago, Alfred said:

Serif always has launch offers, so if the regular price is $150 you’ll have plenty left over for a pizza or two. Not so sure about the movies, though, given the price of admission these days.

You know, if I'm really honest about it, I'll probably end up using my Affinity Linux money on pizzas and movies at some point. If I want to food 'n flicks up, don't have any other cash on hand, and don't feel like driving out to the ATM, well hey, my Affinity Linux money is right there on my bedroom dresser. 

But I'd restock the funds again later, I swear.

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if you have coins and bills as your affinity fund wouldnt that be kinda useless as you cant just run into a Saturn or whatever and buy a box, although I really wouldnt have anything against it (although the obvious problem would be the extra cost lol)

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1 hour ago, My1 said:

if you have coins and bills as your affinity fund wouldnt that be kinda useless as you cant just run into a Saturn or whatever and buy a box, although I really wouldnt have anything against it (although the obvious problem would be the extra cost lol)

I'm being dumb for the same of being dumb here. Don't take what I'm saying 100% literally. :P

I would buy the Affinity suite for Linux were it to come out. That much I'm serious about. I'd love to have it. But I don't have an Affinity fund stuffed in a shoebox somewhere. Neat as it'd be to buy software with cold, hard cash in hand, like we did back during the cave days, I'll just use my credit card, per the usual. 

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On 8/22/2020 at 2:41 PM, Snapseed said:

It is likely that there will be fewer AAA games ported over to Arm Macs although Arm Mac users will now have full access to Apple Arcade games.  Similarly, the move to Arm chips is highly likely to limit the availability of 3D compositing software, 3D modelling software,  special effects software and other scientific and technical software that is currently available on the macOS platform.

It also won't be possible to use Boot Camp any more to get access to professional Windows software that way either for obvious reasons. Autodesk have already stopped producing their Alias and VRED software for Macs and that is just the start of things to come. I don't doubt that Tim Cook and others have already done their analyses about the pros and cons of this move and they've obviously decided to go ahead even though there will be significant drawbacks for a minority of customers.

That leaves the Windows and Linux operating systems as the only home for high end professional and technical software and that's where there's some opportunity for Linux market share growth to take place.

How many current AAA games are on a Mac as it is? They all seem to be a bit older and nothing current, at least in the high graphics games. If you really are a gamer Macs are not for you.

Did I miss an announcement from Apple where they stated Windows would not longer be installable via Bootcamp? Windows 10 has a version that works with ARM. Unless they did state that it is an assumption that it won't work. I am thinking there will be an option for Windows in bootcamp based on that fact alone.

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2 hours ago, wonderings said:

Did I miss an announcement from Apple where they stated Windows would not longer be installable via Bootcamp

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-mac-arm-windows-support-boot-camp

both sides basically give a big middle finger.

Apple doesnt want alternative boot options apparently and Windows Licenses ARM only to OEMs.

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3 minutes ago, My1 said:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-mac-arm-windows-support-boot-camp

both sides basically give a big middle finger.

Apple doesnt want alternative boot options apparently and Windows Licenses ARM only to OEMs.

Did not see that.

Personally I have no issues with virtualization though and if that continues to work and improve then I think most people will be fine. If you really need dedicated Windows I think the best option is to get a PC. 

Virtualization has improved so much over the years. I am a few versions back on Parallels and it runs incredibly well. Boots up super fast, I love Parallels coherence mode which basically has the look of a PC app running natively on my Mac. I am still using Windows 7 for my virtual machine and it starts up only slightly slower then booting up any of my Adobe apps which boot up quick to begin with. I originally had my virtualization software use the bootcamp partition but the down side of that is it does not get backed up with your time machine backup and you are taking a preset amount of space from your hard drive where in virtualization it is a bit more fluid. 

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On 8/23/2020 at 6:15 AM, Renzatic said:

My previous offers still stand, Serif.

I've got $150 right here in my hand. I could spend it on pizza. I could spend it on movies. But I'm not. This is my Affinity Linux fund. If you make them, I'll buy your software a 2nd time, and I probably won't even complain that much.

To be honest, and given Serif's long-standing policy on this matter, your money's probably better spent on native Linux applications and on Windows software that's already known to work well with Wine.

If you still have any money left over after buying all that lot, then I'd suggest buying pizza, ice cream and beer and enjoying that as well!

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1 hour ago, Snapseed said:

To be honest, and given Serif's long-standing policy on this matter, your money's probably better spent on native Linux applications and on Windows software that's already known to work well with Wine.

If you still have any money left over after buying all that lot, then I'd suggest buying pizza, ice cream and beer and enjoying that as well!

For now, I'm sticking to Windows, only jumping over to Linux Land to dabble. It's just a bit irksome knowing that, of all the software I regularly use, there are only three that I don't have immediate access to in Linux: Photo, Designer, and Publisher. Yeah, I could use Inkscape and GIMP, but I find the former clunky, and the latter somehow manages to piss me off every time I fire it up. It's hard to justify using them when I'm just a platform away from their better alternatives.

Though there is a 3rd option. I could buy an iPad Pro, snatch up the Affinity suite there, pair it with Linux, and get the best of both worlds. It's an idea I've been toying around with for awhile. 

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1 hour ago, Renzatic said:

For now, I'm sticking to Windows, only jumping over to Linux Land to dabble. It's just a bit irksome knowing that, of all the software I regularly use, there are only three that I don't have immediate access to in Linux: Photo, Designer, and Publisher. Yeah, I could use Inkscape and GIMP, but I find the former clunky, and the latter somehow manages to piss me off every time I fire it up. It's hard to justify using them when I'm just a platform away from their better alternatives.

Though there is a 3rd option. I could buy an iPad Pro, snatch up the Affinity suite there, pair it with Linux, and get the best of both worlds. It's an idea I've been toying around with for awhile. 

If it were me, l'd use a combination of Gravit and PhotoLine* with Wine and VivaDesigner for desktop publishing. 

*while the different developers behind the PhotoLine and PhotoScape softwares don't produce a Linux version, they do make the effort to ensure that their products work well with Wine so that Linux users are catered for that way. Indeed, PhotoScape can be found as an Ubuntu snap in the Ubuntu software app store. 

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2 hours ago, Snapseed said:

If it were me, l'd use a combination of Gravit and PhotoLine* with Wine and VivaDesigner for desktop publishing. 

Gravit's...okay. My vectoring skills aren't exactly top of the line, and everything I do in Designer I could easily replicate within it. The problem is, I just like Designer. The same applies to Photoline. I've toyed with it, and it can handle various things with more finesse than even AP is capable of. It's an impressive program. But I like Photo. It's easy to use, and good for what I need it for.

They're such well designed programs that I don't want to use anything else, and I don't hate Windows so much that I'm desperate to leave it for Linux. It's more an issue of preference. Sure, I'd like to have my cake and eat it too, but since I have to choose between one or the other, I'll stick with the platform that hosts all the apps I like to use.

...and maybe bug the developers on occasion until I get my way across the board. I AM A CUSTOMER, BY GOD! Either that, or I'm able to use Photo and Designer reliably through WINE. Whichevs. 

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On 8/22/2020 at 8:41 PM, Snapseed said:

You're definitely seeing the pattern there.

(...) most people won't notice the difference but some areas will definitely suffer not least because of Apple's deprecation of OpenGL and OpenCL open standards.

(...) the move to Arm chips is highly likely to limit the availability of 3D compositing software, 3D modelling software,  special effects software and other scientific and technical software that is currently available on the macOS platform.

Don't forget that Apple has $250 billion sitting on a bank account gathering dust. It wouldn't surprise me if at some point they use some of it to "brute force" Apple's success.

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This was a rather disheartening thread to read. I just moved to linux from Windows. I held on to Windows 7 as long as I could but I'm not going to Windows 10. I found a great linux distro for a newbie and I'm going to just buckle down and learn it. I came here in hopes that my favorite design software would be able to be ported over. I'm truly going to miss Affinity Designer. It is the absolute best design software I've used  but not soooo good that I'm willing to stick to Windows for it.

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Easy to solve: Put a VM on your Linux machine, put a Win10 into it, install & run.

The VM gives much better control over what Win10 does or can’t do, and when you shut it down, it is offline although you can continue working with Linux. Or do it the other way round and run a Linux installation in a VM installed into a Win10-Setup.

When I need Win10 (for very little, but it happens), it runs in a VM on my Mac. You just need some extra punch on your computer, because the VM will already draw some resources for itself.

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20 hours ago, Machba said:

This was a rather disheartening thread to read. I just moved to linux from Windows. I held on to Windows 7 as long as I could but I'm not going to Windows 10. I found a great linux distro for a newbie and I'm going to just buckle down and learn it. I came here in hopes that my favorite design software would be able to be ported over. I'm truly going to miss Affinity Designer. It is the absolute best design software I've used  but not soooo good that I'm willing to stick to Windows for it.

Why would you not want to go to Windows 10? It is a great OS and a big improvement over Windows 7.

Is it all just a security thing with Linux? I personally do not get putting the OS before the software tools needed to do the job. I prefer Mac OS over Windows but could use my Adobe software easily in either and be happy with it. I look to the software to get the job done, OS is just the foundation it all sits on. Running apps across platforms are generally pretty similar if not identical in terms of the GUI. 

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2 hours ago, wonderings said:

I personally do not get putting the OS before the software tools needed to do the job.

I hear this statement from time to time over the last 6 years. It usually shows what type of work you do and how you use your computer.

People care less about their OS and more about one specific tool when they use this tool exclusively, fulltime for the entire week or month. For example when they are an employee with one task in a big company.

People care more about their OS and less about one specific tool when they multitask in multidisciplinary fashion, for example when they are indie game developers, work for a small studio, are self-employed or use the software as a hobby.

The reason has been discussed multiple times, and I'm surprised that people still "don't get" it: The multidisciplinary developer already has 11 tools and 4 toolchains running on their favorite OS; in this thread that's Linux. Booting to a different OS means not having those 15 assurances. Suddenly you're handicapped. It's not worth it, unless you're going to do one single task for the entire day. And even then it's annoying, because you don't have your favorite music playlist, screen calibration software, video conferencing software, storage configuration and all that other secondary stuff running. Splitting call history, conversations and configurations between two operating systems is just plain annoying. Adjusting every configuration twice is annoying. It's not worth it.

Many of us - me included - have the Affinity license, did use it on a foreign OS for some time, but have given up on using Affinity products because it's not worth switching OS in order to use it.

So we ask: Can we have a Linux version? We'll even pay again. Because paying for a good tool that works in your favorite OS is worth it.

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On 8/11/2020 at 10:43 AM, Mark Ingram said:

In July 2020, only 0.86% (and declining) of Steam gamers were on Linux.

Marketshare is a fickle thing to measure because of a variety of factors. For example, gaming is a bad metric to use because Gaming on Linux has only existed since 2013 and it essentially started from scratch with Valve bringing Steam to Linux. You are judging the entire platform based on a single type of user that only had the possibility to exist for 7 years and who has had fight the entire time to convince game developers to pay attention to the platform. This also ignores the size of Steam as a userbase because that is millions so even with that starting point 0.86% of millions is not a small number when looking at context. Plus, Valve sees value in Linux so much that they created a compatibility layer called Proton to make Windows games work in Linux without developers doing anything to make it work. They increased the number of playable games to over 11,000 games with this effort and Proton has only existed for 2 years. If Linux is so insignificant, why are they putting in this effort? It's not about what the market currently is but where it will be because Linux has the potential to dominate this just like it has on everything else.

The discussions we have as Linux users often is an uphill battle. We have to do the convincing for it being worth it but how can we prove it if companies aren't willing to even try? It's a catch-22 issue. We have to have a marketshare that convinces companies to support it but we have to convince companies to support it to get that marketshare.

The interesting thing is that if you look everywhere other than the desktop, Linux marketshare is dominant by wide margins. 70%-90% (depending on source) of the internet is powered by Linux. 100% of the Top 500 Supercomputers in the world are powered by Linux. EE Times says that Linux is 38.42% of Embedded devices compared to Windows' 10.73%. Google's Android is powered by Linux and it has 70.80% of the smartphone market. Linux is even the system of choice for a lot of high-end production companies in the movie industry due to the superior performance for rendering and such. The list just goes on.

I'm not going to pretend that Linux has not had missteps in the past and it has taken awhile to become a viable platform for developers to justify supporting it but I think that time is finally here.

  

On 8/16/2014 at 2:29 PM, TonyB said:

We would only make a Linux version if we were confident we would recoup the $500,000 it would cost us to build it.

Linux has a fairly large marketshare when taken in context for having to claw its way to relevance. Linux doesn't have a trillion dollar company behind it creating marketing campaigns for decades. This is something that holds the platform back but even without that it has still gained a large market in the millions.

The Linux community has effectively given up on Adobe so all of that Adobe frustration can be transformed into value by someone who takes the opportunity to embrace the platform. There are also thousands of people who have expressed over the years that if they had a good alternative to Photoshop or Illustrator that they would switch to Linux because they hate Windows and don't want to deal with Apple. There is a market here.

There is also a passionate hunger to support companies that treat Linux with relevance. As you can see, over the past 6 years that the Linux community is very passionate but what you have not seen is that when companies embrace the platform we in return embrace them. Its not only that we would pay for the software if it supported Linux, most of us would be willing to pay more as a thank you for just letting us use the OS we want to use.

This passion has been proven on crowdfunding platforms many times. I know you don't want to use a crowdfunding model but the excitement and passion from the Linux community to support companies that support us has been shown multiple times. I'd be happy to give examples if interested.

One very relevant example of Linux passion is Photopea. Photopea is an alternative to Photoshop that works as a webapp, it's not remotely as powerful as Photoshop but it allows people to use Linux rather than dealing with Windows so the excitement around Photopea on Reddit was insane. In fact, I personally switched to Photopea as my daily driver tool because it allowed me to stop running Windows in a VM for Photoshop. I pay for the premium account on Photopea and it is a subscription. Affinity Photo is easily superior to Photopea just as Photoshop is but because Photopea lets me just use the OS I want to, I accept the limitations. I would switch to Affinity Photo (and all the Affinity software) of course but not just that, I'd also promote it like crazy.

  

On 9/29/2014 at 2:17 PM, Andy Somerfield said:

I won't rule out making a Linux version of Affinity, but I need someone to show me a combination of distro, desktop topology and deployment (paid) platform where we would recoup our development costs. If someone can show me that, I'll be willing to talk some more about it all..

This is a valid point, especially in 2014 when it was made. Linux is by far the most secure, reliable, efficient and best performant OS available . . . I mean its not even fair to compare it to Windows in those metrics and even though macOS is essentially a cousin to Linux, Linux still outperforms it most of the time. With all that said, supporting Linux as a developer used to be a nightmare. I get it and up until now I would have completely agreed that supporting Linux and all of the distros is way too much work to justify the return.

However, that is no longer the case thanks to the Universal Formats that exist now such as Snaps & Flatpaks. These formats allow you to create a single build of your application and let people use it in most distros without having to specify anything distro related. So the first part of the quote where it says "combination of distro . . . " you can remove that piece all together because now there are formats you can use to make that variable irrelevant.

As for the desktop topology, I don't really know what that means so I can't answer that piece. I did look it up but I am a designer not a developer so this piece is a bit over my head.

Deployment platform is also solved by Snaps & Flatpaks because they both support proprietary software in their stores. They don't have a payment mechanism necessarily but it looks like you don't have that for Windows either as it seems you just purchase licenses through your website so simply apply that same method to the Linux version and that's solved.

-------------

I apologize for the novel sized reply but I think the potential for Affinity software on Linux is fantastic for both parties (now, thanks to Snaps & Flatpaks). I'll leave you with one last thing to consider.

On Windows and macOS, Affinity is promoted as a "Photoshop Alternative" by the vast majority of users. They promote your competitor to describe your product. In contrast, Linux doesn't have Photoshop so it becomes the go to professional tool for Photo/Design/Publishing software. This means that not only do you become the big fish in our relatively small pond, you also become a marketing tool for the platform.

When Linux users attempt to convince people to use it and run into "does it have Photoshop" then this is a big break point because the best we could do for decades was "we have GIMP" ::shudders:: but if we had Affinity software then the discussion changes from not only convincing people to use Linux but we become salespeople for Affinity. You get a market that is incredibly hungry for a product like yours and you also get a market that actively promotes your product as a definitive option in convincing people to use that platform.

The potential ROI for Affinity is high, the marketshare numbers don't paint a true picture of what the platform offers and I hope I did a better job of painting that picture.

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13 hours ago, Michael Tunnell said:

Marketshare is a fickle thing to measure because of a variety of factors. For example, gaming is a bad metric to use because Gaming on Linux has only existed since 2013 and it essentially started from scratch with Valve bringing Steam to Linux. You are judging the entire platform based on a single type of user that only had the possibility to exist for 7 years and who has had fight the entire time to convince game developers to pay attention to the platform. This also ignores the size of Steam as a userbase because that is millions so even with that starting point 0.86% of millions is not a small number when looking at context. Plus, Valve sees value in Linux so much that they created a compatibility layer called Proton to make Windows games work in Linux without developers doing anything to make it work. They increased the number of playable games to over 11,000 games with this effort and Proton has only existed for 2 years. If Linux is so insignificant, why are they putting in this effort? It's not about what the market currently is but where it will be because Linux has the potential to dominate this just like it has on everything else.

The discussions we have as Linux users often is an uphill battle. We have to do the convincing for it being worth it but how can we prove it if companies aren't willing to even try? It's a catch-22 issue. We have to have a marketshare that convinces companies to support it but we have to convince companies to support it to get that marketshare.

The interesting thing is that if you look everywhere other than the desktop, Linux marketshare is dominant by wide margins. 70%-90% (depending on source) of the internet is powered by Linux. 100% of the Top 500 Supercomputers in the world are powered by Linux. EE Times says that Linux is 38.42% of Embedded devices compared to Windows' 10.73%. Google's Android is powered by Linux and it has 70.80% of the smartphone market. Linux is even the system of choice for a lot of high-end production companies in the movie industry due to the superior performance for rendering and such. The list just goes on.

I'm not going to pretend that Linux has not had missteps in the past and it has taken awhile to become a viable platform for developers to justify supporting it but I think that time is finally here.

  

Linux has a fairly large marketshare when taken in context for having to claw its way to relevance. Linux doesn't have a trillion dollar company behind it creating marketing campaigns for decades. This is something that holds the platform back but even without that it has still gained a large market in the millions.

The Linux community has effectively given up on Adobe so all of that Adobe frustration can be transformed into value by someone who takes the opportunity to embrace the platform. There are also thousands of people who have expressed over the years that if they had a good alternative to Photoshop or Illustrator that they would switch to Linux because they hate Windows and don't want to deal with Apple. There is a market here.

There is also a passionate hunger to support companies that treat Linux with relevance. As you can see, over the past 6 years that the Linux community is very passionate but what you have not seen is that when companies embrace the platform we in return embrace them. Its not only that we would pay for the software if it supported Linux, most of us would be willing to pay more as a thank you for just letting us use the OS we want to use.

This passion has been proven on crowdfunding platforms many times. I know you don't want to use a crowdfunding model but the excitement and passion from the Linux community to support companies that support us has been shown multiple times. I'd be happy to give examples if interested.

One very relevant example of Linux passion is Photopea. Photopea is an alternative to Photoshop that works as a webapp, it's not remotely as powerful as Photoshop but it allows people to use Linux rather than dealing with Windows so the excitement around Photopea on Reddit was insane. In fact, I personally switched to Photopea as my daily driver tool because it allowed me to stop running Windows in a VM for Photoshop. I pay for the premium account on Photopea and it is a subscription. Affinity Photo is easily superior to Photopea just as Photoshop is but because Photopea lets me just use the OS I want to, I accept the limitations. I would switch to Affinity Photo (and all the Affinity software) of course but not just that, I'd also promote it like crazy.

  

This is a valid point, especially in 2014 when it was made. Linux is by far the most secure, reliable, efficient and best performant OS available . . . I mean its not even fair to compare it to Windows in those metrics and even though macOS is essentially a cousin to Linux, Linux still outperforms it most of the time. With all that said, supporting Linux as a developer used to be a nightmare. I get it and up until now I would have completely agreed that supporting Linux and all of the distros is way too much work to justify the return.

However, that is no longer the case thanks to the Universal Formats that exist now such as Snaps & Flatpaks. These formats allow you to create a single build of your application and let people use it in most distros without having to specify anything distro related. So the first part of the quote where it says "combination of distro . . . " you can remove that piece all together because now there are formats you can use to make that variable irrelevant.

As for the desktop topology, I don't really know what that means so I can't answer that piece. I did look it up but I am a designer not a developer so this piece is a bit over my head.

Deployment platform is also solved by Snaps & Flatpaks because they both support proprietary software in their stores. They don't have a payment mechanism necessarily but it looks like you don't have that for Windows either as it seems you just purchase licenses through your website so simply apply that same method to the Linux version and that's solved.

-------------

I apologize for the novel sized reply but I think the potential for Affinity software on Linux is fantastic for both parties (now, thanks to Snaps & Flatpaks). I'll leave you with one last thing to consider.

On Windows and macOS, Affinity is promoted as a "Photoshop Alternative" by the vast majority of users. They promote your competitor to describe your product. In contrast, Linux doesn't have Photoshop so it becomes the go to professional tool for Photo/Design/Publishing software. This means that not only do you become the big fish in our relatively small pond, you also become a marketing tool for the platform.

When Linux users attempt to convince people to use it and run into "does it have Photoshop" then this is a big break point because the best we could do for decades was "we have GIMP" ::shudders:: but if we had Affinity software then the discussion changes from not only convincing people to use Linux but we become salespeople for Affinity. You get a market that is incredibly hungry for a product like yours and you also get a market that actively promotes your product as a definitive option in convincing people to use that platform.

The potential ROI for Affinity is high, the marketshare numbers don't paint a true picture of what the platform offers and I hope I did a better job of painting that picture.

Marketshare can be a good tool to see in which direction people are headed. So for Steam if the number of users is going down that is not a good sign. It may not be doom and gloom but it has a direction that is not going the way you want it. Any business after 7 years should be seeing growth. There can be dips of course and maybe that is all there is to it with Linux gaming, but this is not a business for the end user but a platform for gaming and if they are either moving away because of a smaller catalogue or not enjoying the experience on Linux, then it is a bad sign. 

I am curious about the Snaps and Flatpaks you mentioned as I look at the various distros as a negative from a support and development stand point. Sounds like a great idea to have a universal format that works across them all. The question I would have though comes to support. Sure the Affinity suite is going to work on all distros now (assuming it was developed using these universal formats), but will different issues arise based on the users distro of choice? Is Serif going to have to still support a variety of distros logging and dealing with issues that could arise?

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Linux IMHO has come a long way. My impression is it has a very strong grip on the Server market (including most NAS systems), and it is nearly everywhere when embedded systems are delivered, as IoT-devices. This is where the Linux market is found, and probably where development hours (and money) goes.

On the desktop it is a remote third OS. Yes, it has it’s fans, but they only make up in volume what they lack in numbers. Both Win10 and MacOS are strong desktop operation systems, and do not leave much room in between them for alternatives. I do not think it would be wise for Serif to add yet another OS platform to its product range, while there is still a lot to be fixed and developed in the game of software they already sell.

Sorry, penguin lovers, but I do not think this business case will ever fly.

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