The Most Desired Linux Ports

zenboomerang writes "It looks like Novell is trying to hit the hammer on the top of software developers heads and try and get them to port their applications directly to Linux. With help from the public they will try to pursuade the management of the most popular programs picked to get into the 21st Century and do some Linux testing. It seems to me to be a good idea and all it needs is a little help from the community."

Comments

Heh. From TFA:

[republican gourd]

From TFA:

Also, I think a nice attention-getter for the survey would be to get it slashdotted. Generally, I give about 75 points for a great article. If someone can get the survey on Slashdot, I will give you 250 points. As you all know, we have some incredible stuff for which you can redeem your points.

Biased Survey Construction?

[DongleFondle]

"Of those top 10 applications, two of them are financial management packages. Looks like there is quite a demand for that. It looks like there is a huge interest in the AUTOCAD arena, as well. Something that is very well worth noting is the demand for multimedia applications."

I imagine this is probably because of the fact that they suggest all of those top ten applications in their dropdown menu (leaving an "other" option at the bottom in case you don't want any of their default applications). Anyone whose ever worked on survey or statistics theory knows this is an obvious bias. That's not to say that's its a bad idea to do this if they have an agenda, I'm just pointing out that the results should definately be taken with a grain of salt here. There may be more relevant programs people would like to see ported to Linux. I imagine lots of people can think of specific games they'd like to see ported. Anyone whose ever reads /. knows that there's a pretty large community of gamers that keep that one Windows box around just for gaming.

Anyways, I say best of luck to Novell. I'd love it if they were able to make some ground with Adobe on porting some of their apps.

Of that List...

[SmartSsa]

It actually surprises me that Lotus Notes has never been avail for linux. Since it's heavily Java based it should be easily portable and with IBM backing it in their Pro-Linux state... why hasn't it been? Maybe because it's a hunk of junk.

The only ones on that list that I'd care to see are Visio, Autocad and Photoshop.

But I do agree that there's a serious need for business/money/finance software. GNUCash and a few other's that are out there just don't cut it. I just hate Quickbooks with a passion :)

Re:Heh. From TFA:

[Janek Kozicki]

It's not on the frontpage, but rather in linux section, so zenboomerang, did you get 250 points?

some luck for linux-interested people (whole /.) that now it's much easier to spot non-frontpage linux stories (thanks to CmdrTaco ;)

nice followup will be about the results from this slashdotting. Will Autocad get to the top? I really hope so. CAD people in big companies really are tech-saavy, and really need reliable software to work with. Autocad running under windows is a misunderstanding, that currently lasts about 12 years (since they switched from dos, I still have v.12 running on dos, and v.13 running both on dos and windows). Heck, I remember working with some CAD software on on Amstrad/Shneider about 15 years ago, aww memories :)

Please don't port quickbooks.

[Vellmont]

I've never used it from a client perspective, but from a file, network, and multiple user perspective it's really quite a terribly designed program. I sincerly hope that Quickbooks is NOT ported to Linux, and someone else designed a different program that's designed with the Internet and multiple users in mind.

Just to give people some perpsective, quickbooks is used by a lot of small businesses. The problem is that these people need to access the books from more than one place. Usually home, and the office. Also, it's quite common for multiple people to want to use the same quickbooks file at the same time. Or, say you want to give access to your quickbooks files to your accountant. Quickbooks was never really designed for the Internet age, and it shows. People solve these problems with ad-hoc solutions like emailing quickbooks files back and forth. Please don't port quickbooks to linux, let this crappy program die the horrible death it deserves.

Re:Please don't port quickbooks.

[pintpusher]

Quickbooks and Quicken are the reason I left windows in the first place. Both programs were mature products years ago, but did intuit leave well enough alone and move on to something else? nope. All the upgrades that have come out in the past few years basically enable more ways to spy on your stuff and get more of your money through vendor-lock-in. They are bells and whistles that mostly get in the way, clutter the desktop and intrude on real work. I mean they've got freakin' pop-ups for chris'sakes. If I wanted popups I'd use IE, not quickbooks. And their .qif format, which is great to work with, easy to understand etc, has been abandoned by their move lock-up your information and force you into their product for ever.

I made the mistake a couple years ago of upgrading Quickbooks one too many times and discovered too late that they had eliminated the exporting of MY information. Its locked in there forever. They have annual sunset policies, eliminated data exporting and keep jacking up the prices for what is free tax table informatino from the government. When I stopped using their payroll tax table subscription and began using my own spreadsheets (tired of paying every year for that free government information) guess what! The payroll calculations, using user-entered tax tables were incorrect. The tax table information was correct -- THE CALCULATIONS WERE WRONG! As in 1+1 != 2. seriously. (sorry to shout. I obviously care deeply about this).

So now I must forever maintain a Windows partition on one of my boxen just to maintain a working copy of quickbooks in case I ever need to access some old financial records for my business. Screw them Intuit can have their windows. I will never use another one of their products ever. Do not port quickbooks to linux. I like my free world just fine as it is.

Go GnuCash! Check it out. They are close to finally making the GNOME2 port which will bring it to more user desktops. Its a REAL accounting program, not that half-baked quickbooks crap. double entry, invoicing, international support etc. good user community. etc etc etc.

cheers

Outlook!

[ivoras]

It looks like that people woting for that list were not big corporate users. In such environments Outlook is immensly popular, especially with management staff, because it's a nice integrated environment for everything from e-mail to group calendars, todo lists and similar organisational features. Of course, all this depends on Exchange servers.

I've heard several times that offices could switch to Linux, and even tolerate OpenOffice, but they simply cannot do without Outlook+Exchange.

Yes, there may be better solutions (such as using separate applications for e-mail and calendaring, possibly web applications) but none are as polished, easy to use and comprehensive in just the areas people like this need.

MOD PARENT UP

[The Slashdotted]

Quickbook's is one of the worst written programs out there.
It's based of IE 5.5, and is made of swiss cheese.
It requires administive privledges (or local standard user) to check a balance.
The database is propritary, and very easy to corrupt.
It's reporting functions are pathetic at best.
The $3000 "Enterprise Edition" won't work off a DFS share.
You need to buy a new payroll file every year, or a yearly version.

Hell, Microsoft is going to include it's clone of QB in Office for Small Business, and they're more open then Intuit.

Re:Port photoshop...and the rest of Creative Suite

[toby]

Hey! I was going to say that! :-)

Together with InDesign and Illustrator, this would round out a complete Linux publishing solution that any professional could sit down at and get productive. I have prayed for this for most of the years I was working in graphic arts.

But if they don't come to the party - that's OK: We'll just keep polishing GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape etc until they start seriously eating into Adobe's monopoly (same way M$ lost the server market). Your move, Adobe!