Why most companies don’t develop software for Linux (opens in new tab)

"no binary compatibility between distributions"

That is a feature, because it gives Free software an advantage. Why make it easier for closed source developers?

There's not exactly compatibility between versions of Windows, either. Want your XP app to run on Win7? I hope you weren't planning to write to your install directory, since that will require a permissions change on Win7. That XP app is probably 32-bit, too, and if you are on 64-bit Win7 I hope the app isn't looking for "C:\Program Files" to find itself, since it's now in "C:\Program Files (x86)". Why is it still not working? Maybe one of the API calls works differently, better try running in XP compatibility mode.

Simple stuff works great in new versions of Windows, but my experience is that if you expect it to work, you'd better test it on every version of Windows, because there will be version specific bug on one of them.

Matlab and Mathematica seem to do pretty well at installing universally (though 64bit can cause some issues).

I think the real reason is there isn't much benefit for making software for linux when the paying userbase for windows or even mac is so much higher. This is why you really only see educational and/or research based software on linux; hopefully if linux starts to get really big we will see this change.

Actually, I'm not missing any software on Linux. I do keep a Windows VM, but it's only for some crappy software that came with my universal remote, and for testing my own programs on Windows.

Further, a large fraction of open code gets written by paid devs working at IBM and the like. These companies don't think this is a waste of time.

Let's assume that the author is right when he says that all companies ignore linux. What would make that such a big disaster? Is there some specific proprietary app that _needs_ to be ported to linux? I myself haven't found a task that lacks a convenient binary, but maybe that's just me?

That, and 'EMACS vs. VIM' is a dead horse. Stop beating it.

You also forget that since the Linux kernel is GPL, its probably illegal to release closed source drivers (such as Nvidia's for Linux). I might be wrong, but we all know that the legal grey area Nvidia exploits if tested in court might not hold up. Nvidia though, despite using a closed source module is probably the main reason linux survived. Then again, what kind of sensible OS requires drivers to be recompiled to work the moment a kernel is upgraded?

Also, Microsoft goes to incredible lengths to ensure backwards compatibility (even with their competitors software), whereas any backwards compatibility in Linux seems to be coincidental.

Those are 2 reasons I use Windows 7 now. But that's just my opinion (all OS's these days have their own problems).

I don't get the "There is no binary compatibility between distributions" point really... Examples against it: Firefox, OpenOffice, Quake. They seem to work quite well on most distributions even as binaries.

Also - you can always write for Python / .NET / Java / ... and be portable for that VM.

1. Release the source code instead. Everyone will be better off.

2. If you do #1 the relevant distributions will package the app for you.

3. Valid point.

4. He says Emacs but doesn't specify XEmacs, so, off with his head!

Kinda low quality and generic.

As a free software guy, I'm glad proprietary apps are not being ported to gnu/linux. If I wanted proprietary apps, I probably would have stayed with windows.