Windows and macOS support

[gdelazzari]

Disclaimer: I'm an hardcore Linux user (so much that I don't even know how to use Windows) and I fully believe it is a superior platform.

but

given the Kickstarter campaign and the final goals of Akira (which are pretty big, and I like it!), I have the following concern:

A lot of people are still on Windows or Mac because a lot of software is still there, especially in the UX field. Very few, if no (per definition) "average users" will ever install Linux just to try Akira, no matter how awesome this piece of software can get and how awesome Linux is. Setting up a VM is also out of scope for the "average user", that won't even bother and will instead resort to another easier solution.

The adoption path should start exactly from those platforms, Win and Mac. It's by letting average (a.k.a. the majority) of the users download a .exe or .dmg without installing an entire OS try Akira and experience how awesome it is and how awesome open source software can be, then they will feel more confident about switching to Linux as a productive environment.

If you aim at becoming a "big" open source piece of (graphics) software, really well made and adopted by a lot of people with a big community, look at the other projects like that:
Blender, KiCad, GIMP, Inkscape, Darktable, FreeCAD, VLC, Audacity, etc...
All of them have a Windows and Mac version, and IMHO that's why they got so popular.

I have also seen real examples of this happening: I have a friend which is an architect. He always used AutoCAD, VizRender, Photoshop, etc... then he slowly started migrating to GIMP, then Blender, then DraftSight (not OSS but at least it's cross platform). He then realized all the software he was using was compatible with Linux, so he switched. But the key here is "slowly". A professional will hardly switch his entire platform and workflow from one day to another, but incremental changes and steps are required.

I'm not saying this is the case for all the users, but I feel this is the case for a good chunk of them, the ones that are maybe not even capable of installing Linux by themselves.

Note, I'm not saying this project is going to fail without cross-platform support, but I do really believe it will be a lot harder for Akira to gain traction and grow a big community (which would then bring in donations, support for newcomers, vitality to the project, etc...). I'm spending my time writing this because I really want this project to succeed, but I'm having a really hard time accepting the fact that this will be Linux only. Again, I don't care in the sense that I never use nor Windows nor Mac, so for me it's not a problem, this is just an honest advice for the future of Akira.

Also, as a sidenote, I often hear Linux users complain about the fact that companies support Win/Mac but not Linux. It's a bit incoherent, IMHO, for the Linux community to not support the other platforms, I mean if we are truly "better", we should give a good example of how things should be done. Please keep in mind that this is just a sidenote based on my limited view of the linux community, I don't want anyone to take offence by any means, and everyone should be free to do whatever they want. I may be totally wrong, it was just an observation/reflexion.

At the moment I'm a bit uncertain on whether or not to support the campaign because of this reason, I'm really concerned that it may end up being a lot of wasted work which will stay abandoned... given the size of the project. I see it as a bit of a risk. Note: I'm not an artist/UX designer, thus not a potential daily user of the software, but I would be very happy to support the project anyway just to have another great tool in my toolbox and because I really care about the Linux ecosystem. That is the main reason I would back the campaign even if I'll use the program very little, and also the reason I'm here writing all of this.

Another important factor you should consider: supporting Windows and Mac will bring in other supporters to the campaign, remember that the Linux desktop users are under 2% (IIRC), so 98% of the people may be seeing the campaign and not supporting it because they don't run Linux. But I see a lot of Windows and Mac users (which are stuck with XD, Sketch, etc...) interested in such a piece of software, because it's free, open source, well made, fast and sleek.
I mean realistically, what are the chances of someone being both a Linux user and a designer...? You're saying it yourself that Akira was born to fix the lack of design tools on Linux, so how can someone be a designer... on Linux?! 😄 I know there's people, but not a whole lot, this is what I mean...

Thanks for reading this, I really hope you see my point and will try to evaluate a bit better the situation.

I wish Akira a bright and successful future in any case, Linux really needs software like this. Also I really appreciate you're developing a native software and not the umpteenth Electron based bullshit thing, I strongly agree with this decision. The current UI mockup looks amazing and shows how beautiful you can make software without having to resort to HTML/CSS/JS.

I also hope I'll have the occasion to contribute to the project in the future as a developer.

I wish all of you guys good luck!

[Philip-Scott]

Hi @gdelazzari, thank you for brining up your concerns :)

We are actually not against supporting Windows and Mac, there are plenty of ways to get a Linux app running under these OSs. Gtk can run in Windows for example, and there are cases of Linux apps such as Inkscape that run on Mac by using something like an XServer on top (See https://inkscape.org/release/inkscape-0.92.2/mac-os-x/107/dmg/dl/) ((An XServer can even run in windows to get linux apps running there as well without extra work))

For now though, our main focus will be making an awesome app for Linux, but once V1 is out we can see what the course of action will be to be able to bring Akira to those other platforms :)

[Alecaddd]

Hi @gdelazzari, thank you so much for this detailed overview, we really appreciate it.

Other than agreeing completely with what @Philip-Scott said, I'd like to specifically answer to this part

At the moment I'm a bit uncertain on whether or not to support the campaign because of this reason, I'm really concerned that it may end up being a lot of wasted work which will stay abandoned... given the size of the project. I see it as a bit of a risk. Note: I'm not an artist/UX designer, thus not a potential daily user of the software, but I would be very happy to support the project anyway just to have another great tool in my toolbox and because I really care about the Linux ecosystem. That is the main reason I would back the campaign even if I'll use the program very little, and also the reason I'm here writing all of this.

Akira will never be a wasted work which will stay abandoned.
We're all extremely committed to the project and the demand for a tool like Akira is so overwhelming that I can assure you it will happen and it will grow over the years.

We're a small team that is trying to kickstart the first release. If we were a bigger company with already some funds, we would absolutely release multiplatform, but right now we can't.
Would you rather have Akira running perfectly on Linux in 4 months, or wait for 1+ year to run on Linux, Windows, and MacOS with various issues and bugs?

Our resources are limited, and we decided to support one platform as a starting point because that's what we use, that's what we know, and that's where we're sure we can release a kick-ass software.

Why you should support the campaign?

Because this is also a social experiment.
We want to prove that it's possible to involve the Linux community in funding a Linux only project. We want to show that us, as Linux users, we're a big enough community to fund and support these kinds of tools. We want to show that we matter.

I hope we will have your support and you will believe in this project.
Cheers.

[gdelazzari]

Thanks for your response. I'm happy to hear that cross-platform will be considered after the first complete release, I do truly believe that a smooth upgrade path for existing designers and artists is required, without violent workflow/platform changes, as I described in my post.

To be honest I have a personal "big" project too which is in some way very similar to Akira, which is also why I felt I had to share my thoughts. The software itself has nothing to do with yours (it's a modern and open source schematics/PCB editor "for the 21st century"), but the main technical challenges are almost the same as yours. Finding a cross-platform GUI toolkit that looks good (or at least is themable from the bottom-up, no win95 looking UIs for god's sake), doesn't weight a ton, it's native and also allows to embed an high-performance drawing area (possibly OpenGL/Vulkan) is insanely hard and I spent so, so much time into thinking how to proceed (and I still have to figure some stuff out). Since I know that compromises always have to be made my concern was that you made choices that would lock you out of the other platforms. I know GTK runs cross-platform but I am worried about the other libraries (granite, clutter, etc...) which I never worked with and seem really coupled to Linux. In my case I made choices with cross-platform in mind since the beginning, but for Akira that doesn't seem the case, which is why I posted my concerns.

Our resources are limited, and we decided to support one platform as a starting point because that's what we use, that's what we know, and that's where we're sure we can release a kick-ass software.

I can't disagree with this, you are totally right, and I'm really happy that you decided do draw various lines as to what features to implement, what to support, etc... keeping the project feasible. It's a big project and unfortunately setting (relatively) small milestones is something that has to be done to make it happen, I know from experience and I totally understand your decision. Just try to keep it as easy as possible to port it to other OSs in the future 😄

I want to trust you guys that you already did the math and ensured this code can go cross-platform when the time will come. I can't say anything regarding your determination in taking this project to a working and awesome state, it's just impressive.

My $50 pledge is coming 🙃

[gusbemacbe]

Hello,

It think it is bad idea because:

1. If it becomes cross-platform, many macOS and Windows users will not migrate to Linux, saying "Linux is too geeky and nerdy for a designer, there is already a Akira version for macOS/Windows, so I do not need Linux trash! Linux sucks and macOS/Windows rocks!". I doubt they will donate to you for making a next new version of Akira. They are openly hostile towards Linux while they turn a blind eye that Akira comes from Linux.
2. The big enterprises will know that your software is totally easy and free and billions of their users will abandon their non-free vector software (Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, CorelDraw, Gravit Designer, Figma, Sketch), therefore, they will run after your software, offer you a billion of dollars and take your software, become it into non-free and closed-source. In the future, they will stop the support for Linux. See what happened with Gravit Designer, as I have tweeted you 3 months ago. Gravit Designer used to be open source, it was sold to Corel, became closed-source and non-free due to the lack of donations, causing the wrath of Linux users, so we, Linux users, would be going to donate to Gravit team, but Gravit team refused. We can not afford 80 dollars yearly for a Gravit Designer subscription. We can afford only less than 30 dollars.
3. macOS is totally closed-source and requires an identifier for a software. To get an identifier and to get recognised as secure and certificated by Gatekeeper of macOS, you have to pay 100 dollars to Apple yearly. Apple does not allow to store open source apps on Mac App Store. You can not mix the open-source with the closed-source languages. You can not use the closed-source language for an open source app. Remember the macOS users hate openly Inkscape and XQuartz. Inkscape and XQuartz have received numberless aggressive and negative comments of macOS users in the sites of macOS apps search. So they did not donate to Inkscape developers. They prefer the native software, i.e., written purely in Objective C and Swift, closed-source languages.

It is important that you are the only who develops this app and developing this app for three OSes is too much overloaded.

[albfan]

As gitg maintainer (which works on linux, windows and mac) I think our workflow is relevant:

I develop gitg on linux, and launch releases from time to time (not stick with GNOME releases as it is not a core app)

• People from homebrew team listen to ftp-releases mail list and in few time adapt things to run new version on mac. I have no real connection with mac (except if they open issues which we all try to solve)

• Msys2 project builds gitg for windows. On last releases I do care for that build, but there're others who can do it (in fact everyone can do) Normally bump versions just works.

If we do Akira releases correctly, it shouldn't be a problem to release multiplatform, apart for find someone who cares of, but is not a developer thing, but a maintainer thing.

Trust in community, if Akira becomes relevant someone will care to port to other platforms (seriously this is how it happens)

[julientaq]

My two-cents on those statements as they're not really accurate.

1. If it becomes cross-platform, […] They are openly hostile towards Linux while they turn a blind eye that Akira comes from Linux.

This is a really biased way to looking at thing, as it implies that Akira is aiming at pushing users toward Linux. Akira will more likely fill a need that had never been answered seriously on linux (figma app is still not a thing, the rest is win/mac only), and that's it. I don't put money in that kickstarter so i can push people to use linux, i just want a nice UI/UX design tool.

2. The big enterprises […] 30 dollars.

I really want Akira to be the best tool i can use.

But it wont turn into the million dollars sellable thing your talking about. Not because it's bad or good, but because it's the point of going open source. You can't close the code, or people who really liked the app would fork it and make another one, again and again.

About Gravit, you read the story wrong.
Gravit was open source, but they decided to close the code 5 years ago (when gravit wasn't really the usable app we know today. more of an interresting experiment). Corel has nothing to do with closing the code. Gravit just didn't have money nor a community to support the development. Plus, the sources are still there for people to fork it, because you can not remove an open source licence. After that, Gravit was free but it never turned back to open source, and that's why they could be bought. You can't buy wordpress to make money by selling licenses, or Blender. (sidenote: about Gravit, they wont stop supporting linux, it's an electron app, running on chromium, therefore multi OS, they dont even have to worry about it).

If you’ re goin open source, there is no way you can be shut. (u could be killed though, but i dont see a competitor buying a hitman to shut down a project ).

3. macOS is totally closed-source and requires an identifier for a software. To get an identifier and to get recognised as secure and certificated by Gatekeeper of macOS, you have to pay 100 dollars to Apple yearly. Apple does not allow to store open source apps on Mac App Store. You can not mix the open-source with the closed-source languages. You can not use the closed-source language for an open source app. Remember the macOS users hate openly Inkscape and XQuartz. Inkscape and XQuartz have received numberless aggressive and negative comments of macOS users in the sites of macOS apps search. So they did not donate to Inkscape developers. They prefer the native software, i.e., written purely in Objective C and Swift, closed-source languages.

Did you ever check all the games and app you can find outside of the mac app store? Gog games? Humble bundles? All those .appon the internet that let you install and start an app? There is a difference between being in the appstore and being on OSX. Don't mix it, or your arguments dont stand.
I can tell is that the users i know dont care about what language was used to develop a tool. They don’t hate inkscape because of inkscape. They dont like it because X11 (and XQuartz) make it really painful to use: slowishness, keyboard stroke swtiched, etc. Why would you donate to something that doesnt work as it should on your machine? But, i know also a lot of user who run inkscape in OSX or Windows and agree to spend a lot of time to get the new keybindings, etc. (and they give money to the apps they're using). I can't talk for everyone.
One last thing: Objective-C is being removed as all apps are being developped under Swift with, guess what, is open source

The only thing i want to say is that you dont put people away because they're not using linux. 15 years of doing that, and see where we're at. We owe Ubuntu a lot, because they showed that you could run something different than osx or windows, and still be valuable.

Don't put people away.

Because you dont only go open source because you have better tools, you go because you believe in openess and trust a community and this is the most important thing. Being open is not about sharing the sources with everyone, and having a fair licence.
It's about offering the options to EVERYONE to use what you're building (regardless of OS being a part of it).

People who used closed sources tools would be happy to use open source ones if they were easy to use and install, and if there were tutorials, documentation and materials to learn it. In the open source world, the participants in the project you have, the easier it is to get all that. And getting away from osx or windows is removing a lot of potential users.

But the only thing i can agree with @gusbemacbe is that it's a huge amount of work to have 3 OSes app (unless you're going electron, but that come with other costs).

Also, i just read @albfan comment. I totally agree and i see a good future coming.

[frkntlr]

I'm about to switch to linux for Akira. Having only linux compatible programs can make linux more users.

[levirs565]

I have successfully compiled AkiraUX on Windows. However, there are little issue.