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That’s missing the point by focusing on a proof of concept. It’s a very long way from showing a mostly-cross-platform OSS tool, to being an ISV that provides te

That’s missing the point by focusing on a proof of concept. It’s a very long way from showing a mostly-cross-platform OSS tool, to being an ISV that provides technical support and maintenance for a significant commercial application, for millions of nontechnical users, with legacy support, on a mercurial set of cross-platform moving targets. To a product manager, this looks like a black hole where money and engineering/tech support resources get chewed up with very little value creation to show for it. It’s also how some very mediocre distributions became enterprise standards for Linux - their value proposition basically being, “we’re not a moving target, and the Fortune 500 can buy a maintenance contract from us”. But this only happened in server land, where the hardware ecosystem isn’t so chaotic.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
It's not missing the point at all. "significant commercial application": you have no idea how many downloads or users of Ardour there are. "mercurial set of cross-platform moving targets": precisely what is addressed. "nontechnical users": that's a new constraint not present in the original description, but probably not much of an issue if you're discussing a specialized tool rather than a "desktop" application. "hardware ecosystem": completely irrelevant to the case in question.
- deleted 5y ago
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- inopinatus 5y ago
  Looking past the ridiculous hostility; the case in question is why it’s super rare to target Linux for desktop applications. The example offered has none of the trappings of a commercial offering. By all means, though, all the best with your startup.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    It's a 21 year old project that nets in excess of US$200k/year, and has been the basis of 3 commercial spinoff products. Not a large scale commercial project, certainly, but not a startup. The question wasn't "why it’s super rare to target Linux for desktop applications". It wasn't a question at all, in fact. It was an assertion that it's hard to package 3rd party applications for Linux, and I am asserting that this claim is incorrect. As to whether or not the packaging situation explains why it's super rare to target Linux for desktop application, that is indeed a different question, with multiple answers.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

It's not missing the point at all. "significant commercial application": you have no idea how many downloads or users of Ardour there are. "mercurial set of cross-platform moving targets": precisely what is addressed. "nontechnical users": that's a new constraint not present in the original description, but probably not much of an issue if you're discussing a specialized tool rather than a "desktop" application. "hardware ecosystem": completely irrelevant to the case in question.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
inopinatus 5y ago
Looking past the ridiculous hostility; the case in question is why it’s super rare to target Linux for desktop applications. The example offered has none of the trappings of a commercial offering. By all means, though, all the best with your startup.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  It's a 21 year old project that nets in excess of US$200k/year, and has been the basis of 3 commercial spinoff products. Not a large scale commercial project, certainly, but not a startup. The question wasn't "why it’s super rare to target Linux for desktop applications". It wasn't a question at all, in fact. It was an assertion that it's hard to package 3rd party applications for Linux, and I am asserting that this claim is incorrect. As to whether or not the packaging situation explains why it's super rare to target Linux for desktop application, that is indeed a different question, with multiple answers.