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I used to work for NI, and at that time (15 years ago) almost everything worked on Linux. But it wasn't shipped because of packaging and support. Now that I'm

by wheels 3y ago

I used to work for NI, and at that time (15 years ago) almost everything worked on Linux. But it wasn't shipped because of packaging and support. Now that I'm back to the audio software business, our current product has shipped on Linux so far, but we're dropping support in the next version because of the disproportionate support costs. To a first approximation, Linux support a bit more expensive than supporting macOS or Windows, with about 1/50th the return. Again, that calculus would change for embedded usage.

pabs3 3y ago
By support do you mean that Linux users have more questions than macOS/Windows users? Or that porting/writing/updating/building the code takes more time?
- wheels 3y ago
  It's a bunch of stuff. - Standard libraries for audio software are less tested on Linux and tend to be buggier there, and we have to chase down those bugs. - There are a bajillion versions of Linux, and even if you say you only support some subset of those, Linux users will ignore that and still write to support when it doesn't work on their distro / version. Sometimes that even extends to writing bad reviews online. - Packaging on Linux is annoying since there are a bunch of different formats, and nothing will make everyone happy. Because of those issues, we probably get almost as much support mail for Linux as for macOS or Windows, despite Linux being 1% of our user base. From a cost perspective, it just doesn't make sense to keep supporting it. Ironically, we'll keep developing it, because we do some of the development on Linux, and often test on Linux before Windows. From what I know of other companies: we're not unique there, and I thought some of this might be interesting info for pro-audio Linux users.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    If it were me, I'd just focus on making sure it works well on Fedora. PipeWire is in the OOBE, and is where a good chunk of pro audio folks have settled due to top-notch PipeWire support.
    - wheels 3y ago
      This is exactly the sort of email we get. Except that this would literally be the first request for Fedora, exactly exemplifying our problem. (Most of our users request things with Ubuntu / Debian bases.)
      - hammyhavoc 3y ago
        I'm not requesting you do anything, I'm not even a customer (as far as I know), I'm saying what I would do in your position if I was aiming to support an audio product on Linux. I explained why I would choose Fedora. It's your business, you run it as you see fit. I can't help but feel that maybe you read too much into what you get sent. I would pick one "known good config" (your distro of choice), present it as what it gets tested on prior to release, and for anything else, you're on your own, that's part-and-parcel to being a Linux user. It assumes some kind of ability to troubleshoot and solve your own problems. It isn't for everybody, just like a Mac or Windows isn't for everybody. Officially, DaVinci Resolve has CentOS as the only supported config, but it runs on other Linux distros just fine. Doesn't seem to hurt its popularity on Linux. If you go back a couple decades, there was even developer-recommended hardware for specific DAWs. People will use whatever gets the job done, your product or not, Linux or not.
        gcr 3y ago
        I'm glad you have good ideas about how to run a business like this. But I think your post illustrates the idea that, unlike windows or mac users, us Linux users have opinions about how the business should be run, and we tend to voice them through support channels and emails and social media etc. Every time we voice our ideas, it generates a ticket or a discussion or a decision that they have to deal with. The act of contemplating these possible ideas, whether that means discussing them with the team or deleting the email or reading the slashdot thread, costs the business time and attention. Each time a company makes a concrete decision -- "let's only support Fedora," to use your example -- 80% of the potential linux user base you'd even care about (ubuntu users) is out of luck. This is true for "let's care only about pulseaudio," "let's only care about ALSA," "let's only care about this specific glib version," etc. The intersection of these decisions is very small. You're saying they should pick one supported configuration and stick with it. That's what they're already doing though -- it's just not an operating system that runs Linux. We can keep around a hardware-specific Windows box just the same.
likeclockwork 3y ago
I hope you don't work on anything I depend on!

by wheels 3y ago

pabs3 3y ago

By support do you mean that Linux users have more questions than macOS/Windows users? Or that porting/writing/updating/building the code takes more time?

wheels 3y ago
It's a bunch of stuff. - Standard libraries for audio software are less tested on Linux and tend to be buggier there, and we have to chase down those bugs. - There are a bajillion versions of Linux, and even if you say you only support some subset of those, Linux users will ignore that and still write to support when it doesn't work on their distro / version. Sometimes that even extends to writing bad reviews online. - Packaging on Linux is annoying since there are a bunch of different formats, and nothing will make everyone happy. Because of those issues, we probably get almost as much support mail for Linux as for macOS or Windows, despite Linux being 1% of our user base. From a cost perspective, it just doesn't make sense to keep supporting it. Ironically, we'll keep developing it, because we do some of the development on Linux, and often test on Linux before Windows. From what I know of other companies: we're not unique there, and I thought some of this might be interesting info for pro-audio Linux users.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  If it were me, I'd just focus on making sure it works well on Fedora. PipeWire is in the OOBE, and is where a good chunk of pro audio folks have settled due to top-notch PipeWire support.
  - wheels 3y ago
    This is exactly the sort of email we get. Except that this would literally be the first request for Fedora, exactly exemplifying our problem. (Most of our users request things with Ubuntu / Debian bases.)
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      I'm not requesting you do anything, I'm not even a customer (as far as I know), I'm saying what I would do in your position if I was aiming to support an audio product on Linux. I explained why I would choose Fedora. It's your business, you run it as you see fit. I can't help but feel that maybe you read too much into what you get sent. I would pick one "known good config" (your distro of choice), present it as what it gets tested on prior to release, and for anything else, you're on your own, that's part-and-parcel to being a Linux user. It assumes some kind of ability to troubleshoot and solve your own problems. It isn't for everybody, just like a Mac or Windows isn't for everybody. Officially, DaVinci Resolve has CentOS as the only supported config, but it runs on other Linux distros just fine. Doesn't seem to hurt its popularity on Linux. If you go back a couple decades, there was even developer-recommended hardware for specific DAWs. People will use whatever gets the job done, your product or not, Linux or not.
      - gcr 3y ago
        I'm glad you have good ideas about how to run a business like this. But I think your post illustrates the idea that, unlike windows or mac users, us Linux users have opinions about how the business should be run, and we tend to voice them through support channels and emails and social media etc. Every time we voice our ideas, it generates a ticket or a discussion or a decision that they have to deal with. The act of contemplating these possible ideas, whether that means discussing them with the team or deleting the email or reading the slashdot thread, costs the business time and attention. Each time a company makes a concrete decision -- "let's only support Fedora," to use your example -- 80% of the potential linux user base you'd even care about (ubuntu users) is out of luck. This is true for "let's care only about pulseaudio," "let's only care about ALSA," "let's only care about this specific glib version," etc. The intersection of these decisions is very small. You're saying they should pick one supported configuration and stick with it. That's what they're already doing though -- it's just not an operating system that runs Linux. We can keep around a hardware-specific Windows box just the same.

likeclockwork 3y ago

I hope you don't work on anything I depend on!