
Ask HN: Would you pay for beautifully designed Linux software? - zabana
Have we gotten so used to free (as in price) software to the point that it&#x27;s become inconceivable for us to buy native linux applications ?<p>Do you think this prevents developers from building good looking, easy to use applications on the platform ? I&#x27;m curious to know your thoughts
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TallGuyShort
I've paid for IntelliJ, GoLand, and KSP, and I know many others that have,
too. I don't use Linux because I'm just too cheap to pay for an OS, I use it
because I tried paying for Windows and thought it sucked. I'll pay for good
stuff, unless it's doing obvious things to lock me in, if there's high risk
because of DRM features, etc.

~~~
mekane8
+1 for IntelliJ here! I switched to Linux exclusively and I used Atom for a
little while. It didn't take too long before I ponied up my own money for
IntelliJ products though. I care mostly about the features and reliability of
the programs (no random crashing) but I also appreciate that they look and
feel newer than the mid 2000's.

------
Joeboy
If you're talking about superficial visual stuff then no, absolutely not. I
would actually prefer it if people spent less time talking about the latest
Ubuntu desktop wallpaper or whatever.

However I do really appreciate the amount of effort that's gone into improving
the usability of Blender and Gimp in recent years, and have given both
projects money. I hope they use my money to focus on functionality,
reliability, usability etc - I don't care what they look like.

------
gwbas1c
Maybe I haven't been following Linux closely enough?

I'd happily pay for a Linux-based laptop that's on par with a Mac. If it had
an app store, I'd _consider_ buying some applications.

The thing is, on a day-to-day basis, almost all desktop software that I use is
either free, or has a good enough community version. I very rarely come across
something that's useful enough that I pay for it.

FYI: What do I pay for? MakeMKV, TurboTax, VMware Fusion, and a disk recovery
application.

Here's the challenge: When I think of Linux, I just assume that everything is
100% open-source (and thus free beer) because I assume that every Linux user
is a GNU fanboy and wants to compile their own software by rubbing two sticks
together. Maybe my biases are outdated or wrong?

Anyway, when your users plan to compile their own software from source, half
of the value of paid software is gone! (Commercial software is more than the
source code, BTW)

Again, I'd happily pay for a Linux-based laptop on par with Mac.

~~~
mirajshah
Yes, I think you haven't been following Linux closely enough. Ubuntu, at
least, has been very aware of this problem for years now. Their "software
center"/package management is probably close to as seamless and mature as the
Mac "App Store". The caveat remains that many common paid apps (e.g. video
games, Microsoft Office) are not compatible with Linux, but that doesn't seem
to affect you.

~~~
gwbas1c
I use LibreOffice on my personal computer. (Office at work.)

It's "good enough" for me, but if I was a very heavy user I'd consider paying
for MS Office.

------
drenvuk
I would pay for its development but the end result must be free software. If
we don't then I think we're being disrespectful to the developers who's work
we're building upon but I might be alone in that opinion. I hold that opinion
for Linux but not the web. It feels somewhat hypocritical though.

~~~
ohlookarabbit
You are not alone with this opinion. It has to be free software (free speech,
not free beer).

~~~
bigfudge
I'm in this boat too, having bought lots of software but been burned by
products disappearing/being neglected.

In buying sftware, in my experience, the real cost is in my time
learing/mastering it. The ultimate example here is a text editor. If sublime
was free as in speech I would still be paying to use it. As it is, I lost
confidence that team could maintain it long term and have switched to Atom.

What good models are there for free speech consumer/individual developer
software to actually make money?

~~~
ohlookabird
In my experience of the last few years working as a senior software engineer
in both public and private research institutions, one way to do free software
development professionally is this: Find a niche in a research field and try
to work in either research labs, scientific computing departments or get a
maintenance grant from a foundation (e.g. CZI). Maybe I am lucky, but it seems
that FLOSS is generally welcomed and the trend goes to more support. It also
provides you ways to communicate on conferences, etc talking directly to many
users (researchers).

------
newscracker
As someone who has bought applications for Mac and iOS, and also donates to
FOSS projects, I would certainly buy software applications on Linux if they
looked better and had a good user experience. I really don’t want to deal with
hand editing config files and running shell commands to get things to work,
because while I can do those, I cannot have a sustainable system I can pass on
to others who’re just non-technical common users of software.

I think Linux itself, and many applications on it, don’t look great because
the developers behind those are highly technical and ideological people who
can, and do, cater to other technical and ideological people. They seem to
think of UI and UX as wasteful things over mere, and many a times complex,
functionality (they probably also believe they’re good designers who don’t
need help from UI/UX experts). Even larger projects don’t spend enough time or
money to use better fonts, design better layouts, use nicer color schemes,
design better user experiences, etc. (one glaring example of this is
LibreOffice).

Stepping outside Linux while remaining on free software, Matrix is spending
time and money on improving UX because the people behind it realize the
importance of it. Within the Linux world, the attitude seems to be more of
users being expected to qualify to use the system - “the users are capable and
will figure it out” seems to be the background thinking.

Distributions like ElementaryOS have tried to charge (or accept, depending on
how you see the website) money for more beautifully designed systems than you
could get out of the box elsewhere. If larger companies take such an approach
or even adopt some of the niceties from such distributions, the Linux world
would be much better off.

~~~
raxxorrax
I agree with your point for software in general. The right fonts and spacing
could pimp up a lot of software if developers put effort in it. But...

> one glaring example of this is LibreOffice

Compared to MS Office? Excel yes, maybe PowerPoint. All other programs are
inferior by now.

5 years ago I would have agreed MS Office to be far ahead in functionality and
design. I use the 365 version and it is just terrible all around. And users
fail even harder to create structured documents than 10 years ago. And helping
them is far more difficult now because you just don't have the patience for
ridiculous UI quirks of word processors anymore.

Google Docs is better than Word and it is extremely simple, but uses classical
design philosophies. It still uses a sensible color palette and a good font.
Not that I want to advocate Google too much right now...

~~~
newscracker
I primarily use Calc from LibreOffice for all my personal stuff. And I find
the fonts and layout to be unsatisfactory. Having nicer displays with higher
resolutions makes it look even worse (this is on the Windows version; the Mac
version seems to look better).

------
grumpy-cowboy
It depends who is your target audience. For me, TUI interfaces (Text UI like
Weechat, Neomutt, Cmus, ...) are beautiful and easy to use. They are straight
to the point, keyboard based, extremely fast, low on resource usage, ... I'm
so much more productive on this kind of interface than GUI/mouse based ones.

GUI tends to be slow, buggy, unresponsive, less configurable, heavy on
resources, ... So much code required to manage GUI interface compared to code
doing real business stuff. So much wasted clock cycles.

I have a laptop with 64GB of RAM but I don't want to waste this RAM to display
"beautiful" GUI apps. I need it for things more useful like VMs, processing
big files, ...

I want to be productive. Not wasting my time with the latest UX "experts"
enlightenment on what a "modern/futuristic" interface should look like.

BTW, Get off my lawn :P

EDIT: For your question... Would I pay for a more beautiful app? No. Would I
pay for a software that have features I need that are not already available in
software I use? Yes (don't care about how beautiful it is).

~~~
akvashi24
I generally agree with your sentiment, but I'm curious... have you noticed
buggy/noticeably slow behavior on "beautiful" GUI apps with 64GB RAM?

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ben0x539
I feel like I've been burned by too much for-pay software on linux being super
fragile, hard to get running outside of a very specific system configuration,
incompatible with the rest of the ecosystem, impossible to integrate into
normal workflows, etc. Speaking extra cynically, on linux, "good looking"
seems inversely correlated with "actually works", too.

I suspect the incentives in software sales just don't support what makes linux
environments actually worthwhile to use.

I'm also cheap as hell, ymmv.

------
cpburns2009
I'll pay for software that solves a problem I have, and that's functional.
Ideally it uses the platform GUI toolkit (GTK/Qt), isn't a webapp, and isn't a
subscription.

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thesuperbigfrog
"beautifully designed", "good looking", and "easy to use" are three very
different things.

"Beautifully designed" is not important to most users unless they get the
source code and need to make changes or enhancements.

"Good looking" is nice, but hard to define depending on what kind of
application it is, especially on Linux. What does it mean for a server daemon
to be "good looking"? What does it mean for a command line tool to be "good
looking"?

"Easy to use" is very important to most users, but is also rather subjective
depending on individual user preferences and experience level. For example, I
think vim and emacs are both "easy to use" because I have years of experience
using both for various tasks. YMMV.

Most users value utility, "easy to use", and "good price" when it comes to
paid software:

1) Utility is essential because if the sofware is not useful then what is it
good for?

2) "Easy to use" is important, but subjective. Know your intended audience and
design to meet their needs. Seek user feedback early and often to tailor your
design to match the user's expected ideas of "easy to use".

3) "Good price" varies based on the user expectation and the value proposition
that you offer. If the software is extremely useful (high utility) and easy
enough to use, users will pay for it.

Ask yourself "What does my software offer that is worth paying for?"

------
cyborgx7
I haven't thought about this before, so it might be my thoughts would evolve
further if I thought about it more. But after I considered it for a moment, I
would pay for it if I got the source with it, and a license to publish that
source under a BSD-Like License if support for it was going to end.

As others have mentioned, the idea of it getting dumped when it turns out it
isn't worth the effort, would put me off.

If the price was low enough, and the software simple enough, I might be
willing to relax some of those conditions. For example, I have payed a couple
of bucks for a simple pixel graphics editor, for which I was ok with the
prospect that this is a toy I play with a little and then would likely drop.

------
dastx
Where does this misconception come from where people think Linux users don't
pay for things? If you provide a decent tool that kills pain and doesn't cost
an arm an a leg, we will pay the money. Especially if there's no good
alternative out there. I've yet to come across a good mail/calendar/combo that
works well. Gnome calendar/contacts/Geary is getting there but it's still far
off. Same with office suite. If Microsoft released Office for Linux without
charging me over a million pound per second of usage, I'll gladly shell out
the extra money to have decent office suite.

~~~
random_kris
cheapest office is like 5€ per month for whole office package? How can that be
too expensive?

~~~
dastx
> per month

I want software that I know, not that I lease. €5 per month means if I stop
paying for reason x/y or z, I cannot use Office any more.

------
mikece
While I’m sure there are exceptions, I think it’s accurate to say that Linux
users would prefer function over form. I’m not sure you can make a
generalization about what Linux users will buy: some use Linux because they
cannot afford anything else; some use it because they believe that non-free
software is immoral. On the whole I would say that the macOS and iPhone users
place a premium on the aesthetics of an application more than Windows, Linux,
and the dozen or so FreeBSD users combined.

~~~
mediaserf
Right, that's what struck me about this question too. It is not about
"beautiful design" when it comes to linux software, it is about being
functional and that includes being on top of all of the fragmentation when it
comes to linux desktops, window managers, distributions, and libraries.

It is hard to justify paying for something when you have to spend an
appreciable amount of time getting it to work in your set up. Working well out
of the box and consistently with updates is the first step.

------
chooseaname
Define "beautifully designed". I pay for software that is useful. It doesn't
have to be beautiful. I'm not worried who might be looking over my shoulder.

Let's take an example. Calibre is considered by most who use it a _very_ handy
tool. It is also considered by most who use it to be ... not very good to look
at. I donate to Calibre because it is useful. Would I donate (or pay) for an
app that wasn't quite as useful but was better to look at? Nope.

------
awill
I would definitely pay. I paid for sublime and intellij. I mostly use Linux,
and wish they had some of the beautiful apps that the Mac did. To me beauty is
worth paying for.

------
bachmeier
The people who use Linux are the ones for whom Linux does what they need. So
would current Linux users be willing to pay? Probably not. But...if there was
a Linux ecosystem with nice paid apps, Linux users would be the ones using
nice paid apps. There's an assumption behind your question that we're assigned
randomly to the OS.

In case you're wondering whether that would really happen, Android is evidence
that it works. The underlying OS is irrelevant.

------
igetspam
No but that's not how I use my computers. I use Vim and Firefox. There are two
graphical applications I use that aren't web based. One I use a lot (a music
app) and the other I use infrequently (gimp). I pay for a couple web based
applications. I can't imagine anything that someone could sell me that I would
need to actually run from my computer.

ps- I make a small monthly donation to Slackware because that's where this all
started for me.

------
ecmascript
Yes I would purchase something that solves an issue I am facing.

I think the lack of a standard way of doing things hurt for-profit development
rather than the resistance to pay. For example, it is hard enough to make an
application work well with one DE and in Linux there is plenty.

That is why I believe web apps such as VSCode, Discord etc are the saviour for
linux desktop. With that, creating a cross platform environment is rather
easy.

------
afarrell
I would not.

I would worry that the pool of other people paying for it would be so small
that unless the application also worked on Windows or OSX, the development
team would not be able to sustain itself. Thus, I wouldn't be willing to pay
the more substantial cost: spending my time learning to use it and integrate
it into my workflows.

(This is a big part of the reason I moved to OSX when I left uni.)

------
timw4mail
I'd prefer a well-designed (not necessarily pretty) cross-platform
application. Not so much because I think the Linux version would be
unsustainable, but because I'm an OS polyglot. The Jetbrains editors are a
good example of this.

Cross-platform electron apps would also apply, but generally I'd prefer more
native applications, just for performance reasons.

------
pathsjs
I would pay, but I have a hard time figuring an application that I am
currently missing.

It is also not completely clear to me what you mean by "beautifully designed".
For instance, I run Ubuntu wih Gnome 3, and most (all?) of my applications are
based on GTK+3. If you were to make an application that is very beautiful in
itself, but is not written in GTK, it will stick out. This is going to make
the application - in context - uglier than if it was GTK based. Now, if you
use GTK, I think the application is going to look like all other GTK
application, which nowadays is pretty nice.

In short the answer is: yes, I would pay for an application that solves me a
problem, but I may consider not buying it if it is made with a custom toolkit
instead of GTK.

EDIT: also, it has to be a one off payment, not recurrent, and I expect it to
integrate with the OS (for instance, update by providing a PPA instead of
running a custom updater)

------
remotecool
Yes. Most people won't buy linux software. This is why saas has become so
popular with companies.

------
sergiomattei
HN is quite possibly the worst crowd to ask this. Most here don't care much
about design.

~~~
cameron_b
I would challenge your thoughts on "design" here. Most here don't care for the
trendiest skeuomorphism-laden react-native wiz-bang feature set, but care very
much for well-presented and clear ideas. This is classic design.

Think of the complexities of designing an annual report. This is bread-and-
butter for lots of design firms and plenty of web designers would do well to
explore the work involved in clearly communicating the most important figures,
while not mucking it all up.

------
owaislone
Definitely. I already pay for a few. Some JetBrains products and Insync. I've
purchased Insync multiple times for different accounts. Would definitely pay
if the products solve a real problem. I'd actually love to have an amazing
native email client and calendar app. I don't really care for a native app but
so far every electron app I've tried has been a massive resource hog which is
very undesirable especially for apps that keep running all the time in the
background. If someone could make electron work, I'd have no problem paying
for it. Also, it being open-source would definitely increase my chances of
funding or paying for the project.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I'll pay if I find that the software provides sufficient advantages over other
freely-available options. I've paid for SublimeText in the past. I've paid for
a handful of other proprietary Windows applications (Tag2Rename comes to mind)
because the FOSS equivalents simply couldn't cut it for me.

So yeah, I don't think it's a problem. Admittedly I guess the bar may be a
little higher than it would be on Windows, since the expectation is that a
FOSS solution _exists_ on Linux, whereas Windows/Mac users may have been
conditioned to expect that good software must necessarily cost money. But if
it's worth it, I'll pay.

------
Arkanosis
I'd happily pay for well designed (ie. ergonomic, usable, intuitive,
consistent) software on Linux, but: \- it has to be free (as in freedom); \-
if it's pretty, good, but I'd never pay for something pretty at the cost of
anything else.

Actually, I already donate to some applications I either use or think benefit
to the whole free software ecosystem (eg. Krita, which is an awesome project,
even though I'm more of a Gimp user myself).

Edit: I have to admit I've already spent money on non-FOSS videogames that run
well on Linux. I'm not happy, but I don't regret it either.

------
Mikeb85
I hope beautifully designed refers to the function...

As it stands, Ubuntu is a pretty desktop. Gnome software looks good and covers
most of the basic things you need to do with an OS. I spend most of my time in
Chrome, Atom and Steam, all work well.

There's functional software for most tasks and it would be a fairly big
undertaking to replace it, so I'm curious what you'd actually be building. If
it's just MacOS skinned equivalents to the Gnome/KDE apps then I'd say no, I'm
not paying for it. If you create something truly useful then yes, I would.

------
juancn
Definitely, I have done so. It all depends on price vs value for me. I
sometimes also donate to great software I use or pages.

The beautiful adjective bothers me though.

UX is tricky since it needs a benevolent dictator guiding the aesthetics of
the whole system, not just the app.

I don't want it to be just pretty, it needs to be thoroughly thought out,
function before looks always. It must play nice with the conventions of the
environment it's running in. Avoid unnecessary impositions (stealing focus,
modal dialogs, forcing use of a mouse, etc.)

------
Jemm
Yes. Buy, not subscribe.

~~~
rahoulb
Would you expect free upgrades as new OS versions are released? What about
ongoing access to support?

~~~
tomswartz07
Hypothetically, When you buy an iPhone, do you expect to also get the latest
model when it is released?

That being said, Apple also releases iOS updates to previous phones, even
after they've been paid for.

If this doesn't seem strange to you, then perhaps the same thought process of
buying a specific version of software with the expectation that it will work
for several years is not unreasonable.

I see no need for a subscription model on every type of software. I pay you
once, you ensure that it's written in a way that will continue to work for
years to come. End of transaction, as far as I'm concerned.

------
phito
For most apps the looks don't really matter to me, so I wouldn't pay just for
that. I would only pay for an app if it:

\- does the job

\- has no free equivalent that works

\- saves me _a lot_ more time/money than the cost of the product, or doesn't
cost over 20€ (this is my personal threshold, for personal work. I would be
fine paying more for something that I would use in professionnal work)

\- has useful and innovating features (especially if something that has
already been made hundreds of times like a music player)

\- has a good UX

\- has good documentation/support

\- has a trial version

------
BerislavLopac
Linux software I'm currently paying for:

    
    
        - PyCharm
        - GitKraken
        - Dropbox
        - Postman
        - ExpanDrive
        - ProtonVPN

------
fps_doug
I pay for quality software, not visual appearance.

Consistent UI yes, eyecandy no.

Slapping on a theme instead of using the native GTK/KDE theme the user has
configured? -1!

Have a well designed UX, make frequent workflows easy to access, but don't
hinder the user from customizing certain aspects. Oh and don't crash on me all
the time.

------
sandGorgon
yes. We already pay for jetbrains.

People would pay a lot for: 1\. SQL ide 2\. audio authoring 3\. Sketch 4\.
Photoshop

Be warned though that the trend is for this kind of stuff to move to the web.
Figma is a great example. Instead of trying to create a desktop client for
Linux, they did some real complex stuff on WebAssembly and built a spectacular
web client - [https://www.figma.com/blog/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-
time-...](https://www.figma.com/blog/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-by-3x/)
and [https://www.figma.com/blog/how-we-built-the-figma-plugin-
sys...](https://www.figma.com/blog/how-we-built-the-figma-plugin-system/)

Figma is paid (and makes a lot of money)

~~~
infinite8s
By SQL IDE, do you mean for developers or for data analytics?

------
pengo
I've bought some specialised software to run on Linux; Reaper by Cockos, for
example. I also write native Linux apps and utilities (with GUIs) to speed up
common complex development tasks. Because development time isn't free these
are effecctively "bought" too.

------
yitchelle
If it works well and kills my pain, I would do it.

It does not have to be good looking.

Just have to be a sane UX so that I can get it done.

------
ohlookarabbit
Depends on the application, but I can imagine paying for some GUI heavy
applications (e.g. audio/video editing). It would have to be open source
though. Otherwise definitely no deal.

------
dhruvmittal
Yes, I would pay (and have done so in the past). Much as I'm willing to pay
for good apps on my phone, even though there are plenty of free alternatives.

------
ekianjo
Worth paying if the software respects users (FOSS goes without saying) and
accepts suggestions. Most paying applications choose to be proprietary,
though.

------
staz
I would say no.

But in reality I already paid for JetBrains while I would never have expected
to, so why not?

The only other software I have bought for Linux are games I think

------
gtrak
The web has killed desktop apps. I use linux, but I don't buy software on any
platform besides games.

I think it makes sense for professional productivity apps, like CAD stuff.

I don't think basic desktop apps are worth a fee, since no one will buy them
with all the free alternatives, but maybe a case can be made with something
that ties into managed cloud compute services (like superhuman's use of AI).

------
RandomBacon
Yes, though I don't know of anything that I really need.

I already paid for a Codeweavers Crossover lifetime license.

------
Oxodao
I would at three conditions 1) it's not too pricy (≈20€) 2) There is a trial
(either limites features or trial) 3) No drm or not invasive ones at least

That's just a consumer saying, not a dev one

------
volument
Absolutely. Sublime Text is one.

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sys_64738
I would pay to use Emacs.

------
jayaram
ofcourse! it also has to be functional :)

