

Ask HN: Anyone making living writing Linux desktop applications? - nvr82

I'm an indie developer who has developed several desktop applications for Windows. I'm thinking to port them (or develop something) for Linux. Anyone here making a living(or even close) writing desktop applications for Linux?
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naner
As a long time Linux user, I think this would be very tough.

Linux users are used to free software and having everything available through
our package managers. We generally don't purchase and download software, mess
with serial numbers, licenses, copy protection, drm, etc. There is no standard
method for delivering software outside a package manager. Anything you do will
likely be somewhat hackish and will not work on everyone's system.

I rarely ever stumble on Linux software that must be paid for. Off the top of
my head I can think of: Mathematica, Sublime Text 2, IntelliJ, and, perhaps
soon, the Steam client. These are all obviously multi-platform projects that
also happen to be available on Linux (which is nice but probably not wildly
profitable).

It would help if there were a Linux app-store, but there is not. I think there
may be something for Ubuntu along those lines, but the fact that it is only
for Ubuntu seriously limits the number of potential customers you have in an
already shallow pool. And since Linux desktop users are spread over a wide
variety of distros and configurations, a general Linux app-store is unlikely
to ever exist.

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gizmo686
I think Ubuntu's package manager gui-frontend brands itself as a store
(granted most entries are labeled as free). Also, you could always give a
_.deb installer as a download (and the relevent format for whatever
distribution you want to support). Installing from these works just as well
as_.msi does in windows.

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fmw
The consumer market for GNU/Linux desktop application is tough, although there
are some niche markets that can be viable. Wikipedia has a list of proprietary
GNU/Linux applications that provides several examples[0]. If you want to
charge in the consumer market and aren't interested in game development,
solving boring, but relatively complicated problems (e.g. tax software) seems
like a good bet financially. Open source developers are less likely to
sustainably work on boring applications. People that generally prefer free
software are also more likely to set aside their principles if you can somehow
lessen some kind of significant pain for them (again, like doing taxes).

The business market is much more viable. There all sorts of viable markets,
like:

\- compatibility glue for either server-side or client-side open source
alternatives to the Microsoft stack that solves certain headaches (e.g. arcane
file formats, better conversion for scripted Excel sheets),

\- GUI (system) management tools (such as CPanel and Plesk for budget
webhosting, but for less saturated markets like managing thin-clients or
virtual machines that are still a moving target),

\- hardware + software (e.g. building things like portable barcode scanners
for inventory management, security/surveillance hardware or VoIP boxes using
the Raspberry Pi),

\- et cetera.

If you target business users open source or dual licensing becomes much more
viable too. It isn't economical for most companies to dedicate a lot of
resources to IT internally, so they will still pay for e.g. support, training
or a managed version of your application. The latter is especially attractive
with web applications, of course, because you can sell a managed SaaS version
of your application (this is exactly my business model with
<http://www.vixu.com> [1]).

0:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proprietary_software_fo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proprietary_software_for_Linux)

1: Based on an Apache licensed application you can find at
<https://github.com/fmw/vix>).

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erichocean
Many paid applications in the visual effects industry are primarily run on
Linux.

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umenline
this question is better then my question . i hope it will be longer as im big
linux fan . linux game makers also included i guess

