Kent right here talks about how Linux related companies need to focus on putting their resources towards collaborating and helping big companies port their software and THEN introduce open source software to new users instead of remaking desktop environments, pushing companies away, and overall doing the same thing over and over.
I kind of agree with him just not completely, but my question is:
Do any of you agree?
Seriously, all of Linux has 3% market share, how much of that is Pop!_OS? less than 1%; if Adobe previously decided it wasn’t worth the money or time to do on their own, what would System76 be able to offer Adobe to make it worth while? Nothing.
System76 makes their money from selling laptops / computers to Linux enthusiasts that want to buy hardware that runs Linux and benefits Linux. From these hardware sales, System76 makes enough money to hire some competent developers, but porting open source code from
x86_64 Linux C / C++
tox86_64 Linux Rust
is much easier than portingx86_64 Windows C / C++
tox86_64 Linux C / C++
.As an example, look at Codeweavers and Valve; Codeweavers has been at the table much longer, but Valve is a relative new player; together they are a power couple developing Proton and porting all the necessary binaries and libs to get gaming on Linux out of the dark ages… however it took the development of new hardware, deep pockets of Valve, the development prowess of both (among many freelance developers), and about 12 years (2011 Linux Steam, 2015 Steam Machine / Link / Controller, and 2018-2023 Proton / SteamDeck) to make it happen.
System76 just doesn’t have the capabilities on their own…
Adobe would likely keep it closed source so they could continue to sell licenses knowing competition wouldn’t spring-up. But lets face it; why would someone choose to run Linux just to buy Adobe creative suite for Linux supported by a third-party partner and take the chance that they might run into issues when they can simply stay on Windows and have the support from Adobe itself?
I Dualboot as well, because the programs I want to use are not available on Linux and this keeps me from switching 100% to Linux. If I would need to use Adobe for my job, or just like it, it would keep me from switching to Linux as well. To be honest, if all programs would run in Linux as well without tinkering, the market share would go up to 10% immideately almost guaranteed.
The thing is, Linux and most open source and free software feels like it’s not quite there yet. A lot of things are a little unpolished and weirdly complicated. I am happy to pay for good software, as I did in the past. I don’t need to have everything open source. Yeah, there are alternatives for almost everything but comparing them side by side shows what the free tools often lack, like freecad vs Fusion or solidworks. Or gimp Vs Photoshop. It’s not the same. You can get it working if you want it to, but most people are lazy and want stuff to be working like they are used to. Or just require it to work fast without workarounds. I could not find a good alternative for Ableton, and all my project files are from Ableton. So I sometimes hesitate if I want to boot into Linux or windows, because everything I need just works in windows and is already there