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If You Port It, They Will Come
An anonymous reader submits "An excellent rant^H^H^H^Harticle is up over at LinuxLaboratory.org, encouraging proprietary companies that make software for Windows to provide a full-featured equivalent for Linux. The argument being made that users aren't cheap skates, they will pay for good software. But many companies that port software to Linux will only ship stripped-down versions, leading to people not buying the software when they can buy the complete version for Windows, then the company not providing the software for Linux because it didnt sell. The argument is made that if the Linux version were equivalent to the Windows version, then people will buy it."
Did you (the person who made the parent comment) even try to USE WP 8 for linux? It's existence highly supports the statements made by the guy who wrote the op. ed. piece ...
...) they aren't even close ... ok, some things are close (menu layout) -- but like I said, this guy's views are right on when it comes to this kind of thing.
I used it -- and the windows version -- and the issues of fitting into the envrionment, similarity of interface (just try and set up the printer in the linux version
I can't help but get the feeling that companies like Real Networks, Adobe, Macromedia and yes, even IBM think that us penguins are all just about the cheapest birds on the entire face of the technology ecosphere, or whatever Microsoft is calling it these days (oh yeah, they think we're cheap, too). At the same time, Linux, one of the flagship products of the open source/free software movement, is such a buzzword that all of these companies - and many others - want to somehow associate themselves with the community. As a result, we see things like Real Player, Adobe Acrobat, IBM's ViaVoice and other popular programs being ported to Linux. This all sounds great on the surface, but truth be told, these products are only wannabe imitations of their fully functional cousins that work wonderfully under Windows (for as long as you can get Windows to work, anyway).
Since a large number of Linux users are at least a wee bit more technical than the average Windows user, we're all aware of this sort of strange 'fleecing-that's-not-really-a-fleecing'. We can't call it a fleecing, because we don't pay for a lot of this software. But we're aware that the Linux versions of many software titles just don't work like they do under Windows. In some cases, it's subtle. In other cases, the software comes with a disclaimer that "features x, y and z don't work under Linux". In some other extreme cases, the Linux version is so different that it's given a completely different version name to indicate that it's been stripped. Then the executives look down from their ivory towers and wonder why we don't buy their software. To top it all off, they use this sluggish market performance (read: poor excuse at an attempt to support Linux) as justification to discontinue their line of Linux products. In the meantime, they've gotten their good press, and placed a chip on the word 'Linux' on their Buzzword Bingo cards.
Well, this situation just sucks, and I'm here to tell the commercial software companies: 'If you port it, we will pay'. I talk to other Linux users all the time who say to me: 'If Company X ported Product Y, I'd pay full price for it'. I can't even begin to count how many copies of 'Dreamweaver for Linux' Macromedia would sell if it became available. If ViaVoice for Linux was as good as it is under Windows, I'd be using it now instead of typing up this story in Mozilla. I'm just not going to pay for a cheap imitation. I can get a cheap imitation for free! Freshmeat is loaded with, among many other wonderful things, free knockoffs of popular software, or cool little tools that you can combine to get the job done. I'll work through that before I justify making crap versions of decent software just so a company can say 'we support linux', when that's not really the case.
Linux, for me, is a choice I made. It's my operating system of choice. It doesn't mean that I'm cheap or poor or that I refuse to pay for software. It means that I have some shred of independent thought, and maybe even a bit of intelligence. It means I'm not stupid enough to pay $400 for an inferior OS so I can check email and surf the web when I can do all of that and 1,000,000 other things for absolutely nothing. However, if Windows was as fast, secure, stable and reliable as Linux, AND had all the applications under the sun, I'd probably pay for that, too. It's not really about hating Microsoft, though they're fun to pick on, and it's not about being unbelievably cheap. It's about having a choice and using the two brain cells I have to make and justify a decision.
So if I'm willing to pay for software, why not just run Microsoft on one of my 7 home machines and pay for software to run on it? Well, because Windows is *not* as fast, reliable and stable as Linux - and don't get me started on support for standards. What am I paying for then? The ability to run Dreamweaver? On an OS that, even after 17 years and countless versions still doesn't come close to being stable, reliable or secure (or fast, or standards compliant...)? If I did this today, I'd be paying $350 for Dreamweaver, and $300 for XP. That's $650 to run one piece of software.
If this sounds like I'm implying that I don't use Dreamweaver *only* because it runs on an inferior OS, then you're hearing right. For 75% of the things I'd use it for, like this article, Dreamweaver is overkill. However, in the penguin's constant pursuit of 'more power' and 'killer apps' and 'more features' and stuff like that, if it ran on Linux I'd buy it for the 25% of the time that it would actually be the right tool for the job (that, and I'd be basically voting with my dollars in support of Macromedia's move). This assuming it wasn't a cheap knockoff of Dreamweaver, of course... see above.
As with many things in the open source world, the "State of the Source" is changing. Software like the GIMP, Mozilla and Apache is getting better. Documentation for open source titles is becoming as copious as for Windows-based software. There are as many books on PHP as there are ASP. As many books on Apache as IIS, and they just keep coming (O'Reilly has one coming about 'Building Apps with Mozilla' - mmmmm). Paying for support has also become a very real, viable option for open source software. There are plenty of programs out there that install with a click of the mouse - user friendliness makes tremendous leaps daily. As the components of the open source software market begin to (more closely) mirror the rest of the market, a vendors *time* to market in this arena will become more and more critical. So I say to you, Macromedia, Adobe, IBM, Roxio, Real, Apple (Quicktime, Hello?): Port your stuff while you still have a chance to get my money. I'm less likely to *look* for a free alternative if I know I can get the real thing for my OS of choice (again, assuming it works). We're really not too poor or cheap to pay for good software. We're just too smart to pay for really *bad* software, and many of us are technical enough to know the difference.
The solution might just be MacOS X. Granted I haven't used it much yet (just got my new powerbook), but with it being BSD on the backend, how hard could it be for them to port their code to Linux after porting to OS X? Hell, some enterprising person(s) might be able to write (if there doesn't already exist) API hooks to emulate or run Aqua in X, much like XDarwin does the opposite, so they wouldn't even have to port the graphics interfaces over.
I'll admit I don't know much about the details of porting from one OS to another. However, if Office X now runs on what's basically a BSD backend, how hard would it be to port it again to Linux? (I won't hold my breath even if someone responded with 2 minutes as an answer)
Three dits, four dits, two dits, dah!
Radio, radio, rah rah rah!
Yes, but it would make the software company completely blind as for how many people use it for which platform. Windows proponents could still claim that nobody was actually using that Linux version that was also included on the disk, and their would be no sales figures to disprove them.
Say no to software patents.
The author makes some interesting (though debatable, and sometimes flat-out wrong) points, yet while he declares that "I'm here to tell the commercial software companies: 'If you port it, we will pay'," implying that this is targeted towards commercial software companies, the article is written as a rant (as the Slashdot article notes), which is definitely the wrong way to get the attention of commercial software houses. The author needs to make up his mind. What is the goal here? Is it to rant and rave about the lack of quality commercial software for Linux? If so, then don't try to represent the rant as a plea to ISVs to properly port their software. Is it a plea to these ISVs for proper and consistent support of Linux? In that case, the author needs to lose all the inflammatory points (the not-so-subtle insinuations that you're a moron if you use Windows, the incorrect information on the stability and performance of current versions of Windows, and so on). At least he didn't stoop to the level of slashbots and use such derogatory terms as "Windoze", "Winblows", "Microsuck", and the like. Had he used one of those, his credibility would've been completely shot, rather than just undermined and on shakey ground.
What this author really needs to do, if he cares about influencing ISVs to seriously consider the Linux market segment is do (or commission from a trusted third-party) a study on the purchasing habits of primary Linux users. It's all well and good to assert that people you know are willing to pay for software, but it's anything but concrete. I can make the assertion that Linux users I know are not willing to pay for software and it would be just as valid.
Author, make up your mind! Are you preaching to the choir, or are you trying to get your points heard? The two are different, and what flies with one generally won't fly with the other.
I can run GTK1 and GTK2 apps side by side on WindowMaker. I can run KDE apps on WindowMaker. If you have a big enough Mac Linux audience, you can cross-compile it to a Mac. Statically link a fail-safe binary, and have another one linked to stuff you can assume your audience has. I run SuSE and Red Hat RPMs on Debian, no problem. If its not compiled for ALSA, we have OSS emulation. I'm able to cut and paste between every single one of my applications, and these include Qt, GTK, Xaw3d, Motif, and the Athena widget ones! Select text, middle click. Done.
If you run a relatively modern distro, you should be able to avoid all of these problems.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
I bought WP8. It worked fine. The problem was that they were a little ahead of the market. That was, what, four years ago, something like that. There's a lot more Linux users now than there were then.
The other problem was that it was ported by another company, not Corel. Apparently Corel couldn't afford to pay them any longer.
Gnome and KDE are both great projects, but its going to take a couple more years before they are as attractive a platform to developers as Win32 is.
You have to offer what the customer needs. A linux version of Warcraft 3 is not what we need. Besides, the game companies should handle that. To bluntly say they can't is another discusion entirely. Loki tried to cash in on the idea that offering Linux specific versions would make them a profit. It want. The way the Unix user thinks is that it should come along with the Windows and Macintosh versions. Can't milk a cow unless she's had a calf.
:)
Corel's Wordperfect was nice. Many people cut their teeth with Wordperfect. Then society was saturated with the demand that all documents be in Microsoft Word specific format. Classes were taught at colleges pushing you to accept Word. Soon there was no more need to keep Wordperfect on the lab machines. Demand went away. Mercy sakes, software isn't a religion.
Maya probably sales good. I do not know how successful they are. Yet Maya is an industry standard for the Movie making people right? I think the real problem stems from the idea of squeezing everything you can out of your customers. Takes money to make money. Quality is another issue. Software isn't an assembly line. Because contrary to what the industry is preeching about code reusablity, deadlines, and specification you really have to be meticulous in writing software.
Each project needs to be built like a Bentley, by hand. I'm not sure they still build them like that though.
Just what was on my mind, feel free to bitch i know you will.
I've said this numerous times before, and I'll continue to say it until someone at AutoDesk and/or Intuit listen up and actually pay attention...
When AutoCAD and QuickBooks have Linux versions available, I will gladly and immediately purchase them. Yes, they must be equal to or better than their Windows counterparts (well, duhhhh).
Does anyone from AutoDesk or Intuit even read these pages???
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
Solution is to just start a new desktop system, like apple did with OSX, but you still run the old software. THe new system should be well developed and great etc....
But its too late, we have win32/.net and we have OSX, developers dont want 3!!!!
The real solution is to just give up, dump gtk/motif/x all that crap, and just go with win32 gui apis subsystem (ontop of X or a new GDI) or OSX gui apis, ie gnustep.
But think about it, MS could port explorer.exe and subsystems to linux/X and it would like identical to XP, but they wont.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Will the US turn into a software Japan, where we knowingly overpay for services to keep our Ponzi scheme going, while the rest of the world collectively innovates us into the dust?
Sure, that's a healthy dose of hyperbole. But I throw it out, not as a troll, but as a genuine question of whether or not we wear blinders.
Linux's overall effect in the market (I say, without having done a lick of research) has been to drive down the cost of operating system software. Office and game software might be next.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear