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Affinity for Linux


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Just pre-ordered the affinity publisher. (I'm using scribus atm.)

I am a proud owner of all your products. Right now I use a VM with VFIO (I share GPU, mouse, keyboard, wacom tablet to a windows vm) to use those products.
It's far from ideal, but I am willing to support Serif, because you are actually building amazing products that are very nice to use !

This post is simply to share my support on something happening someday on the linux support front. Whatever it is.

Hope all the posts and repeated questions don't get too much on your nerves. I'm a Software Engineer also, and I know how "Support" can be a hard thing to do properly.
Concerning your choice of technologies, some are questionable, but I'm sure your CTO knows what he is doing. You are invested in .NET, try having a look at .NET core 3 it also supports WPF and other things that can be installed on all platforms and architectures.
https://github.com/dotnet/wpf
https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/3.0/preview/3.0.0-preview5.md

@Redsandro Thanks for the recap post, it saved me a lot of reading.

Additional note, I'm a happy user of Davinci Resolve on Linux, and because of their entreprise support on Linux, I'm now moving my equipment and capture cards to theirs instead.
My company is by no means large enough to sponsor such a development on your side. But happy to help if you want more info.

Best regards,

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23 minutes ago, Redsandro said:

(Looks like the backend was built with platform independence in mind. We're talking about a GUI port)

There is much more to this than just a "GUI port." One of the things that too many Linux advocates seem to overlook (or some just ignore?) is how much work they are putting into optimizing the performance of the apps for each of the three platforms they currently support, most notably using native OS level API's & hardware options specific to each of those three platforms.

If nothing else, consider what they recently added to the Mac 1.7 version of Affinity Photo to support Metal based computational acceleration, that as yet it only supports certain Radeon GPU's, that on Macs eGPU support requires a Thunderbolt 3 interface, & that they have only begun to work on hardware based computational acceleration for Windows, a far more formidable challenge than what they have done on Macs because of the much greater diversity of hardware configurations in use for that platform.

So considering that, how many Linux advocates do you suppose would settle for Linux versions that were not at least as well optimized to run on their Linux systems as on the Mac & Windows ones, & how long it would take them to do that? As it is, a lot of Windows users are already threatening to jump ship because the performance of the Windows versions is lagging behind the Mac ones. Imagine what it would be like if Serif announced that they were working on Linux versions.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Commercially speaking it is easy to see why Affinity are focused on the Mac and Windows market. And with Adobe doubling subscription rates for Lightroom users, I expect Affinity are focused on their long rumoured Lightroom alternative. As for Affinity Publisher; I am not sure about its validity. Does anybody use InDesign anymore, now that everything is digital?

All of this is a shame, and because of Affinity's disinterest in Linux I have gone back to using a Mac and Adobe. This may change as Microsoft continues with its embracement of Linux.

The Wine crowdfunding idea does sound interesting though.

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40 minutes ago, Requester said:

Hi guys,

i think at the moment serif is focusing on affinity publisher ... and maybe another adobe killer after. Because there is a much more bigger market for new Adobe killers than a linux port at the moment. Maybe later, if the adobe palette is finished, there may be a more serious thought about linux. Don't ask how many years ...

But I think there is currently another realistic option to get affinity on the Linux desktop.

Ask the wine community ... do a crowdfunding for WINE (developers) to make the affinity products run on linux!

A good annual salary would be enough to put one experienced wine developer to make it run. We would even not need 500.000$.

What do you think about that?

That might not work.

 

Mădălin Vlad
Graphic Designer
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56 minutes ago, Requester said:

Ask the wine community ... do a crowdfunding for WINE (developers) to make the affinity products run on linux!

In 2014 the answer was no, but the main concern might not be relevant anymore. The second concern, which is clear (from trying to run it) is still there. Some calls are not mapped (properly) so it would be interesting to know:

  1. what component(s) in their framework causes this;
  2. Is the incompatibility a side-effect or deliberate (because of reasons)
  3. Is this component developed in-house or can we bother upstream (the company that makes the component)
  4. is it replaceable by an alternative with no performance penalty to the native version (.NET/Mono?)
  5. how big is the pool of unmapped calls
  6. Can this realistically be mapped/reversed by WINE developers
  7. Would Serif applaud or condemn this 
39 minutes ago, R C-R said:

optimizing the performance of the apps for each of the three platforms they currently support, most notably using native OS level API's & hardware options specific to each of those three platforms.

I think that's the GUI. It's not a law that a GUI can't be optimized at the hardware level.

Quote

how many Linux advocates do you suppose would settle for Linux versions that were not at least as well optimized to run on their Linux systems as on the Mac & Windows ones, & how long it would take them to do that?

I don't know. I guess there's an ocean of possibilities between VM speeds (used by some linux users), WINE speeds (remember, triple A games that have not been optimized for Linux or Wine at all are now on par with native performance), and Mac speeds. Linux users are more tolerant than Windows users with performance.

-edit-

15 minutes ago, mvlad said:

That might not work.

A developer said in 2014 OpenGL was used, but I guess they switched to Direct3D at some point, which is unfortunate.

-edit 2-

Or was the developer talking about Photo and the tester talking about Designer?

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Geez.

Okay, two things :

Really, I did not cherry pick anything. Next time I'll record my screen or something. I went stopping in every staff member post since page one, and pasted EVERY post. Not quotes. I did not quote anyone. There is an icon that allows anyone to copy (the "share this post" icon) a post link. I just went patiently copying each of those links. I only avoided posts like "guys stop, fighting", or... ironies about the weather. As much as I like British humor (I'm from another culture, south of Spain... which is already totally different from the north of Spain, let alone if compared with the UK... but we tend to give a lot of value to good sense of humor...)  I avoided pasting the links to those posts, as wouldn't add to the debate nothing other than a tangential debate about weather or sense of humor.  The links are links, just that. I pasted all I found, following the chronological order. Then I jumped to other threads and did the same.

So, you may not like the staff answers, but I believe there's a bunch of members answering, all pretty in the same line. I did not cherry pick anything.

 The second major thing I notice : What you seem to dislike is my comments that come before each link, or some of them .  I did that mostly because the list of links was really long, and so to speak a lil about the content of each pasted link, but anyone clicking (and anyone REALLY interested in reading the staff answers, will have clicked, and will click). Of course, I have an opinion about all this. But I am NOT a protectionist (funny term, again... although I like it, as kind of is used for the people worried about the environment and the planet, and certainly I'm one of them) in the sense that I don't need any more features badly , and stability and performance will come just 'cause is the natural evolution in every app. But I believe many accusations thrown to the company are completely unfair. And I am terrible when trying to stay quiet if I hear, watch or read something unfair. 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Ouch. I had forgotten my annoyance with the community here, but this brings it back

But mainly because not everyone agrees with you....
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

I'm thankful that Patrick is the one Serif staff member that kept us up-to-date with informative, patient and objective posts regarding this topic, but sometimes he's a completely different person, greeting multiple new enthusiastic (innocent) users - that aren't even being rude or demanding; just showing their interest and their willingness to pay

MEB and others show this same level of gentle kindness with newcomers. They show the irony (much better than a direct ban from the forum) when it's users complaining about a company answer for... years.

There are roles in the company. I don't know why, I sense you have also been at quite some companies (I've been in ten, but in a few I was quite some years). So you know how there's always the role of someone taking care of the public face of the company, or at least in certain media. I suspect that's the case of Patrick, and how it i snot just "an individual", but also "the company". In the sense of, like I had put above, much of what he says is in the agreed and established (from maybe higher spheres) the line of the company, and the word to spread. If you can't notice that, maybe you have been a worker staying more years in a kind of company with very "original" structure. And everything is possible, could be the case.  The same as you can notice how MEB does a lot of the tech support around here. And how seems BEN and Mark, and others, are very key programmers.

I tell you, if any of them would post something very against the company line, there could be told not to post more so, or be their answer "compensated" with an immediate post in the company line of thought. If it doesn't happen is surely as -like in most companies- it's all talked and agreed or determined/established (as yep, a company is not a FOSS group where every vote has the same weight. My bosses of past places would laugh about such idea)

If you insist in seeing in patrick just some evil soul who hates the poor lil penguins, man, you'd be very wrong.  It's all about assigned roles and duties. And you would be fooling yourself, not seeing the real scenario. But hey, to each his/her own. I've know -and been part of- for decades the FOSS groups and communities. And how difficult it is that people realize how different a company is compared to a group of developers doing an open source project.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

with posts dripping in sarcasm and antipathy

Why direct insults to the company is not antipathy as well ? And what anyone expects an individual or a company to reply to rude tone and insults? only with  hugs and smiles ? That's not how the world works. BTW, sarcasm is not inherently bad. Sometimes is a way to induce to use the brain instead of the quick anger. And often is an alternative to directly ban a user and his/her IP from posting anymore in a forum. I know as I have been a forum and site administrator, and definitely that's the easy way, while irony (not so much sarcasm in their answers) is often a soft way to avoid the more drastic solutions. 
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

After cleaning up, your quotes boil down to two statements from Serif staffers:

1. Let's do a crowd fund set at 500,000

I disagree. My "" comments" (because the links were simply ALL and each one of the posts from staff, related to the matter, in the whole thread and several others... and hard work you did not appreciated sigh....) in that very aspect were totally in the line that Tony said that thing only as a random comment, like today I could say..."woah, tonight I dreamed with a flying unicorn". If anything, he was just mentioning a random number, as surely having strong doubts in being able to obtain significant profit in Linux, compared to rpoducing for Mac and Windows. So, a campaign could show at least there was interest to the point that people would indeed be eager to put money in software of this kind. Not that the particular quantity would allow to acquire Apple or something. And I am sure you understood this, from me, from tony, and from anyone else....
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Looks like they don't want the discussion to close, and keep it around to collect the occasional good argument, or merely for entertainment purposes.

Despite they might enjoy irony as the only defense against rude insults, no, I don't think so. I believe is more a case that they just truly hate censorship, and also, are a bit pessimistic about the matter : They know the 20 or 30  (protectionists, campaigners, terribly alienated poor victims, or whatever the next term...when I was a heavily involved linux head, preferred to be called just..."penguin""...times change.... )  will keep popping threads like this like popcorn. Little they (certain new breed of linux users) know that this only helps to antagonize and make the linux option not sth "friendly" as to consider they idea, due to the behavior of the proponents.
So.... Nope, I don't think is for entertainment (it adds moderation work, and moderators here are multi tasked people in the company, not just moderators or social media-only employees). And definitely neither as an "statistic data collection". As stated many times, a rather larger sample would be needed to even be considered....(and yet wouldn't address the money problem).

 

Quote

 I had forgotten my annoyance with the community here, but this brings it back

This is just personal curiosity of mine... You seem to dislike a lot or all around here... yet you are posting here since at least 2016 ...Why ? I'd have for sure moved on long ago if I did hate so much the situation....  Is surely not even healthy. No animosity in this (neither anything in my post: I only try to use my logic in a debate)
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Yet none was really addressed satisfactory. I think that nothing was addressed after that at all.

How can be that so ? "We don't have any plans at all to make a linux version" and "this is a private company, not a democracy". That seems plain English to me, and couldn't get more direct.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Also keep in mind that the actual statements from Serif that is being referred to are years ago.

Have they stated that they have changed their -many times- fixed position in the matter ? Nope, they haven't. Not in a single one case. Where is the doubt ?
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Another reason Linux campaigners get attributed the label of 'not shutting up about it' and 'not taking no for an answer'

It is because a percentage of them definitely don't. Which in this case, is rude. As I explained with the cup of tea example... I was trying to be pedagogic, there.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

protectionists defending Serif's position with argumentational fallacies and quotes out of context

False. Reasons, data, and direct posts from staff, not cherry picked, but posted in chronological order through all the thread. Luckily I have a dictionary here for translation !  ;) 
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Saying this shows you attribute relevance to this. But it is not indicative of the Great Unknown Variable™ (defined as: Enough outside demand in the Linux scene to be profitable). It was merely a response to a very specific question. Of course their existing users won't have a Linux version high on their list. Perhaps 1 percent (or more since it's number 5 on said list) of Serif users do dual boot and realize it would be easier if they could remove Windows alltogether. If you want to bring this up, 

I don't want want to bring up anything.  I am only pasting in order all of the staff posts in the thread. Those are my comments about the content in the link, but any one with citeria will read the staff statement in the link, and will judge. I am NOT making a point in that post. I am listing the staff answers.  If disliking my comments, just don't read them, are totally unimportant. The key is what the staff says.

Also, a company trusts and relies a lot in what their current paying users think and prefer.  But is a very irrelevant aspect of it, in one way or the other. Go make a point of it if you find pleasure on it. They give more importance to the existing paying users, and you think they should stick to whatever may happen with the potential users in the linux community.  I was not making a point here, just posting the next staff post in the thread, as per chronological order in the thread. But make a case of it, if it's fun.

 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Protectionists keep giving juicy opportunities to argue.

I think you don't need our (in case you really think I am one of them  :D ) help. If no one . If noooone answered here, this thread would be bumped way less, and your case would be way more irrelevant. Anyway, nothing matters. The company will do what they wish to do, and that's it, no matter what you, or me, or the few other nerds (is not an insult, am one)  post.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

That said, for future reference, it's better to quote actual questions and statements rather than rude behavior and frustrated responses.

Once again. I went, following a strict order, pasting all the links to all the answers from the staff, about the matter. Of course, if one was speaking about "is raining tomorrow" (even the staff members can get off topic) that one didn't make it into the list. But I believe you did know that. You probably wanted to introduce the doubt for the fast reader, as probably not many are going to check that it is not cherry picked, sadly.

Not that I would take directions from you on how to post, lol, anyway.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

(Answered: Consensus seems to be Canonical commercial support and Snapcraft covering 20 distributions.)

Yes, I had made super clear that this was already addressed. I posted it indeed so to not be accused of cherry picking, as indeed, I'm one of the few that knows since very early (when some protectionists? posted it as an issue) . I pasted the link as was the next in order, but my comment before it already clarifies that all of us are aware that that particularly would not be an issue. And I believe you ignored all that on purpose....
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

(Looks like the backend was built with platform independence in mind. We're talking about a GUI port)

Well, there's a ton more issues regarding drivers, very specific libraries and particularities of each os. But feel free to think just using QT or the like would be all fine and dandy.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:
On 2/12/2015 at 3:53 PM, TonyB said:

It would require something like a kickstarter campaign with of target of £500k to convince me. 

(Overwhelming enthusiasm for the idea of a crowdfund ensues, and some volunteers step up to organize one)

Which would only fund the salaries of maybe one or two years, to have a base port, surely full of the usual  bunch of bugs. But not the other expenses involved in any development when it is not just an open source group, but a company. Totally non addressed how to sustain that, with SOLID data of income.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:
On 10/15/2016 at 8:34 AM, Patrick Connor said:

There are no plans for a Linux port. We are a small team and will be doing new personas or new products (Publisher, DAM, iPad Photo) in preference to porting the existing ones to Linux.

(Repetitive pattern:)

Call it so. Is their answer. I see more of a repetitive pattern in your denial of the situation, but hey.
About the Wine possibility. I'd vote for that. I just don't know about the technical difficulties for it. Or if is there a company strategy issue with that. I really don't care... as I don't care about the OS.. if the suite was made in Linux from a start, I'd dual boot, I wouldn't hate it, which you seem to. I care about the task in hand, not the OS.
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

why not tweet/FB a straw poll to see what the demand is, rather than speculate?

I doubt it'd be a very strong data, unless would be of epic proportions...
 

7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

We are not a democracy, sorry. 

It's surprising that you posted this as an argument. It does not refer to your country or theirs not being a democracy, but the fact that a company is based  on a hierarchy, investors, and mostly, income. It also surprises me as really accepting their statement, would avoid fully all of your effort in writing...  :) 

Anyway, as I said, the Wine options seems to me the cleverest path, given the situation.
Or... just freaking code an app of your very liking, which is indeed in the soul of the Linux philosophy, not depending on a commercial closed source company decisions. Is a bit of a betrayal to the foundational principles for which we all always loved, love, and will keep loving Linux.

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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4 hours ago, Redsandro said:
5 hours ago, R C-R said:

optimizing the performance of the apps for each of the three platforms they currently support, most notably using native OS level API's & hardware options specific to each of those three platforms.

I think that's the GUI. It's not a law that a GUI can't be optimized at the hardware level.

Regarding the hardware, I was talking about using the GPU for computational acceleration, not for display rendering. The Mac version of Photo has recently been optimized to use Metal (so named because it is Apple's low overhead, 'close to the metal' technology) for that, but it is only available on Metal-enabled GPUs, & so far only for certain recent discrete Radeon GPUs.

According the what lead developer @Mark Ingram mentioned here, developing the Windows equivalent is much more complex because of the diversity of GPUs & drivers on that platform, & of course the same thing would apply at least as much to Linux platforms as well.

 

5 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Linux users are more tolerant than Windows users with performance.

I don't even know how to respond to that, other than to say in my limited experience Linux users are, if not exactly obsessed with maximizing performance on their Linux boxes, at least consider better performance one of the biggest reasons for using it instead of Windows or Mac OS.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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6 hours ago, beruffled said:

Does anybody use InDesign anymore, now that everything is digital?

You would be surprised. All companies in my area, as an unavoidable requirement. And you can be a freaking master with a huge portfolio. They wont care.

Everything is digital.... If you knew (seems you don't ;) , reading your question)  how much money printed stuff is moving....

And I quite not like InDesign, so is not a defense of it.

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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6 hours ago, beruffled said:

 This may change as Microsoft continues with its embracement of Linux.

not sure till what extent is that... (for now, it's unpractical for graphic apps, as far as I've known). Plus, is probably the hug of an Anaconda....    ;) 

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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3 hours ago, SrPx said:

Really, I did not cherry pick anything.

I simply mean that (a) Patrick quotes (I mean links to posts) are less relevant to me as I stated before because of their prevalence in prepossessed under- or overtone, yet you almost exclusively pick (link to) them, 82% of the time to be precise. I'm looking for objective initial statements, which I have all quoted in the second half of my previous post for everyone's benefit.

And (b), when trying to summarize what is important, you pick (link to) almost exclusively meta-discussion - which is what I meant by saying you seem to focus more on a different aspect of this discussion than I, quotes (links) 1 through 4, 6, 10, 12, and 14 through 18 to be precise - rather than original statements summarizing what this is about, which (building on your idea to do so) is what I have done in the second half of my previous post for everyone's benefit.

Next, quote (link) 5, 7, 13 and 22 are "Sorry, but we currently have no plans to release on Linux".

See, while you have done a considerable effort - I know because I have done the same right after that post - for which I have thanked you (yesterday) which has been credited to your "total reputation", substantially there's not much left, and it really doesn't add a lot to respond to them, but if it makes you feel any better, I will address them here:

Quote (link) 19: "We have little appetite for a Kickstarter at his time." I know. I knew all the way back in my first post. Notice how this statement leaves room for working up an appetite.

Quote (link) 11: "How can we [market and have a single point of sale] on every supported Linux machine?" Asked and answered.

Quote (link) 9: Apparently now the amount of money that can be raised is irrelevant. This is a unique statement contradicting everything staff said before. You can't take this statement seriously, as I jokingly illustrated in my previous post.

Quote (link) 20: "It's not all about the money. We are not saying never we are saying not now." I think this (2018) is literally the first time "not now" is said, rather than "not likeley, not confident"

I'm saving quote 8 for below.

3 hours ago, SrPx said:

I sense you have also been at quite some companies (I've been in ten, but in a few I was quite some years).

Six here

3 hours ago, SrPx said:

Why direct insults to the company is not antipathy as well?

Why do you keep bringing this up? It's not interesting. We can both point to rude behavior from select users. If you're justifying being rude to everyone, including new people, because some people are rude, than I don't think you had anything to do with PR communication or social media in your 10 companies. Also, whataboutism. Those yelling freeloaders will be forgotten, but Serifs missteps will be remembered. That's just how it works when you've built up a name. It would make sense to release an enthusiastic and friendly statement on the matter, and link to that every single time, rather than being lured into the occasional trap. This was literally my point when I posted here earlier this week for the first time again, and I can't believe no one agrees that this might be a good idea, and attacks me on everything else except my main point.

3 hours ago, SrPx said:

I don't think so. I believe is more a case that they just truly hate censorship, and also, are a bit pessimistic about the matter

This is not what I meant with "they don't want the discussion to close". Apart from one single quote in the entire existence of this forum, they never definitively said they were "not going to" (so leave it alone). They used words like "not very keen" (so convince me otherwise). If they wanted the discussion to close without implying censorship, they would very simply release a statement and keep linking to that, rather than engage in discussion as if things are up for debate.

Quote

You seem to dislike a lot or all around here... yet you are posting here since at least 2016 ...Why ? I'd have for sure moved on long ago if I did hate so much the situation....

First, there are a lot of arguments against a theoretical Linux version that just don't make sense. If the only reason you don't drive me to work is because you don't want to get wet, then I want to try to make you understand that a car is not filled with water.

Second, I post in bursts of about 10 posts. with 58 posts, I'm here a couple of days less than twice per year to check out progress on this. I usually start with a nice post, and I get attacked for everything except the main I was saying. Eventually I lose the slowly regained trust because of some angry defensive intolerant users in this community. No, not "because people don't agree with me". I'm in a lot of communities and a lot of people enthusiastically and patiently disagree with each other and get back on point. This must be one of the most bitter communities I know. And although that's probably only towards Linux enthusiasts, being a (non-dual-booting) Linux user myself, in my perception this is it.

Also, I have a 2:1 post to thanks ratio. Half the things I may just make sense.

Quote

"We don't have any plans at all to make a linux version" and "this is a private company, not a democracy". That seems plain English to me, and couldn't get more direct.

This is not addressing anything, that's a knockdown argument.

Quote

Have they stated that they have changed their -many times- fixed position in the matter ? Nope, they haven't. Not in a single one case. Where is the doubt ?

facepalm.jpg

I know I still owe you quote (link) 8 but I just lost my will to live. We're so much at cross purposes, we're having two different conversations. This is a waste of both our time and energy. We've spend 8 Serif licenses worth of time trying to talk to each other, and it falls on deaf ears like a brick in the water. Let's voluntarily ignore each other, and keep conversing with the people that we do have a constructive rapport with.

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On 6/7/2019 at 9:46 PM, Redsandro said:

Once users started to organize a crowd funding campaign that would definitely prove or disprove whether or not there would be enough demand to recoup the costs, Affinity informed us that they would not do a Linux version even if the goal would be reached, effectively stopping the community initiative from definitively probing the demand.

The second post on this thread from @TonyB said:

Quote

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

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.

This thread is popular, but ultimately we've only had a fraction of a percent of people request a Linux version so far. Now, if this post had 20,000 people in it, we'd be clamouring to build for Linux...

We're not saying never, we're just saying that our limited resources are best spent working on other things right now.

And I say all that as a Linux fan.

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1 hour ago, Mark Ingram said:

We're not saying never, we're just saying that our limited resources are best spent working on other things right now.

And I say all that as a Linux fan.

Hello @Mark Ingram,

Thank you for your post and information.
I've recently published : 

And I have a request for you and your team that implies a very small dev effort.

Would it be possible to add a simple toggle info to our accounts (serif accounts, not forum) to add our targeted OS ?
Example, I would love to have my purchases count as towards Linux platform not Windows. Since you already implicitly do that for Windows / Mac OS, it would be nice to have an explicit button to indicate for Windows purchases that they are used by mainly Linux user.

I know how complicated it can be to get real meaningful stats. And with such a topic, you might even end with bots or false positives, people that would never actually buy your product. Have a little chat with your Marketing & Business team, but I think that metric could actually help. And even if you don't do anything with it, I would actually feel pretty great about it :)

I got this idea from Steam itself. When a user on Linux purchase a Windows game, it might or might not work on Linux, but that doesn't matter, Valve is counting it as a Linux purchase, and seriously that is awesome. Because that's a proper metric to have that reflects reality.

With that, have an amazing day, keep up the good work ! I can't wait to try publisher, don't get me wrong, I love Scribus, but I was used to indesign, and your tools are simply AWESOME. This is why I vote with my wallet and keep purchasing your products.


Note 1: I am absolutely against the crowdfunding, this is not the way to go for a closed source project. If you want to go that route, let us vote with our wallet and purchase a Linux version with no promise of delivery, right on your page next to the other ones.

Note 2: People speaking about Akira... That project is a splendid demo on how NOT to do a modern design tool, specially in the Linux eco-system.
No cross platform, uses a specific tech that very few devs work on (VALA) and is not desktop agnostic. Just that should be a show stopper for anyone with a little love for all the diversity that exists in the Linux eco-system.
In addition to that : No proper feature set, no roadmap, no real activity in their code base (all branches included). https://github.com/akiraux/Akira .
TLDR: doing it right is not easy, and asking for money is not enough.

Want a good example on how to do it right ? Krita.org and their MANY successful crowdfunding. 
- 2014:  20k Euros (Accelerate dev) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-source-digital-painting-accelerate-deve
- 2015:  30.5k Euros (Let's make it faster) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-free-paint-app-lets-make-it-faster-than-phot
- 2016:  38.5k Euros (New text, new vector tools. svg2 support, etc.) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-2016-lets-make-text-and-vector-art-awesome
- 2018 27k Euros (Squash bugs) https://krita.org/en/fundraising-2018-campaign/ 

That's 116k Euros in 4 years of crowdfunding (and I most certainly forget some others they did). This doesn't included direct donations or steam purchases.
That's how you ask for money, your first build something great, then you lay down a great plan for growing up and then you ask for money.

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4 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

The second post on this thread from @TonyB said:

On 8/16/2014 at 9:29 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.

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.

This thread is popular, but ultimately we've only had a fraction of a percent of people request a Linux version so far. Now, if this post had 20,000 people in it, we'd be clamouring to build for Linux...

We're not saying never, we're just saying that our limited resources are best spent working on other things right now.

And I say all that as a Linux fan.

Thank you @Mark Ingram. This brings some clarity, although I had to look up the word clamour.

The team is not really interested in doing this right now, and you're happy with the spoils of the current markets. There's generally no interest in a crowd source either, because the team is not confident that the spoils of the Linux market would remain interesting after a theoretical crowdfund. The proverbial banana would be 20.000 people showing up here suggesting that Affinity for Linux would be a lovely idea.

TL;DR: Not now, maybe later.

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On 6/8/2019 at 4:27 PM, Redsandro said:

It was literally said they would consider a Linux version if they were confident they would recoup the $500,000 it would cost to develop. Nothing more, nothing less. Once someone was actually going to set up a crowdfund to raise $500,000, they quickly stated that they would not consider a Linux version regardless.

Some people take every statement in the forum absolutely literal like it was the bible. :34_rolling_eyes:

And even if they literally meant they would consider it – perhaps they actually have considered it and then decided it wasn’t worth it. What then? At what point are you going to accept it and get on with your lives?

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7 hours ago, Redsandro said:

Thank you @Mark Ingram. This brings some clarity

"Clarity"?

Which bit of Mark's comment adds anything that wasn't already crystal clear months and months ago?

This is the problem (and no, criticising your behaviour is not ad hominem) - you have flatly refused to take on board Serif's long-standing, unambiguous, and unchanged position: instead you've continued to stir the pot despite the answer to your question having been there for all to see since not long after the thread started. 

It's very hard to identify a difference between your constant hair-splitting, provocative, fact-denying refusal to accept the blindingly obvious reality of the situation and good old-fashioned trolling.

For the avoidance of any doubt then: until Serif tells you otherwise, you aren't getting a Linux version.

Keith Reeder

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I sort of enjoy the hapless futility of this subject.

Something will get the fans of Linux to give up their dream of Affinity on Linux, and the same will get Affinity to develop for Linux.

Something will get Affinity to develop for Linux, and the same will get the fans of Linux to give up their dream of Affinity on Linux.

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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58 minutes ago, VIPStephan said:

a petition on change.org or some similar platform, to see how much actual potential demand there might be?

I mentioned it as a figure of speech (indeed, stating what a forum thread isn't). Luckily, in that case it wasn't understood literally.

The issue I'd still see with that is we people talk a lot, but are not that fast in putting the money. If every post in here costed us 1000 bucks... How many of use would have made a  single post? You can like an option, yet not willing to put your money in it, as you have other priorities, etc, That's why I see how a KS is a proof of intention, but in change.org, the numbers of the inclined to pay for the software, among the people that voted, "yeah, I would pay", are not determined by any means. Then the risk with that would be entirely for the company making the software (in this case, Affinity's Linux version). Still, for a company with enough resources, and quite fredom of movement, having 2600 employees or the like, ie, Adobe, that could be enough motive, as they count on crazy resources, money and armies of developers.  Meaning, Adobe has it way easier, probably. But after decades of people asking for it, I'm guessing that it simply doesn't want to go for it.

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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18 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I sort of enjoy the hapless futility of this subject.

Something will get the fans of Linux to give up their dream of Affinity on Linux, and the same will get Affinity to develop for Linux.

Something will get Affinity to develop for Linux, and the same will get the fans of Linux to give up their dream of Affinity on Linux.

One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
(Dunno, I thought it's play well with the style...)

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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10 hours ago, Keith Reeder said:

Not in the commercial world, it ain't!

This starts to deviate a little bit, but, what !?
Have you ever heard of a business plan or did you just misunderstood my point ?
Of course your build first a MVP, then you go ask for money. I know no single startup that got money based on an "idea".

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On 8/16/2014 at 12:29 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.

Have you guys ever considered that almost the entire visual effects industry (at studio level) uses Linux as default operative system? 

I have been in this industry for many years and I can tell you that the lack of Photoshop for Linux has always been a problem in any visual effect studio since a 2D image manipulation software is required at almost every stage of any VFX pipeline. I have heard of many workarounds, such as using GIMP, or run Photoshop with Wine, or even having a separate Windows machine sitting next most Linux workstations just to allow the artists to use Photoshop when needed.

I think here you have a big opportunity to fill an industry need where the competition hasn't arrived yet. If you made Affinity Photo for Linux, you would most likely sell thousands of seats immediately to EVERY major visual effects studio in the world. That alone should be enough to recoup your porting investment. I agree that the rest of the sales (the mainstream Linux community) would probably be marginal, yet your investment has already been repaid for.

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1 minute ago, mzo said:

Have you guys ever considered that almost the entire visual effects industry (at studio level) uses Linux as default operative system? 

@mzo

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :) Thanks for your contribution. Yes we have considered that and that is one obvious good reason why we are not saying "never", just not now.

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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2 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

why we are not saying "never", just not now

nice to know as I would also totally dig it, I switched my Laptpo to Linux (Kubuntu) last august and it works pretty decently (win10 is ugly and the driver situation of 8.1 which I use as main on my other machines is, well, not pretty), and there are many things which work so much better after some setup which dont work as nice or not at all in windows (like for example having a german layout without the "dead" keys, or NOT forcing a US-Keyboard onto me while writing japanese or the pretty neat circular scrolling feature which doesnt work on all touchpads in windows etc etc)

honestly Linux in my opinion has only 2 things that are actually hard:

1) the setup (drivers and stuff)

2) programs (obvious)

and yeah I would totally dig affinity on Linux one way or another.

 

also I think the idea to have your purchase count as Linux instead of win/mac outlined in that one post pretty awesome:

 

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