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."

Comments

Release them on the same disc!

[compupc1]

Really what would be nice would be if companies would include both Windows and Linux versions on the same disc. The two versions can share most of their data files and resources -- only the executable portions of the applications need be modified. If both versions sit on the same disc, would that not solve the problems and lower long-term production costs? Plus it would force companies to make the two versions more similar.

Catch 22 of economics

[Strych9]

Linux has how much of the desktop market ? 10% ?

Why would a company devote time and resources for only a 10% return where they could spend 100% effort into marketing to a 90% MS desktop market. Added to that whatever FUD that MS or such pulls out with GPL myths etc, and you will scare people away from developing for linux.

And at the same time, if there were all the good ports of software for linux, I think a lot more people would have switched to it.

A catch-22. I dont' know the solution

DUH

[ljaguar]

Holy crappy developemental platform Obvious man!

Which came first?
Poor Linux port sales or poor featured linux port? or...

Not so cool environment for commercial programs??

Let's face it. Linux programs are high upkeep projects. Wrote a motif software? People call it ugly. Wrote your own widget? People still bitch. Wrote it in GTK 1? Gotta upgrade to GTK 2 now. Nevermind all those bitching KDE users. Go ahead, write it with QT3 and the fancy KDE3 integration. I'm still bitching; I use windowmaker. It's x86 only? Mac linux people whine. It doesn't work with the latest glibc? It's redhat only? WTF is this .rpm only thing? Why aren't you taking advantage of XRENDER? I want my aa fonts, dammit. Where the ALSA version? It doesn't cut and paste right! (It never will. As long as gnome and kde doesn't work perfectly with each other, it ain't working on one of them.)

Think of all the varieties of linux. To cater to every single one of them out there, we need exactly what we have now: open source projects with volunteers and an active community. That doesn't sound like commercial software to me.

Re:DUH

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree. It's too hard to support software on Linux. I don't think "GUI apps" for Linux are going to fly for quite a while now.

I've been trying to run my business on Linux for a while, but the pain to do the following keeps XP on my laptop until I can afford OS X:

* CD label printing

* CD burning (half the GUI tools out haven't been updated to include support for +24X CDRWs -- yeah, it's just a flag, I could go into the source and change, but my ancient copy of Padus DiscJuggler doesn't give me this trouble -- it's nice than any CD burning app around)

* Accounting. You run a business, you need accounting. Invoices, packing slips, debits and credits. Linux apps aren't there yet, at any reasonable price.

* A GUI ftp client -- gFTP has trouble with directory uploads.

* Label printing -- I ship a lot of packages. Label printing is more of a pain in Linux than on Windows. For this, I'll give Linux props -- high-priced commercial apps will do this fine. On Windows, it's easier on the low end.

Old media support in Linux is pretty good, newer media support isn't. GUI controls on Windows tend to be better -- workflow considerations in more complicated applications tend to be better thought out.

Text-based apps and server software still rules on Linux/BSD though.

I think Apple has a great chance here. They have the best of both worlds -- a commercial, proprietary layer for commercial software to exploit. Native guts for *NIX apps. If they broaden their hardware and lower their pricing, they should be able to grow nicely. They may not care about that though.

Not for me, thanks

[AirLace]

I'm a Linux user, and I wouldn't consider myself a cheapskate. However, while I spend a considerable fraction of my annual income on new computers, hardware and geek toys, the total amount I spend on stand-alone software is £0.00.

This isn't because I'm 'cheap'. Nor is it the case that I pirate software instead of buying it. The fact is, I don't need to buy software. Some packages, like virus scanners and Windows performance enhancers are obsolete on Linux anyway, while other programs like Microsoft Word have sufficiently powerful and free couterparts (I use TeX myself, but others say great things about OpenOffice).

At the end of the day, the only other killer app for my computer is Web browsing and e-mail, with which Mozilla and Evolution cope gracefully.

If other Linux users have a similar computing environment to mine, then I would go so far as to say that porting proprietary software to Linux, whether full-featured or cut-down, is redundant. This may not be what the new generation of younger (and often naive) Linux 'advocates' want to hear, but the truth is that Linux is doing just fine without proprietary consumer software. If you are trying to convince the software firms that there could be a flourishing market for their tools on Linux, you are probably not telling them the entire truth.

Re:Cheap skates ?

[MisterBlister]

In the Windows world, though, there are so many potential paying customers that the cheapskate theives can get lost in the noise.

Given just raw numbers, every desktop Linux user who steals software (for example, using a stolen-serial Opera) is equal to about 10000 (at least, maybe more) Windows users using stolen software.

If Linux users want more support the community is going to have to hold itself to a higher standard.

I am so sick of hearing this!

[SlashChick]

Forgive the rant, but this NEEDS to be said.

Do you REALLY think that everyone running Windows has these same problems? Do you really think that someone at Microsoft sat there and said, "Well, you know what, maybe we'll just make life miserable for everyone. How about we program a BSOD to occur with random frequency somewhere between every 3 and 5 days, just so people don't get too used to that 'stability' thing."

Hello! Earth to Linux user! You have a driver problem. Most Windows boxes do NOT have these problems, and if they do, the person using the box calls up his/her computer person and it's fixed the next day. Go check your system log (you DO know where that is in Windows 2000, right?) and figure out what's causing the problem. Then troubleshoot it and fix it.

I swear, Linux has a problem with a driver and you guys are out there doing everything from installing driver after driver to freakin' recompiling the kernel. Windows 2000 has a problem and your first response is "Wow, Microsoft sucks! I don't know what to do! Um, how about I just complain on Slashdot about how much Microsoft sucks!"

Here's a hint: Learn how to troubleshoot your system (besides upgrading to Service Pack 2, because that probably won't fix a driver problem. You did listen to those warnings about installing unsigned drivers, right?) If you've looked at the system log and really can't figure out what could be causing the problem, go get on Google Groups and hit up the microsoft.public.* newsgroups. There are some really great people on there who volunteer their time to help you with problems like this.

So yes, that's my rant, and I decided not to post anonymously because I really think more people need to hear this. Mod me down as a troll or whatever, but you know if the guy was having the same problems with Linux, the person who posted the solution (even if it WAS just "RTFM") would get modded up. :-/