One of the main impediments to the adoption of Linux on the desktop is the
lack of support for popular apps. Specifically, the report cited Photoshop,
PageMaker, AutoCAD, and Quicken.
Nothing has changed in the intervening two years. Adobe's Photoshop and
PageMaker (and its successor, InDesign), as well as Quicken, are still
available on Windows and Mac only; AutoCAD only comes in Microsoft flavor.
True, you can run Photoshop and Quicken using Codeweavers' Crossover Linux,
a shell that sits on top of Linux and enables Windows apps to run. However,
by definition, only sophisticated users do this.
One can well understand why garage software shops might avoid Linux and
attempt instead to mine the more populated Windows user base. But why does
one suppose that major vendors like Adobe and AutoDesk avoid Linux? It's
because the payoff isn't worth the trouble.
Even if a company's marketing department can be confident that it'll sell a
lot of Linux software, qualifying Linux apps is a logistical nightmare and a
costly mess. This will remain a stumbling blog for large and small vendors
alike.
The reason is, there's no such thing as a single "Linux." If you want to
qualify an app on the open-source OS, you've got to test and verify that it
runs on a bunch of specific distributions. Commercially speaking, this means
a minimum of four distros -- desktop and enterprise varieties from Red Hat
and Novell. Then, a vendor has to decide if it wants to support a popular
community distro like Ubuntu.
There you have it. Linux and that shitty Ubuntu will always be toys for
geeks who can't get laid.
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