The Ubuntu App Store's Elephant In The Room

A few weeks back Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, asked it's users which non-free applications they'd like to see made available in their Apps Store. The idea as far as I can work out is to take these figures to vendors like Adobe to try and convince them to port applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver to Linux. The idea is to prove to Adobe that there's a market for their investment. There's one small problem however.

Instead of asking if users would like Photoshop or Dreamweaver on Linux, try asking how many of them would pay $100's for a legal licensed copy. Adobe know that around 80% of their install base on both OSX and Windows is illegal. They are fine with this as the balance still pays off for them. They are still by far the dominant player, and the companies who use their products in a professional situation have no choice but to pay big on license costs.

For Adobe to take the time and money to port to Linux, they'd expect a certain level of return. No corporation works for nothing. Install figures are iffy, depending on how they are counted, or who has invested in the companies doing the counting, but I'd estimate that OSX has a similar market share to Linux, both around the 8-10% mark.

The difference in Adobe's targeting it's resources, is that OSX is very dominant in professional design companies. Apple customers tend to be quite happy with paying out big money for software and hardware, believing that they are buying quality. Apple customers tend not to care about much under the hood, they are happy to sacrifice this for something that "just works" when they learn how to use it the way Apple have deemed "proper". Expensive software suites fit naturally into this exosphere.

Linux by comparison is a vast network of applications and functions, a large proportion of it under some proper FOSS license, allowing users to download the source code, modify it and distribute it if they wish. Most of it is also free as in cost, so FOSS users are used to being able to try out applications without the hassle of trialware, starter edition limitations, serial numbers or activation codes. Most FOSS users are used to being able to recommend applications to others, as well as install it on any PC they wish all without incurring any cost. Most users are used to being able to contribute to these projects in some way, and influence some new features, or find bugs etc. All of this is a very different mindset from a closed vendor who only care about the fact that you have your wallet open and you're in the process of transferring it's contents to them.

That does not mean that FOSS users are against the idea of paying for software if it's what they need and sufficient quality. There are plenty of FOSS users who have no interest in the underside of their PC, regardless of which platform they use. They will happily pay for software if it suits their needs. The problem with closed source software is often compounded by the fact that they invariably use their own closed file formats too, to lock your data into their revenue stream. If you spend a couple of years and have 100,000's of files in a format only one vendor can open, you have little choice but to stay with that vendors products when you need (or are forced) to upgrade, regardless of the financial cost to you.

Closed source vendors think in terms of lock-in, where they are all little islands tempting you to drift onto their beach with the allure of paradise sold by slick PR campaigns, hoping you won't notice the underwater cage sliding up to the surface behind you until it's too late. FOSS by comparison generally think in terms of interoperability and cooperation. They understand that several projects all competing for users is a good thing for all of them. It encourages projects to innovate to keep users. By using standards they don't lock the users data down either. Users can easily open those files with other applications, so there is no automatic upgrade.

Even if Adobe were to invest in this way, are Canonical negotiating for Ubuntu specific binaries? Adobe will never open source anything, so it's down to them to create the binaries for the repos. Will they create binaries for Fedora, Suse, Mandriva etc? Do other distributions want to offer them? I suspect Fedora wouldn't be too keen.

FOSS, and Linux as the major FOSS platform comes with more than just an alternate platform to Windows and OSX, it comes with a whole philosophy on how things should be. Most FOSS users gradually understand this and see the value of it to some degree. Linux is not a natural ground for closed source software on ethical grounds. While many FOSS users are pragmatic enough to understand that in today's world, some non-free software is still required to experience the full range of products and services available. They understand that while it's possible to be completely free, that it does involve the decision to make some sacrifices in what you can or can't do.

While FOSS has grown with this idea, projects have grown into very mature and fully featured alternatives to non-free alternatives to a level where they are more than enough for most users. The GIMP is a prefect example. For most users, the GIMP does everything they'd need, and a whole lot more they'll never bother to explore and find. Inkscape is the same, as is OpenOffice. FOSS users will tend to favor the FOSS projects. The only target audience for software like Photoshop is new users coming from the restrictions or instability of OSX or Windows; ie the people who you always see in forum posts, blog comments etc saying "until Linux get's Photoshop and Dreamweaver it's not even a consideration". To those people I ask:

• How much did you pay for your Windows or OSX versions of those applications you can't live without?
• How many of the "professional" features do you use?
• What do you use these applications for? To what level?

To Canonical I say this. Don't be surprised when the vast majority of the numbers you take to Adobe turn out to be people wanting to see a Linux port available on P2P sites in a nice convenient .deb format, and Adobe ask you if you were inflating the projected numbers. Adobe already have an 80 / 20 split on Windows and OSX, the difference is the 20% are made up of corporations with money.