2 ms·

A lot of people are stuck on Windows or MacOS because of one killer app - Photoshop, a CAD/CAM package, a video or audio editor, or some proprietary bit of busi

A lot of people are stuck on Windows or MacOS because of one killer app - Photoshop, a CAD/CAM package, a video or audio editor, or some proprietary bit of business software. Many of these applications have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of dev time invested in them and it just isn't realistic to expect an open source alternative to compete. I'm in that boat, but I don't especially mind. I run Windows because it allows me to run Fusion 360, but Windows Subsystem for Linux gives me a full Linux dev environment. A younger me would have got angry about it, but present me accepts that platform lock-in effects are very strong; fortunately for Linux, it dominates every new category of platform. I sincerely doubt that anyone will ever develop a new proprietary OS from scratch, because the business case for putting a pretty UI on Linux is overwhelming.

resolutebat 3y ago
Sure but we were talking about students at schools here, where this is usually not a problem.
deadbyte 3y ago
I hope that Photopea (browser-based Photoshop) can gain traction to break that dependency.
- RAM-bunctious 3y ago
  I know the evidence is that plenty of people are totally happy with applications running in a browser -- Office Online, Google Sheets, etc. are compelling evidence -- but I strongly prefer dedicated and native applications for something I'll be spending a lot of time using. I'm not even necessarily blaming this on the performance difference, although that is a pertinent topic, but just the mental structure of something I'm using living in a browser tab rather than actually running on the computer.
  - vengefulduck 3y ago
    Installable web apps would give you a workaround for that wouldn’t it?
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      They are still bound by the constraints of the Web. For example WebGL 2.0 (2009 hardware), WebGPU (2015 hardware), any GPU capabilities after 2015? You ain't going to get them.

resolutebat 3y ago

Sure but we were talking about students at schools here, where this is usually not a problem.

deadbyte 3y ago

I hope that Photopea (browser-based Photoshop) can gain traction to break that dependency.

RAM-bunctious 3y ago
I know the evidence is that plenty of people are totally happy with applications running in a browser -- Office Online, Google Sheets, etc. are compelling evidence -- but I strongly prefer dedicated and native applications for something I'll be spending a lot of time using. I'm not even necessarily blaming this on the performance difference, although that is a pertinent topic, but just the mental structure of something I'm using living in a browser tab rather than actually running on the computer.
- vengefulduck 3y ago
  Installable web apps would give you a workaround for that wouldn’t it?
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    They are still bound by the constraints of the Web. For example WebGL 2.0 (2009 hardware), WebGPU (2015 hardware), any GPU capabilities after 2015? You ain't going to get them.