We developed Linux with 1st class support for our desktop app. It was extremely painful due to missing some Webview functionality that is available for both MacOS and Windows, so we're maintaining an entire 2nd branch of UI code to run CEF instead. One of our developers is 24/7 on Linux and basically just fixes Linux bugs, and even they need a couple VMs to try out random (especially old) distros and DEs to make sure it all works.
Anyways, I'm saying this because we expected ~1% Linux users, but we needed something to stand out against our competitors. I just pulled our latest data, and 7.5% of our paying users are on Linux.
I think a lot of companies dont realize how little support linux users get from corporations. If a company chooses to support linux they are likely the only one in whatever space they operate in, and while the linux user share is small being the only one means you can capture that entire share and your only real competition is open source volunteers if such a solution even exists.
I understand that linux is a pain when it comes to packaging and platform targeting but if a company is willing to work with the community then a whole lot of that work can actually be handled by volunteers who just want to get the thing working on their own system.
Not to mention that linux users tend to be technical users who share good software with each other when they find it so you can release something and get volunteer help to support niche edge cases and you can get free marketing and you can get an untapped user base all to yourself. While the big tech startups are willing to burn billions to gain users/market share, any company can gain the majority of linux users just with a small amount of support.
Im just surprised more companies dont want to get in right now while they can dominate the space. If they wait until everyone is on linux and every company supports it then they dont get any of the above benefits and it will be the same amount if not even more work to support linux since the volunteers will be spread out across multiple companies instead of the first/only one willing to support linux.
Comments
We developed Linux with 1st class support for our desktop app. It was extremely painful due to missing some Webview functionality that is available for both MacOS and Windows, so we're maintaining an entire 2nd branch of UI code to run CEF instead. One of our developers is 24/7 on Linux and basically just fixes Linux bugs, and even they need a couple VMs to try out random (especially old) distros and DEs to make sure it all works.
Anyways, I'm saying this because we expected ~1% Linux users, but we needed something to stand out against our competitors. I just pulled our latest data, and 7.5% of our paying users are on Linux.
I think a lot of companies dont realize how little support linux users get from corporations. If a company chooses to support linux they are likely the only one in whatever space they operate in, and while the linux user share is small being the only one means you can capture that entire share and your only real competition is open source volunteers if such a solution even exists.
I understand that linux is a pain when it comes to packaging and platform targeting but if a company is willing to work with the community then a whole lot of that work can actually be handled by volunteers who just want to get the thing working on their own system.
Not to mention that linux users tend to be technical users who share good software with each other when they find it so you can release something and get volunteer help to support niche edge cases and you can get free marketing and you can get an untapped user base all to yourself. While the big tech startups are willing to burn billions to gain users/market share, any company can gain the majority of linux users just with a small amount of support.
Im just surprised more companies dont want to get in right now while they can dominate the space. If they wait until everyone is on linux and every company supports it then they dont get any of the above benefits and it will be the same amount if not even more work to support linux since the volunteers will be spread out across multiple companies instead of the first/only one willing to support linux.
What business domain is the software?