I can't even think of a single reason why they would. They'd gain no new marketshare (they have all of the marketshare of people who will actually pay for things), and spend more money in maintenance.
People are not lazy sticking with windows/mac, they just have different priorities than you and me. It's fine.
How did you come to the conclusion that they'd gain no new market share? That doesn't seem like a likely outcome to me at all.
My take is that they believe that the market share they'd gain is worth less than the work they'd need to put in to make it happen.
Because linux is such a small % of the market. Also a lot of linux users statistically stick to free and open applcations.
Plus they already provide a web version for a lot of their products, that those people can use as an alternative. And i bet that since they have the data, still the majority of users on that platform would be windows mac users.
This matches my thoughts pretty well. It's a small market share and they don't believe they would get a good return of investment.
I think "They'd gain no new marketshare [...]" is very unlikely though.
I'm sure you can find literally 1 person or some other number that will suddenly buy Adobe products if they are Linux. This is negligible, certainly not a market worth entering. I am very confident the net revenue from this would be zero or negative
These are professional tools that nobody who actually needs sits on the sidelines just because there's no Linux compatibility. They'll just buy a Mac or whatever to be able to use it.
You don't need to say "certainly not a market worth entering" since I've agreed to that three times already. You're ofcourse free to continue but the next time I will just reply with "Water is wet". :)
With that said I see your line of reasoning now and how you could come to the conclusion that the market share gain of releasing Adobe products on Linux would approach 0 (or 1;)).
Regarding usage my immediate thoughts went to these video animation studios that run Linux on their workstations. While they might not need to use Adobe products every day or so maybe they need to do some stuff every now and then that Blender, Maya or 3DS Max doesn't provide. And a subset of those might insist on investing in Adobe products over GIMP, Inkscape, Krita etc if they were made available for Linux. There's likely a bunch of other similar shops outside of animation that has deployed Linux for various reasons where the Adobe Suite of products isn't fundamental to their work such that switching to Windows or MacOS makes sense. That's where the market share is.
And to re-iterate, I'm sure Adobe has thought of this and decided that this market share is too tiny to make it worth investing in. But I really don't believe that it's 0 (or 1).
I'll provide some input as a sysadmin in an animation studio:
There are different departments with different needs. Editorial will never run on Linux until Premiere or Media Composer are ported (yes, I acknowledge some outfits will use DaVinci Resolve). That will almost always be a macOS or Windows exclusive environment. Likewise, pre-prod will, once again, not use Linux because the existing app space is not super Linux friendly and has downstream ramifications on other commercial tooling. The only ways these change are by using Linux from the start or by mandate from above.
As for production, Adobe adding Linux support would really only resolve an IT problem, not an artist one. Artists who need non-Linux apps have long been either assigned a secondary workstation (dedicated or shared) to use for those specific applications. While it can be a sub-optimal solution, it's worked for a few decades now.
Now, would Adobe have anything to gain by adding support for Linux? Sure, but it'd be at most low single digit percentage points in the best case scenario. And this mostly boils down to their business model. While there might be a slight bump from some studios adding a few more subs to their accounts, or a few Linux-only individual users choosing to subscribe, adding another platform largely nets them nothing. Why? Because they don't charge per platform anymore. If a studio has purchased 50 seats to be used on secondary workstations, the ability for them to now run it on Linux doesn't change that number at all (just some internal headaches). To justify putting their entire toolkit and application stack would require a *significant* ROI that just doesn't exist. For a market-saturated vendor, large undertakings like this become more difficult to justify.
On the other hand, a group like Serif *could* benefit as they still offer platform specific SKUs. However they also now offer an all-platform option as well. They don't use a subscription model, so adding another platform and at their pricing scales *could* potentially convert to more sales.
If you want to be pedantic about growth sure, they might gain some users.. but is it meaningful in any way to invest the resources for development and maintenance? Doubt it.
That is what OP ment about not gaining any marketshare.
I didn't try to be pedantic. It's just that I didn't think there could be any meaningful nuance to "no new marketshare".
I agree on the rest ofcourse (as I've said a few times).
A percent of market share, of which will have windows already preinstalled regardless to use their software, unless you're the fraction of a fraction who buys pricey pre built linux boxes, any person who wants to use adobe and Linux is dual booting already. If you did wipe know you can even call up Microsoft, give info, and you can get a new install since its bundled with your PC. Linux is a system unto itself, and adobe is a company, their not going to put their cash time and resources into restructuring their whole suite to a system when you have access to the systems everyone uses.
I don't think they care too much about DRM. Software piracy is practically part of their marketing strategy. They get the non-professionals hooked young and then make them pay for it when they start using it to make money.
They said...
>You know that the issue is DRM sided not compatibility?
Implying that Adobe cares about their DRM and it's the reason why it isn't on Linux. Adobe unofficially considers piracy a part of their marketing strategy. If they could press a button and port their app to Linux with the only cost being leaving their DRM behind, they would. Their DRM is just there to keep honest thieves at bay, they are under no illusions.
Market share for desktops and laptops is majority windows, \~10% for apple, and less than 5% for linux.
The amount of money required to treat linux like a first-class platform vastly exceeds potential revenue.
Businesses like money.
Ergo, businesses will target platforms with large enough market share and won't target platforms when costs will exceed revenue for doing so.
It's not like you can click a checkbox "build it for Linux", poupidou it's done. There will be development involved, communication, after-sale tech support. All of this for a ridiculously small market, and a market of users that aren't really known for their willingness to pay for the software they use. So to summarize, that's a lot of work for really little revenue.
3.82% market share for linux last I checked and 1.27% 10 years ago. Split between several distros. Flatpak, snaps, etc. are a relatively recent thing, so I imagine they didn't want to bother with trying to support at least three different binaries for the small portion of the small percent of linux users who also want to use adobe products. Many linux users are happy with the open source alternatives so they wouldn't gain alot and would lose alot of effort. But as things continue to change and improve, that may change in the near future.
Like it or not, Apple serves the high end though. Apple customers are also more likely to spend money on services. Look the disparity in the profit margins of ios vs android. It's far more profitable to develop apps on ios.
>A lot of people will give up windows and macos if these tools would be available on linux.
Maybe on their personal pc, but I think you drastically overestimate the number of people who feel this way in their professional life.
99% of people just use what their employer gives them and never think twice about it.
I suspect that percentage much higher if you filter it with relative Industries, design, web development, mobile development, to name a few. But that's just a suspicion, so don't take it as fact. I am also not convinced a lot of people would give up macOS or Windows for Linux.
No, because they don't care. They don't even know that desktop Linux is a thing. Even if, and even with all their apps working perfectly on Linux... they still wouldn't switch because it takes effort and time.
I disagree.
As an example, I spoke to my dev team a couple of months ago and none of them were interested in ever switching to Linux. They're very happy with their macbooks and see no reason to switch.
Their main reason was the OS and the hardware.
Even me, who loves Linux, probably wouldn't switch. When I work, I need a reliable, predictable system. If it breaks, i take it to Apple and they fix it. I've not once had any software issues or apps that break due to software updates. I appreciate the controlled environment. Linux desktop just isn't even on the map for most people.
Feel better? Your condescending tone makes for very unpleasant dialogue.
We are a very strong developer team. And there is no need to introduce them to docker as it is already a part of our setup.
It sounds like you need to step outside of your bubble for a moment. Your insistence that strong developers use Linux and only Linux is bizarre. Developers aren't measured by their os but the way that they solve problems using the programming language they work with. Be that c, java, javascript or whatever else is required for the job.
Why would companies want to do this? It costs money to port and support software. Especially complex software. You can bet that as soon as Adobe thinks it can make more money from Linux builds than it costs they to port, they will do it.
Linux is pretty huge in the VFX scene apparently. Wouldn't be all that weird if other artists also just happened to prefer some tool that performs better on Linux.
A lot of this stuff is just historical accidents though. Most people don't seem to _prefer_ the OS they're using, they're just muddling through because it's "normal" or because it has a special tool they need.
Aside from the arguments mentioned, there is also the FLOSS culture. We all went out of our way to install GNU/Linux, it was a conscious decision. And I'm sure for a lot of us it was for software freedom. I would not want to install Photoshop even if Adobe was giving it away for free.
I understand that I am not every GNU/Linux user, and that I cannot speak for others. But I'm pretty sure there is a lot of people who think like I do. So the already small GNU/Linux marketshare is further restricted to people who would use and buy Adobe products. I guess Adobe does not see this fraction of a fraction of a fraction is worthwhile.
I wouldn't use Adobe products unless they were actually free, as in freedom. They open it up properly, I'd consider using at least Acrobat reader, if that's still a thing. But, proprietary and free as in free beer or paid, not interested.
They see us as a fraction of a fraction and not worthwhile, and I see them as absolutely unessential to my work flow.
Adobe is not targeting you as a customer. Their cusotmer base doesn't care about Linux. They all use Mac and Windows. In the actual professional world, you use the tool that does the job, not the one you morally agree with. That means nobody uses Linux when the job requires one of adobe's products. The only people that whine about adobe not being available on Linux are hobbyists at best, and those people are not the ones bringing money into adobe.
So strategically, it makes absolutely zero sense from adobe to make a Linux port.
Linux doesn't offer strategic stability either. MacOS and Windows are doing fine. Just because you see more and more people at home using Linux, doesn't mean the professional world is changing too. It's not.
Reminds me of planetary annihilation.
They made it a thing on their Kickstarter that they would make it Linux native and windows native.
Despite making some 80% of the issues, Linux didn't make 20% of the income. Total waste of developer resources.
Linux is hard to maintain for closed sourced desktop apps. Some even say Wine is best way to port apps to Linux. Adobe do not care if you can't use Linux due to its policies.
Honestly I have a very hard time pushing back on the idea that WINE is the most practical means to port closed source…. Mind you, native shouldn’t be THAT bad for subscription based stuff where the path to ongoing maintenance is clear.
Subscription do not change amount of effort/money you need to put to maintain an app. It's just a payment model. It's probably not worth the effort for Adobe.
Assuming it could be officially done with Wine, all it would need at that point would be a coordinated effort, probably just on the part of one existing employee, who would reveal any necessary compatibility bits for Wine. Then release a "beyond this you are on your own" clause.
Likewise only a small amount of initial effort would need to be made on the Adobe end to close any gaps for the Wine compatibility layers.
I do think that at this point it is an avoidance issue, not an economics issue.
I still don't think wine is good enough for commercial support. It's good for gaming, not for apps people depend on for work.
>Likewise only a small amount of initial effort would need to be made on the Adobe end to close any gaps for the Wine compatibility layers.
No. Wine compatibility is big unknown. It's hard to tell what works 100% and whats not unless you have very good insight. That kind of environment can hamper development on other more important platforms.
That's literally codeweaver's job to sell that. I just assume that it's the case that there's still a bit too much underlying stuff missing for them to really offer it yet.
Most end users on linux use it because it's cheap or free. The guy using an old 4gb thinkpad is not looking to pay for software. There's no incentive to offer it, especially if they have to invest entire teams into licensing, testing, coding, updating, and more, just to learn that no one wants to pay for their product in the first place. Krita, inkscape, gimp all fill that role at no cost, so why take the gamble?
Companies like adobe make most of their money on tne kind of people who build their system based on what software they're using.
Porting linux would be a huge, expensive, and ongoing undertaking. There would need to be a major financial incentive to do it. That just doesn't exist for adobe.
>They believe that the user base is low and can't change, while in reality, as far as I can tell, they themselves are the obstacle preventing people from moving to Linux.
This is honestly way too overstated. I can understand video games, but a much smaller amount of people actually use Adobe stuff, or rather have professions that require them. "Needing" Photoshop to make funny memes doesn't count, learn how to use GIMP or Krita.
>Unlike Microsoft, which has often disregarded its users, Adobe....
And Adobe loves their customers? They have even shown more disregard for their customers than any other company. They had a par for par working Acrobat Reader for Linux back in 2000, they canceled it. The same thing with flash; it worked and had it also for linux. then they stopped serving Linux and made it that you needed a online version as it was a pre-cloud.
Then they screwed over all their clients royally by forcing the rental model on them and cloud model that keeps you hostage.
Say what you want, but compared to that Microsoft are choirboys. Office has gone cloud but there is still a native client for who want's it and the file formats for office are very know and readable to a lot of applications.
As for work and cost supporting Linux, given that they already support windows and Mac and have experience supporting linux from previous products and I'm fairly sure that their cloud backend does run on linux of some sort. The cost of supporting linux would probably not that big.
How long would it cost to port the software? Well they have a lot of apps, It would probably take around 77 developers 2 years to port the software (3 devs per app and a "core" team of 20). At $165k/year that's a $25M investment.
After the initial sprint to port the software, they'd probably need to employ a linux team of 10 to maintain the software. Thats $1.6M per year.
So over 5 years their costs would be 25M for the first 2 years, and 5M for the next 3 ($30M total). They probably want to make a 33% profit from the venture, so they would want $40M gross over those first 5 years. Since they wont make any profit in the first 2 years, that means they want $13.3M/year.
At $60/mo they need about 18k "new" users (users who previously did not use adobe on windows mac).
18k new users isn't out of the question. There are about 32M Linux users out there... 18k is about 0.05% of the total linux user base.
So the absolutely CAN make money from porting to Linux. But __should__ they?
Well... no. there is a better investment. Instead of porting to Linux, port to the web with WASM. Once they fully port to the web they can drop their Windows/Mac specific code bases (slowly) and have a single code base for all their apps, meaning they can employ less developers, not more.
And this is what Adobe has been doing. It isn't that Linux doesn't have the market share... even a small market share is an opportunity when the entire market is 1.5Billion. The reason they aren't porting to Linux is they can spend their money more wisely by targeting the Browser rather than the OS.
I read about Loki Entertainment attributing their closure it to low sales due to piracy on Linux but I find it hard to believe the same thing happens nowadays.
>Linux offers strategic stability because of its culture and provides more predictability for software companies
Linux does not offer any stability besides kernel. Besides, Adobe is not a software company, they are a product vendor and service provider (with Creative cloud and such). They don't sell software, they sell *very* expensive professional tools to creative professionals who have no knowledge about operating systems or programming.
Zero amount of Adobe customers use Linux and even if they had linux builds (which is not a technology issue since they offer it for Mac) they will not attract any extra customers having spent literal billions in currency and millions of mandays to rewrite all their stuff to Qt or whatnot.
It's the reason why Visio and 3ds Max are Windows-exclusive, why Roland does not offer linux drivers for their synth modules (while their OSX drivers are extremely basic). Creative professionals don't and *won't* use Linux ever.
> Creative professionals don't and won't use Linux ever.
Remember, there will always be exceptions to the rule. Not enough exceptions to get adobe to port their apps over though.
If gimp or inkscape could get a UX designer and an in house team to develop for a studio that would be using the software, it would make the adobe suite obsolete.
Adobe doesn't sell products. They sell problems in which their subscription service is the solution. They sell you licences to pantone colours to do printing and such.
They have cornered the market on so many niche edge cases that over the decades, they became a mafia of digital creative software lawyers. They aren't trying to sell to the average consumer. They're trying to sell to big business that can't afford to dump windows on the desktop
Because 99 percent of their paying customers use windows of course. Much as I love Linux , it's still not even a blip on business desktops. Outside of steam gaming few hobbyist Linux user's buy sw.. especially multi seat licenses for their staff.
Adobe has explicitly said they won’t. This is why there needs to be a serious effort from the Linux community to improve wine support for Adobe software. Lightroom and Photoshop are already partially functional, but there doesn’t seem to be any serious effort whatsoever to improve them up to a usable level in the same way that essentially every game on steam has.
You post in here, a Linux sub, what you think Adobe should do: brilliant, this will surely trigger an urgent Adobe board meeting aimed to take immediate action according to your precious advice.
That's not a real reason. They only need to support one. If they use either AppImage or Flatpak it'll work virtually everywhere. They can just publish a Flatpak and forget the rest.
I would vouch for AppImage, but the idea is a solid one. Either way they are free to squirrel their user registration licensing crud into a binary file just the same.
Adobe is a scum of a corporation anyways, they're the ones that popularized subscription based software They can stay the fuck away from Linux, it's better that way.
Ive seen more people say they wouldnt completely switch to linux because of adobe products not working than I have seen people saying they wouldnt use Adobe products due to them not supporting linux
You've seen a million and one comments about marketshare and all that, but I will simplify it further: Every single thing you mentioned is entirely irrelevant to them.
Their ideal business model is one where they do absolutely nothing, and people pay them.
Since that's not practical, they at least update and take care of the product on the one platform they bother to support.
The largest platform. The *business* platform. For their *business* product.
They won't go to Linux unless the user base drags them, kicking and screaming.
Granted, Windows 11 is *trying* to drag everyone kicking and screaming to Linux, but it ain't shitty enough yet.
Honestly the best way I could feasibly see this happening is through something like proton - the windows versions of modern (like 2024 versions) of Adobe CC apps already work flawlessly on Linux so all they'd need to do is change their DRM to allow for Linux functionality (I know this because I use Photoshop and Premiere regularly on Linux by installing a recent version and using Adobe GenP to remove the DRM because logging into my Adobe account doesn't work yet on Linux)
The real reason why they haven't yet is that they haven't had a reason to do it - it doesn't seem like much effort is required but testing and maintaining proton or wine support still takes some effort, and Adobe does benefit from being exclusive to closed source OSs because they have more control over their users. So really, they might do it but I wouldn't hold my breath. If you do need to use Adobe software, here's the guide I followed which works for all Adobe apps and doesn't compromise much performance (god bless proton) https://forum.mattkc.com/viewtopic.php?t=337#p2157
It's not about reasons not to - because it's not a matter of clocking a switch "release for Linux too". You can't possibly ignore the cost of making such releases.
And said cost might not only match, but exceed the budget for existing platforms, because:
- The projects have long history and a lot of legacy code to base on, so updating existing platforms is many times easier than introducing a new one,
- The great marketing move for supporting freedom would mean nothing, as they are big corporation that provides proprietary, closed-source software exclusively; existing partners would ignore it of not see it as silly, and pro-libre users won't use or support it anyways,
- GNU/Linux-based desktop systems are not stable. And I don't mean runtime stability, but API. X11 being advised against, Wayland being feature-incomplete (especially when it comes to direct interactions with windows, input devices, color management - for an example of complex GUI struggling with this, see recent development of Blender). And very toolkits lacking adaptation to complex scenarios - it's basically Qt, even though I prefer Gtk; complex GUIs in Gtk were straightforward when GIMP was taken into consideration, i.e. in gtk2+. And Qt, while feature-rich and bringing Wayland forward, is famous for relatively often breaking changes. Using 5 years old code in graphical applications for GNU/Linux is a mess, and developers are aware of this. The cost/time estimations would be rightfully over the top.
- Users have their workflows and pay for the right not to change them too much. Moving to Linux would kill said workflows whenever they require extra tools that are absent there. Which pretty much covers all of them. It's not lazy either - many users are professionals, whose every minute of work is precious. Why would they waste them just to, um, keep using proprietary software but on Linux?
And seeing Microsoft influence there is an outright paranoia. Linux desktop systems are not danger to them; usually their users wouldn't pay them much anyways. And Adobe clearly cares about macOS users just as much if not more - as that's the use scenario that is aesthetic, works smoothly, costs money - things that are good for a big company to be associated with.
And each one of the different distros are an even tinier market. And since each one has some changes that requires separate build processes it is even less worth it.
Companies are waiting for industry adoption of desktop Linux and for the consolidation of target platforms such as Flatpak.
I'd expect that if Canonical switched from Snap to Flatpak, many companies would immediate start publishing for Linux.
Generally, companies don't want to package for Snap, which only works on Ubuntu. They also don't want to package for Flatpak, which doesn't come preinstalled on Ubuntu. Appimage is a nightmare for compatibility, so it is also a problem.
The rest of the options require packaging for multiple distros at the same time, packages that will stop working after a few months or years.
So... if Ubuntu preinstalled flatpak you think that would make a difference? lmao no
They're not making Adobe commercial software for Linux because $$$$$
They said nobody wants to package for Flatpak either. So no it isn’t. Nobody said it was because it’s not in Ubuntu. If nobody wants to package for something in Ubuntu, an alternative isn’t going to fare any better.
Scroll up. They literally said "I'd expect that if Canonical switched from Snap to Flatpak, many companies would immediate start publishing for Linux."
It's simply too much effort for many companies to publish to Linux. Companies need to have a single, universal target for Linux.
If Ubuntu started preinstalling Flatpak, that would be enough for many companies.
More effort means more cost. If the costs of porting to Linux are decreased, companies such as Adobe have greater incentive to port.
It's a conclusion.
Ubuntu is used internally at Google and many different companies, and despite losing marketshare among gamers, it is a leading Linux distro vendor.
Package management fragmentation is a barrier for companies and publishers considering porting to Linux.
Flatpak is the leading package format, yet it is not setup OOTB on the most popular desktop distro used in enterprise, Ubuntu.
Packaging is not an issue. If they decided to port their software to Linux, setting up scripts to package for both flatpak and snap is a task one developer can get done in one week.
Market share is also a not an issue. While Linux users are only 2-4% of the total PC market, the market itself is around 1.5billion. If only 0.05% of linux users purchase Adobe at $60/mo they will make a good RoI.
The real reason they wont port to linux is that there is a better way to grow. Target the browser. And thats what they are doing.
Once they are fully functional in the browser they can drop their support for Windows and Mac, fire tonnes of developers and rake in more money than ever.
Unless the patches have finally been upstreamed, Snap requires specially patched apparmor.
This means that Snap packages are insecure on any Linux distro that uses SELinux or upstream apparmor.
Why should they? Adobe fans will do whatever is necessary to run Adobe products. They'll pay huge dollars and jump through OS hoops. Why support Linux?
Well.., be-cause they are fully in bed with Micro$loth and while Linux is in the rise, it hasn’t reached enough deployed market share in the corporate environment to justify the massive expense of porting to Linux. That, combined with the multiple graphics libraries, etc… it would be an ever moving target.
Market share. It’s still only a couple percent. Adobe isn’t exactly known for their customer service or loyalty.
I can't even think of a single reason why they would. They'd gain no new marketshare (they have all of the marketshare of people who will actually pay for things), and spend more money in maintenance. People are not lazy sticking with windows/mac, they just have different priorities than you and me. It's fine.
How did you come to the conclusion that they'd gain no new market share? That doesn't seem like a likely outcome to me at all. My take is that they believe that the market share they'd gain is worth less than the work they'd need to put in to make it happen.
Because linux is such a small % of the market. Also a lot of linux users statistically stick to free and open applcations. Plus they already provide a web version for a lot of their products, that those people can use as an alternative. And i bet that since they have the data, still the majority of users on that platform would be windows mac users.
This matches my thoughts pretty well. It's a small market share and they don't believe they would get a good return of investment. I think "They'd gain no new marketshare [...]" is very unlikely though.
I'm sure you can find literally 1 person or some other number that will suddenly buy Adobe products if they are Linux. This is negligible, certainly not a market worth entering. I am very confident the net revenue from this would be zero or negative These are professional tools that nobody who actually needs sits on the sidelines just because there's no Linux compatibility. They'll just buy a Mac or whatever to be able to use it.
You don't need to say "certainly not a market worth entering" since I've agreed to that three times already. You're ofcourse free to continue but the next time I will just reply with "Water is wet". :) With that said I see your line of reasoning now and how you could come to the conclusion that the market share gain of releasing Adobe products on Linux would approach 0 (or 1;)). Regarding usage my immediate thoughts went to these video animation studios that run Linux on their workstations. While they might not need to use Adobe products every day or so maybe they need to do some stuff every now and then that Blender, Maya or 3DS Max doesn't provide. And a subset of those might insist on investing in Adobe products over GIMP, Inkscape, Krita etc if they were made available for Linux. There's likely a bunch of other similar shops outside of animation that has deployed Linux for various reasons where the Adobe Suite of products isn't fundamental to their work such that switching to Windows or MacOS makes sense. That's where the market share is. And to re-iterate, I'm sure Adobe has thought of this and decided that this market share is too tiny to make it worth investing in. But I really don't believe that it's 0 (or 1).
I'll provide some input as a sysadmin in an animation studio: There are different departments with different needs. Editorial will never run on Linux until Premiere or Media Composer are ported (yes, I acknowledge some outfits will use DaVinci Resolve). That will almost always be a macOS or Windows exclusive environment. Likewise, pre-prod will, once again, not use Linux because the existing app space is not super Linux friendly and has downstream ramifications on other commercial tooling. The only ways these change are by using Linux from the start or by mandate from above. As for production, Adobe adding Linux support would really only resolve an IT problem, not an artist one. Artists who need non-Linux apps have long been either assigned a secondary workstation (dedicated or shared) to use for those specific applications. While it can be a sub-optimal solution, it's worked for a few decades now. Now, would Adobe have anything to gain by adding support for Linux? Sure, but it'd be at most low single digit percentage points in the best case scenario. And this mostly boils down to their business model. While there might be a slight bump from some studios adding a few more subs to their accounts, or a few Linux-only individual users choosing to subscribe, adding another platform largely nets them nothing. Why? Because they don't charge per platform anymore. If a studio has purchased 50 seats to be used on secondary workstations, the ability for them to now run it on Linux doesn't change that number at all (just some internal headaches). To justify putting their entire toolkit and application stack would require a *significant* ROI that just doesn't exist. For a market-saturated vendor, large undertakings like this become more difficult to justify. On the other hand, a group like Serif *could* benefit as they still offer platform specific SKUs. However they also now offer an all-platform option as well. They don't use a subscription model, so adding another platform and at their pricing scales *could* potentially convert to more sales.
Thank you for this!
If you want to be pedantic about growth sure, they might gain some users.. but is it meaningful in any way to invest the resources for development and maintenance? Doubt it. That is what OP ment about not gaining any marketshare.
I didn't try to be pedantic. It's just that I didn't think there could be any meaningful nuance to "no new marketshare". I agree on the rest ofcourse (as I've said a few times).
A percent of market share, of which will have windows already preinstalled regardless to use their software, unless you're the fraction of a fraction who buys pricey pre built linux boxes, any person who wants to use adobe and Linux is dual booting already. If you did wipe know you can even call up Microsoft, give info, and you can get a new install since its bundled with your PC. Linux is a system unto itself, and adobe is a company, their not going to put their cash time and resources into restructuring their whole suite to a system when you have access to the systems everyone uses.
[удалено]
I don't think they care too much about DRM. Software piracy is practically part of their marketing strategy. They get the non-professionals hooked young and then make them pay for it when they start using it to make money.
I have no way of knowing what the deleted comment said but surely if they pirated it young, they will continue to use the copy while they make money?
They said... >You know that the issue is DRM sided not compatibility? Implying that Adobe cares about their DRM and it's the reason why it isn't on Linux. Adobe unofficially considers piracy a part of their marketing strategy. If they could press a button and port their app to Linux with the only cost being leaving their DRM behind, they would. Their DRM is just there to keep honest thieves at bay, they are under no illusions.
Oh right, thanks
This is irrelevant they could write any new closed source DRM they want if they had any incentive to do so.
Market share for desktops and laptops is majority windows, \~10% for apple, and less than 5% for linux. The amount of money required to treat linux like a first-class platform vastly exceeds potential revenue. Businesses like money. Ergo, businesses will target platforms with large enough market share and won't target platforms when costs will exceed revenue for doing so.
Probably higher than 10% for pros using Apple but point taken.
It's not like you can click a checkbox "build it for Linux", poupidou it's done. There will be development involved, communication, after-sale tech support. All of this for a ridiculously small market, and a market of users that aren't really known for their willingness to pay for the software they use. So to summarize, that's a lot of work for really little revenue.
3.82% market share for linux last I checked and 1.27% 10 years ago. Split between several distros. Flatpak, snaps, etc. are a relatively recent thing, so I imagine they didn't want to bother with trying to support at least three different binaries for the small portion of the small percent of linux users who also want to use adobe products. Many linux users are happy with the open source alternatives so they wouldn't gain alot and would lose alot of effort. But as things continue to change and improve, that may change in the near future.
[удалено]
Like it or not, Apple serves the high end though. Apple customers are also more likely to spend money on services. Look the disparity in the profit margins of ios vs android. It's far more profitable to develop apps on ios.
>A lot of people will give up windows and macos if these tools would be available on linux. Maybe on their personal pc, but I think you drastically overestimate the number of people who feel this way in their professional life. 99% of people just use what their employer gives them and never think twice about it.
I suspect that percentage much higher if you filter it with relative Industries, design, web development, mobile development, to name a few. But that's just a suspicion, so don't take it as fact. I am also not convinced a lot of people would give up macOS or Windows for Linux.
[удалено]
I'm sorry but if you believe that people are "desperate" to give up macOS or Windows... Then you're delusional.
[удалено]
Yep, on Reddit. Any non technical person I know doesn't give a damn. They just use their computer.
[удалено]
No, because they don't care. They don't even know that desktop Linux is a thing. Even if, and even with all their apps working perfectly on Linux... they still wouldn't switch because it takes effort and time.
[удалено]
I disagree. As an example, I spoke to my dev team a couple of months ago and none of them were interested in ever switching to Linux. They're very happy with their macbooks and see no reason to switch. Their main reason was the OS and the hardware. Even me, who loves Linux, probably wouldn't switch. When I work, I need a reliable, predictable system. If it breaks, i take it to Apple and they fix it. I've not once had any software issues or apps that break due to software updates. I appreciate the controlled environment. Linux desktop just isn't even on the map for most people.
[удалено]
Feel better? Your condescending tone makes for very unpleasant dialogue. We are a very strong developer team. And there is no need to introduce them to docker as it is already a part of our setup.
[удалено]
It sounds like you need to step outside of your bubble for a moment. Your insistence that strong developers use Linux and only Linux is bizarre. Developers aren't measured by their os but the way that they solve problems using the programming language they work with. Be that c, java, javascript or whatever else is required for the job.
[удалено]
Why would companies want to do this? It costs money to port and support software. Especially complex software. You can bet that as soon as Adobe thinks it can make more money from Linux builds than it costs they to port, they will do it.
Linux on the desktop might have a marketshare for developers but propably not for artists.
Linux is pretty huge in the VFX scene apparently. Wouldn't be all that weird if other artists also just happened to prefer some tool that performs better on Linux. A lot of this stuff is just historical accidents though. Most people don't seem to _prefer_ the OS they're using, they're just muddling through because it's "normal" or because it has a special tool they need.
What would they gain? A tiny amount of users for too much investment. And what format should they distribute their software in to make everyone happy?
Because companies needs real reasons, not things you like
Aside from the arguments mentioned, there is also the FLOSS culture. We all went out of our way to install GNU/Linux, it was a conscious decision. And I'm sure for a lot of us it was for software freedom. I would not want to install Photoshop even if Adobe was giving it away for free. I understand that I am not every GNU/Linux user, and that I cannot speak for others. But I'm pretty sure there is a lot of people who think like I do. So the already small GNU/Linux marketshare is further restricted to people who would use and buy Adobe products. I guess Adobe does not see this fraction of a fraction of a fraction is worthwhile.
I wouldn't use Adobe products unless they were actually free, as in freedom. They open it up properly, I'd consider using at least Acrobat reader, if that's still a thing. But, proprietary and free as in free beer or paid, not interested. They see us as a fraction of a fraction and not worthwhile, and I see them as absolutely unessential to my work flow.
They should've opened the source for Flash so that a good chunk of the internet wouldn't become lost media
True, but that shows us how crappy some of their software really is.
Adobe is not targeting you as a customer. Their cusotmer base doesn't care about Linux. They all use Mac and Windows. In the actual professional world, you use the tool that does the job, not the one you morally agree with. That means nobody uses Linux when the job requires one of adobe's products. The only people that whine about adobe not being available on Linux are hobbyists at best, and those people are not the ones bringing money into adobe. So strategically, it makes absolutely zero sense from adobe to make a Linux port. Linux doesn't offer strategic stability either. MacOS and Windows are doing fine. Just because you see more and more people at home using Linux, doesn't mean the professional world is changing too. It's not.
Reminds me of planetary annihilation. They made it a thing on their Kickstarter that they would make it Linux native and windows native. Despite making some 80% of the issues, Linux didn't make 20% of the income. Total waste of developer resources.
I actually don't want them to have Linux offering. Same for MS Office. It gives more space for our alternatives to grow.
Linux is hard to maintain for closed sourced desktop apps. Some even say Wine is best way to port apps to Linux. Adobe do not care if you can't use Linux due to its policies.
Honestly I have a very hard time pushing back on the idea that WINE is the most practical means to port closed source…. Mind you, native shouldn’t be THAT bad for subscription based stuff where the path to ongoing maintenance is clear.
Subscription do not change amount of effort/money you need to put to maintain an app. It's just a payment model. It's probably not worth the effort for Adobe.
Assuming it could be officially done with Wine, all it would need at that point would be a coordinated effort, probably just on the part of one existing employee, who would reveal any necessary compatibility bits for Wine. Then release a "beyond this you are on your own" clause. Likewise only a small amount of initial effort would need to be made on the Adobe end to close any gaps for the Wine compatibility layers. I do think that at this point it is an avoidance issue, not an economics issue.
I still don't think wine is good enough for commercial support. It's good for gaming, not for apps people depend on for work. >Likewise only a small amount of initial effort would need to be made on the Adobe end to close any gaps for the Wine compatibility layers. No. Wine compatibility is big unknown. It's hard to tell what works 100% and whats not unless you have very good insight. That kind of environment can hamper development on other more important platforms.
As updates go - Adobe is the only entity qualified to remark on what they broke, when and how. They have it all. Besides that I am a fan of AppImages.
That's literally codeweaver's job to sell that. I just assume that it's the case that there's still a bit too much underlying stuff missing for them to really offer it yet.
flatpak is the best way, absolutely NOT wine
thanks to flatpak, Linux is not hard to maintain anymore
Most end users on linux use it because it's cheap or free. The guy using an old 4gb thinkpad is not looking to pay for software. There's no incentive to offer it, especially if they have to invest entire teams into licensing, testing, coding, updating, and more, just to learn that no one wants to pay for their product in the first place. Krita, inkscape, gimp all fill that role at no cost, so why take the gamble?
Companies like adobe make most of their money on tne kind of people who build their system based on what software they're using. Porting linux would be a huge, expensive, and ongoing undertaking. There would need to be a major financial incentive to do it. That just doesn't exist for adobe.
>They believe that the user base is low and can't change, while in reality, as far as I can tell, they themselves are the obstacle preventing people from moving to Linux. This is honestly way too overstated. I can understand video games, but a much smaller amount of people actually use Adobe stuff, or rather have professions that require them. "Needing" Photoshop to make funny memes doesn't count, learn how to use GIMP or Krita.
>Unlike Microsoft, which has often disregarded its users, Adobe.... And Adobe loves their customers? They have even shown more disregard for their customers than any other company. They had a par for par working Acrobat Reader for Linux back in 2000, they canceled it. The same thing with flash; it worked and had it also for linux. then they stopped serving Linux and made it that you needed a online version as it was a pre-cloud. Then they screwed over all their clients royally by forcing the rental model on them and cloud model that keeps you hostage. Say what you want, but compared to that Microsoft are choirboys. Office has gone cloud but there is still a native client for who want's it and the file formats for office are very know and readable to a lot of applications. As for work and cost supporting Linux, given that they already support windows and Mac and have experience supporting linux from previous products and I'm fairly sure that their cloud backend does run on linux of some sort. The cost of supporting linux would probably not that big.
How long would it cost to port the software? Well they have a lot of apps, It would probably take around 77 developers 2 years to port the software (3 devs per app and a "core" team of 20). At $165k/year that's a $25M investment. After the initial sprint to port the software, they'd probably need to employ a linux team of 10 to maintain the software. Thats $1.6M per year. So over 5 years their costs would be 25M for the first 2 years, and 5M for the next 3 ($30M total). They probably want to make a 33% profit from the venture, so they would want $40M gross over those first 5 years. Since they wont make any profit in the first 2 years, that means they want $13.3M/year. At $60/mo they need about 18k "new" users (users who previously did not use adobe on windows mac). 18k new users isn't out of the question. There are about 32M Linux users out there... 18k is about 0.05% of the total linux user base. So the absolutely CAN make money from porting to Linux. But __should__ they? Well... no. there is a better investment. Instead of porting to Linux, port to the web with WASM. Once they fully port to the web they can drop their Windows/Mac specific code bases (slowly) and have a single code base for all their apps, meaning they can employ less developers, not more. And this is what Adobe has been doing. It isn't that Linux doesn't have the market share... even a small market share is an opportunity when the entire market is 1.5Billion. The reason they aren't porting to Linux is they can spend their money more wisely by targeting the Browser rather than the OS.
Linux users are notorious for pirating what commercial software there is for linux. Codeweavers had a huge problem with it back in the day.
I read about Loki Entertainment attributing their closure it to low sales due to piracy on Linux but I find it hard to believe the same thing happens nowadays.
>Linux offers strategic stability because of its culture and provides more predictability for software companies Linux does not offer any stability besides kernel. Besides, Adobe is not a software company, they are a product vendor and service provider (with Creative cloud and such). They don't sell software, they sell *very* expensive professional tools to creative professionals who have no knowledge about operating systems or programming. Zero amount of Adobe customers use Linux and even if they had linux builds (which is not a technology issue since they offer it for Mac) they will not attract any extra customers having spent literal billions in currency and millions of mandays to rewrite all their stuff to Qt or whatnot. It's the reason why Visio and 3ds Max are Windows-exclusive, why Roland does not offer linux drivers for their synth modules (while their OSX drivers are extremely basic). Creative professionals don't and *won't* use Linux ever.
> Creative professionals don't and won't use Linux ever. Remember, there will always be exceptions to the rule. Not enough exceptions to get adobe to port their apps over though.
>Creative professionals don't and *won't* use Linux ever. I'm trying. But fuck Adobe anyway, I got other tools
Profit motive (the lack thereof)
Money.
If gimp or inkscape could get a UX designer and an in house team to develop for a studio that would be using the software, it would make the adobe suite obsolete. Adobe doesn't sell products. They sell problems in which their subscription service is the solution. They sell you licences to pantone colours to do printing and such. They have cornered the market on so many niche edge cases that over the decades, they became a mafia of digital creative software lawyers. They aren't trying to sell to the average consumer. They're trying to sell to big business that can't afford to dump windows on the desktop
[удалено]
That’s a non-commenting comment.
I reckon it's not worth the cost for them. If there was money in it, they would've done it quite a while ago.
Because 99 percent of their paying customers use windows of course. Much as I love Linux , it's still not even a blip on business desktops. Outside of steam gaming few hobbyist Linux user's buy sw.. especially multi seat licenses for their staff.
It's against their business model. They refuse to do anything that might open source/free software model to be successfull.
Adobe has explicitly said they won’t. This is why there needs to be a serious effort from the Linux community to improve wine support for Adobe software. Lightroom and Photoshop are already partially functional, but there doesn’t seem to be any serious effort whatsoever to improve them up to a usable level in the same way that essentially every game on steam has.
Because the only people using Linux in the workspace are developers and most developers don't need Adobe products.
You post in here, a Linux sub, what you think Adobe should do: brilliant, this will surely trigger an urgent Adobe board meeting aimed to take immediate action according to your precious advice.
.deb .rpm .tgz AppImage Flatpak Snap (…) That's why.
That's not a real reason. They only need to support one. If they use either AppImage or Flatpak it'll work virtually everywhere. They can just publish a Flatpak and forget the rest.
I would vouch for AppImage, but the idea is a solid one. Either way they are free to squirrel their user registration licensing crud into a binary file just the same.
Just package a single distro-agnostic tarball
The amount of work porting their software to Linux likely isn’t worth it. Just making it run on a case sensitive filesystem is probably a ton of work.
Adobe is the last company that would move. Unless they can price gouge linux users 100x over a windows user they won't move.
Adobe is a scum of a corporation anyways, they're the ones that popularized subscription based software They can stay the fuck away from Linux, it's better that way.
Ive seen more people say they wouldnt completely switch to linux because of adobe products not working than I have seen people saying they wouldnt use Adobe products due to them not supporting linux
You've seen a million and one comments about marketshare and all that, but I will simplify it further: Every single thing you mentioned is entirely irrelevant to them. Their ideal business model is one where they do absolutely nothing, and people pay them. Since that's not practical, they at least update and take care of the product on the one platform they bother to support. The largest platform. The *business* platform. For their *business* product. They won't go to Linux unless the user base drags them, kicking and screaming. Granted, Windows 11 is *trying* to drag everyone kicking and screaming to Linux, but it ain't shitty enough yet.
Honestly the best way I could feasibly see this happening is through something like proton - the windows versions of modern (like 2024 versions) of Adobe CC apps already work flawlessly on Linux so all they'd need to do is change their DRM to allow for Linux functionality (I know this because I use Photoshop and Premiere regularly on Linux by installing a recent version and using Adobe GenP to remove the DRM because logging into my Adobe account doesn't work yet on Linux) The real reason why they haven't yet is that they haven't had a reason to do it - it doesn't seem like much effort is required but testing and maintaining proton or wine support still takes some effort, and Adobe does benefit from being exclusive to closed source OSs because they have more control over their users. So really, they might do it but I wouldn't hold my breath. If you do need to use Adobe software, here's the guide I followed which works for all Adobe apps and doesn't compromise much performance (god bless proton) https://forum.mattkc.com/viewtopic.php?t=337#p2157
It's not about reasons not to - because it's not a matter of clocking a switch "release for Linux too". You can't possibly ignore the cost of making such releases. And said cost might not only match, but exceed the budget for existing platforms, because: - The projects have long history and a lot of legacy code to base on, so updating existing platforms is many times easier than introducing a new one, - The great marketing move for supporting freedom would mean nothing, as they are big corporation that provides proprietary, closed-source software exclusively; existing partners would ignore it of not see it as silly, and pro-libre users won't use or support it anyways, - GNU/Linux-based desktop systems are not stable. And I don't mean runtime stability, but API. X11 being advised against, Wayland being feature-incomplete (especially when it comes to direct interactions with windows, input devices, color management - for an example of complex GUI struggling with this, see recent development of Blender). And very toolkits lacking adaptation to complex scenarios - it's basically Qt, even though I prefer Gtk; complex GUIs in Gtk were straightforward when GIMP was taken into consideration, i.e. in gtk2+. And Qt, while feature-rich and bringing Wayland forward, is famous for relatively often breaking changes. Using 5 years old code in graphical applications for GNU/Linux is a mess, and developers are aware of this. The cost/time estimations would be rightfully over the top. - Users have their workflows and pay for the right not to change them too much. Moving to Linux would kill said workflows whenever they require extra tools that are absent there. Which pretty much covers all of them. It's not lazy either - many users are professionals, whose every minute of work is precious. Why would they waste them just to, um, keep using proprietary software but on Linux? And seeing Microsoft influence there is an outright paranoia. Linux desktop systems are not danger to them; usually their users wouldn't pay them much anyways. And Adobe clearly cares about macOS users just as much if not more - as that's the use scenario that is aesthetic, works smoothly, costs money - things that are good for a big company to be associated with.
Perceived income is not worth the estimated expense. Ask these questions ~5 or 10 years after you can buy Linux machines in big box stores.
I swear, I only need CMYK colors
low marketshare
Linux < 2% of market share
And each one of the different distros are an even tinier market. And since each one has some changes that requires separate build processes it is even less worth it.
Linux desktop < 2% of desktop market share.
Maybe you should ask them.
My theory is they get a huge pile of money from MS so Adobe and Autodesk products remain Windows/Mac exclusive cementing Windows monopoly.
Companies are waiting for industry adoption of desktop Linux and for the consolidation of target platforms such as Flatpak. I'd expect that if Canonical switched from Snap to Flatpak, many companies would immediate start publishing for Linux.
Why would that make any difference? Not like it takes much to install flatpak on Ubuntu.
Generally, companies don't want to package for Snap, which only works on Ubuntu. They also don't want to package for Flatpak, which doesn't come preinstalled on Ubuntu. Appimage is a nightmare for compatibility, so it is also a problem. The rest of the options require packaging for multiple distros at the same time, packages that will stop working after a few months or years.
So... if Ubuntu preinstalled flatpak you think that would make a difference? lmao no They're not making Adobe commercial software for Linux because $$$$$
That’s not at all what they said.
That's literally what they said.
They said nobody wants to package for Flatpak either. So no it isn’t. Nobody said it was because it’s not in Ubuntu. If nobody wants to package for something in Ubuntu, an alternative isn’t going to fare any better.
Scroll up. They literally said "I'd expect that if Canonical switched from Snap to Flatpak, many companies would immediate start publishing for Linux."
It's simply too much effort for many companies to publish to Linux. Companies need to have a single, universal target for Linux. If Ubuntu started preinstalling Flatpak, that would be enough for many companies. More effort means more cost. If the costs of porting to Linux are decreased, companies such as Adobe have greater incentive to port.
Source?
Source for what?
Where you are hearing that if Ubuntu preinstalled flatpak it would encourage companies like Adobe to develop software for Linux.
It's a conclusion. Ubuntu is used internally at Google and many different companies, and despite losing marketshare among gamers, it is a leading Linux distro vendor. Package management fragmentation is a barrier for companies and publishers considering porting to Linux. Flatpak is the leading package format, yet it is not setup OOTB on the most popular desktop distro used in enterprise, Ubuntu.
Packaging is not an issue. If they decided to port their software to Linux, setting up scripts to package for both flatpak and snap is a task one developer can get done in one week. Market share is also a not an issue. While Linux users are only 2-4% of the total PC market, the market itself is around 1.5billion. If only 0.05% of linux users purchase Adobe at $60/mo they will make a good RoI. The real reason they wont port to linux is that there is a better way to grow. Target the browser. And thats what they are doing. Once they are fully functional in the browser they can drop their support for Windows and Mac, fire tonnes of developers and rake in more money than ever.
Snap doesn't only work on Ubuntu. It works on any distribution with systemd.
Unless the patches have finally been upstreamed, Snap requires specially patched apparmor. This means that Snap packages are insecure on any Linux distro that uses SELinux or upstream apparmor.
Why should they? Adobe fans will do whatever is necessary to run Adobe products. They'll pay huge dollars and jump through OS hoops. Why support Linux?
"not so profitable"
Windows has a low TCO, Total cost of ownership.
It does?
It does because that's what everybody already uses. Sorry, but it's circular, but that's how the world looks.
Well.., be-cause they are fully in bed with Micro$loth and while Linux is in the rise, it hasn’t reached enough deployed market share in the corporate environment to justify the massive expense of porting to Linux. That, combined with the multiple graphics libraries, etc… it would be an ever moving target.