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Affinity for Linux


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everyone is looking at each other and taking what they think is nice. And I would highly doubt that MS and mac decided to make things like virtual desktop or clipboard history or whatever part of their OSes just because something like XEROX or whataver it was called had it 30+ years ago.

they are likely looking at currently available systems and what features users like there.

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Hey all.  Expressing anti-Linux sentiment in a thread talking about the desire for Linux versions is the epitome of internet trolling.  Don't give the trolls the attention they want.  Best way to deal with internet trolls: IGNORE them.  Do not engage.   They're not adding anything valuable to this conversation.  Lets move on, please.

Also, pro tip:  click on your profile name at the top right to open a pulldown menu, then click "ignored users" and enter the username of someone that you don't want to see anymore.  As per attached image:

ignore.jpg

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9 hours ago, Snapseed said:

...go over to WineHQ, join it, and then use your 3 casting votes (yes, you get 3!) to vote up Affinity Photo so that it moves up the ranking list to better attract the attention of Wine developers.

The required link is here - https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=39311

Thanks again @Snapseed.  It's interesting to see it's already at #6 (of 15542 listed applications).

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11 hours ago, justajeffy said:

Hey all.  Expressing anti-Linux sentiment in a thread talking about the desire for Linux versions is the epitome of internet trolling.  Don't give the trolls the attention they want.  Best way to deal with internet trolls: IGNORE them.  Do not engage.   They're not adding anything valuable to this conversation.  Lets move on, please.

Also, pro tip:  click on your profile name at the top right to open a pulldown menu, then click "ignored users" and enter the username of someone that you don't want to see anymore.  As per attached image:

ignore.jpg

Not sure anyone here is against a Linux version, what I think people like myself argue is that it may not be a good business idea for Serif to go down that route at the moment. It is also not just some easy thing to jump into and just start raking in the money. Sure you could go and block anyone who disagrees with you but I would say that is a sad way to live your life, only allowing things in that you agree with already. Are you not open to hearing other view points and either strengthening your own or changing based on something that may actually make sense?

I think the more options for consumers the better, so in this I would say it would be great if Linux users had an option. For a business I am not sure it is worth it at this stage for all the reasons that have been listed by others who you would throw into the "troll" category. Civil discourse can be had and is incredibly healthy. What is not healthy is again blocking out any opposing views.

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5 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Not sure anyone here is against a Linux version, what I think people like myself argue is that it may not be a good business idea for Serif to go down that route at the moment. It is also not just some easy thing to jump into and just start raking in the money. Sure you could go and block anyone who disagrees with you but I would say that is a sad way to live your life, only allowing things in that you agree with already. Are you not open to hearing other view points and either strengthening your own or changing based on something that may actually make sense?

I think the more options for consumers the better, so in this I would say it would be great if Linux users had an option. For a business I am not sure it is worth it at this stage for all the reasons that have been listed by others who you would throw into the "troll" category. Civil discourse can be had and is incredibly healthy. What is not healthy is again blocking out any opposing views.

Their points were refuted again and again, you can have a civil discussion without having to agree on something. If they don't provide anything productive to the conversation and only serve to annoy people for having different opinions, then they can speak in their echo chamber. Bringing up different viewpoints and opinions is all good if it is in good faith. People have previously brought up that they don't want affinity to divert resources to support a different OS when they could instead work faster on updates and features for the current OS lineup. That is a valid reason, it goes against the topic in a way, but it is a valid opinion, and we have in turn reacted with suggesting looking into the compatibility issues with WINE instead of a full blown port. This is how a mature conversation goes, not ad hominem attacks and repeating one's point until the other side is too bored to repeat so you decide you've "won".

Mădălin Vlad
Graphic Designer
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12 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Not sure anyone here is against a Linux version, what I think people like myself argue is that it may not be a good business idea for Serif to go down that route at the moment. It is also not just some easy thing to jump into and just start raking in the money. Sure you could go and block anyone who disagrees with you but I would say that is a sad way to live your life, only allowing things in that you agree with already. Are you not open to hearing other view points and either strengthening your own or changing based on something that may actually make sense?

I think the more options for consumers the better, so in this I would say it would be great if Linux users had an option. For a business I am not sure it is worth it at this stage for all the reasons that have been listed by others who you would throw into the "troll" category. Civil discourse can be had and is incredibly healthy. What is not healthy is again blocking out any opposing views.

If you haven't already, you might consider reviewing from here onward.

No commentary from myself necessary.  People can read and see for themselves, and come to their own conclusions.

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2 hours ago, wonderings said:

Not sure anyone here is against a Linux version, what I think people like myself argue is that it may not be a good business idea for Serif to go down that route at the moment.

I am not against Affinity products for Linux. At the same time I don't think the Linux desktop has anything special to offer which is not offered better by Windows or Mac.  Those two are simply far more standard, and a developer making programs for those two OSs can make certain assumptions that they cannot with Linux. 

Affinity have been clear about this from the start that it is a business decision, not a technical one. Indeed it is, as Affinity specifically refers to needing a 'combination of distro, desktop topology and deployment (paid) platform'. They don't need to state these three requirements when targeting Windows or Mac because they know what to expect.

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2 hours ago, wonderings said:

Not sure anyone here is against a Linux version, what I think people like myself argue is that it may not be a good business idea for Serif to go down that route at the moment. It is also not just some easy thing to jump into and just start raking in the money. Sure you could go and block anyone who disagrees with you but I would say that is a sad way to live your life, only allowing things in that you agree with already. Are you not open to hearing other view points and either strengthening your own or changing based on something that may actually make sense?

I think the more options for consumers the better, so in this I would say it would be great if Linux users had an option. For a business I am not sure it is worth it at this stage for all the reasons that have been listed by others who you would throw into the "troll" category. Civil discourse can be had and is incredibly healthy. What is not healthy is again blocking out any opposing views.

I don't block opposing views.  I block people when they are extremely arrogant or otherwise unpleasant in the way they express their views.  If we can have a civil discourse despite being on opposing sides of an issue, then I will always pay attention.

Honestly though, it does also get extremely tiresome having to refute the same ol' outdated arguments for being against a Linux version.  I also don't appreciate being treated like just some silly home Linux user who's deluding himself about the importance of Linux.

My use-case for commercial Linux software is at a studio full of existing Linux desktops already running lots of other commercial Linux multimedia and graphics applications.  Adding 40-50 licenses of Affinity Photo to those Linux desktops would be fantastic for us.  The Linux users in the VFX industry may represent a small number of global users compared to all the Microsoft Solitaire players on Windows, but we are BIG SPENDERS.  If you don't believe me, just ask any other software developer who caters to our industry.  They'll probably tell you that you'd be crazy to not release a Linux version.

 

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5 hours ago, justajeffy said:

I don't block opposing views.  I block people when they are extremely arrogant or otherwise unpleasant in the way they express their views.  If we can have a civil discourse despite being on opposing sides of an issue, then I will always pay attention.

Honestly though, it does also get extremely tiresome having to refute the same ol' outdated arguments for being against a Linux version.  I also don't appreciate being treated like just some silly home Linux user who's deluding himself about the importance of Linux.

My use-case for commercial Linux software is at a studio full of existing Linux desktops already running lots of other commercial Linux multimedia and graphics applications.  Adding 40-50 licenses of Affinity Photo to those Linux desktops would be fantastic for us.  The Linux users in the VFX industry may represent a small number of global users compared to all the Microsoft Solitaire players on Windows, but we are BIG SPENDERS.  If you don't believe me, just ask any other software developer who caters to our industry.  They'll probably tell you that you'd be crazy to not release a Linux version.

 

What might help there is if your company, similar companies and the relevant industry association groups can join together to approach Serif Europe and point out that there really is a substantial professional market out there and could they please provide native Linux versions of their Affinity softwares or at least make them Wine-compatible, that kind of thing.

In the event that none of the above is possible, there is another alternative. That is for those same industry association groups to get together to fund longer term professional developer posts for existing open source software projects that already have Linux versions such as Inkscape, Krita and Gimp in particular and that would bring those softwares up to professional creative industry standard.  In the case of Gimp, it is an issue for them to both keep and recruit voluntary part time developers which is why the progress isn't as fast as everyone would like.

I know for a fact that Microsoft is now throwing money at the Blender Foundation's Development Fund and that is in turn helping to speed up improvements to Blender. That is an excellent example to follow.

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4 hours ago, wonderings said:

Not sure anyone here is against a Linux version

they don't like Linux for sure, which is ok, but it doesn't need to be said 15 times.

 

4 hours ago, wonderings said:

may not be a good business idea

I'm not happy about it, but the overall market share is low; so that's something I think everyone understands.

(But still, please consider it Affinity team)

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7 minutes ago, aronkvh said:

they don't like Linux for sure, which is ok, but it doesn't need to be said 15 times.

 

I'm not happy about it, but the overall market share is low; so that's something I think everyone understands.

(But still, please consider it Affinity team)

Because they are not developing for Linux does not mean they do not like it, they are a business. I think one of the mods on here is a Linux user as well and has commented in this thread. They are in it to make money, yes there could be money in it but there could also not be money in it to be worth the effort. End of the day it is their capital that people want them to play with. 

 

2 minutes ago, aronkvh said:

I wonder if you(developers) considered crowdfunding the porting costs to see how many people would pay

It has been mentioned many times and seems like something they are not interested in doing. 

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5 minutes ago, wonderings said:

It has been mentioned many times and seems like something they are not interested in doing. 

It's stronger than "seems like" :)

They have stated they are not interested in crowdfunding.

-- Walt
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6 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Because they are not developing for Linux

oh I meant LondonSquirrel(?) who has been obsessing over how bad and useless Linux and it's community is.

I understand that it's a bussiness decision

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2 hours ago, aronkvh said:

LondonSquirrel(?) who has been obsessing over how bad and useless Linux and it's community is

I have been pointing out how small the desktop Linux market is, how it is tricky to build for Linux on the desktop due to lack of any sort of standardisation, and how quite a few people in the Linux 'community' refuse to accept that.

If there was a reasonable and viable desktop market for Affinity's products on Linux I am sure they would make them available. Linux on the desktop users for about 20 years now have consistently overestimated the Linux desktop market share. I seem to recall quite a few moons ago that Corel had a version of Draw available for Linux (perhaps using Wine?), but I don't remember what happened to it. 

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18 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

how it is tricky to build for Linux on the desktop due to lack of any sort of standardisation, and how quite a few people in the Linux 'community' refuse to accept that.

And you've been told many a times that it's not nearly as tricky as you're making it out to be.

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1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

You cannot make any assumptions when building for Linux in comparison to Windows or Mac.

Yeah, you can. When you get right down to the bare basics, the only real differences between all these various distros is when they update their libraries. Appimages, flatpaks, and snaps solve this problem by including all the libraries with it, making this a non-issue.

...as has been stated many a time before in this very thread.

But what about desktop environments? Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, etc. etc. etc.? Doesn't matter. They're all cross compatible with each other. Worst case scenario is that you get an app that doesn't fit in with the style of the rest of your desktop. But hell, Windows users have been facing this problem for years and years now, and it hasn't been a dealbreaker. It's the same on Linux.

But what about package managers, distro specific installers, and all that good stuff? Yeah, back in the day, it was something of a pain when you had an .rpm file, but you were on a Debian based distro, and you had to use something like Alien to convert the installers. It's hardly an issue anymore though. Why? Because you have appimages, flatpaks, and snaps now. Package managers these days are more about how your distro updates itself, and where you get your FOSS software.

It's just not as big of a deal as you think it is anymore. If the Affinity suite were to come to Linux, all Serif would have to do is target a distro to serve as a base to support, and they're done.

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  • Staff

Thread Locked till I decide quite how much to delete and who to ban. It may just stay locked

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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  • Staff

This thread has led to dozens of uses of the "report" button, mainly against 2 or 3 recent participants. The reports are mainly upheld and the posts are not in keeping with the rules of these forums. I am now following a number of the participants in this thread to make sure the arguments in this conversation are FINISHED and do not re-start elsewhere. There is no point, and it makes this place unpleasant. Anyone arguing about Affinity on Linux will be banned from posting, certainly for 1 week but potentially permanently.  

If you do not want to see any future posts from a forum user, on a desktop browser simply hover over their avatar image and a pop-up will appear, with an option "Ignore User". Alternatively go here. (This option is not available for ignoring moderators) I seriously recommend it's use if a user is posting things you do not want to see.

Having wasted too many hours today reading and re-reading the 5 pages of posts made in this thread over the 3 days before it was locked I have come to the conclusion that it would not be possible to delete only some posts and leave others as they are so intertwined and full of pull quotes that I am left with 2 choices

1. Delete all posts made since last Thursday and reopen the thread

2. Leave the thread as it is, argumentative and locked.

Option 1 is the fairest on the other participants in this thread and all to you guys I am sorry to have to do this. However, after 45 pages or posts most of the justification and ideas about how to get Affinity on Linux have been posted and discussed ad-infinitum, so the thread has probably run it's course. Furthermore if it was to be unlocked I have a feeling that the same conversations as have just happened would happen again.

Option 2 means that others will see the discussion that took place and how it (almost inevitably) took a(nother) downward spiral. Many of the points made were valid and I think deserve to be seen, but the lack of implementation (which is still true all these years later) has led to more and more speculation as to the whys and less and less about of users simply wanting to "+1" to show support. Serif understand there is a lot of support for this and the thread does not have to be open to appreciate that.

Neither is ideal but I am choosing option 2. This thread will not be unlocked.

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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