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Best effort. Binary Qt and GTK apps compiled even 10-15 years ago often still work, and do so on almost any distro. Games are a bit more iffy, depending on if

Best effort. Binary Qt and GTK apps compiled even 10-15 years ago often still work, and do so on almost any distro. Games are a bit more iffy, depending on if it used SDL or not; and Steam on Linux has made great effort to make the (admittedly few) older Linux binaries remain alive (and if Steam doesn't, the community has). I don't see this as an issue. Using Linux implies a level of competency from the customer, and I'd rather help a competent Linux customer try to get my stuff run on their odd distro (ex: Alpine) than help an incompetent Windows or OSX user. One gets me a customer for life, the other just reminds me that hell is other people.

lockhouse 3y ago
> Binary Qt and GTK apps compiled even 10-15 years ago often still work, and do so on almost any distro. That hasn’t been my experience at all. Also, the desktop Linux market is minuscule. It is an order of magnitude smaller than the macOS market. There’s a reason commercial software vendors don’t usually bother with it.
rvz 3y ago
> Best effort. That isn't good enough. It is not a guarantee of full OS support and you are forced to select a limited set of distros that you can support despite them all running a Linux kernel. That is not the case with Windows or macOS which the majority of users have been using for their Desktops for decades. [0] > I don't see this as an issue. Using Linux implies a level of competency from the customer, and I'd rather help a competent Linux customer try to get my stuff run on their odd distro (ex: Alpine) than help an incompetent Windows or OSX user. Why should one always assume that their customers are kernel engineers or know what a compiler is to get their GUI app running on their system? I would not give free or paid support on unsupported systems, especially when the Linux user-base is vanishingly tiny. If your software can be run by tech-illiterate users on Windows / Macs and they are paying for it, that is a much better outcome than wasting hours helping one Linux user run your software on an obscure distro either for free or paid. [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/ https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...

lockhouse 3y ago

> Binary Qt and GTK apps compiled even 10-15 years ago often still work, and do so on almost any distro. That hasn’t been my experience at all. Also, the desktop Linux market is minuscule. It is an order of magnitude smaller than the macOS market. There’s a reason commercial software vendors don’t usually bother with it.

rvz 3y ago

> Best effort. That isn't good enough. It is not a guarantee of full OS support and you are forced to select a limited set of distros that you can support despite them all running a Linux kernel. That is not the case with Windows or macOS which the majority of users have been using for their Desktops for decades. [0] > I don't see this as an issue. Using Linux implies a level of competency from the customer, and I'd rather help a competent Linux customer try to get my stuff run on their odd distro (ex: Alpine) than help an incompetent Windows or OSX user. Why should one always assume that their customers are kernel engineers or know what a compiler is to get their GUI app running on their system? I would not give free or paid support on unsupported systems, especially when the Linux user-base is vanishingly tiny. If your software can be run by tech-illiterate users on Windows / Macs and they are paying for it, that is a much better outcome than wasting hours helping one Linux user run your software on an obscure distro either for free or paid. [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/ https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...