Nero has released Nero Linux 3, billed as the “ultimate Burning application for Linux.” You can have your own for… $24.99.
Now, I’ve always had good results from Gnome’s built-in burning, or K3b. However, regardless of the availability of free/open source CD/DVD burning solutions, this is an awesome thing.
A CD/DVD burning application is not a server farm/data warehouse application; it is aimed right at the end user, the desktop market. In other words, it is an implicit acknowledgment of the existence of said market. This cannot possibly be anything but good, and I’ve half a mind to drop the $25 on the software license just to encourage companies to port their desktop apps to Linux.
However, I don’t think we want to go overboard with that tactic, either. If everyone just buys commercial Linux desktop apps to “vote for Desktop Linux” rather than because they actually want the software, that creates an artificially inflated sense of demand for Linux desktop apps… seeing the numbers, yes, more companies may create desktop apps for Linux. Meanwhile, the Linux world, seeing the success of their efforts, stops buying a copy of every single Linux desktop app that comes out and goes back to burning with K3b, coding with Bluefish, and playing Tux Racer. Then what? All the companies that saw the numbers don’t sell the number of apps that they thought they would, and they stop making them.
Okay, that’s a worst case scenario; you could also have a simultaneous increase in market share, you could have a company rise up that actually offers a great consumer-targeted Linux desktop & laptop product (and I bet it will not be Dell) — any number of things could happen in the next few years.
So I think… if you want the app, if you’d like to use it on Linux… heck yes, go buy it. Let’s have a real, living market for Linux desktop applications; markets work best when supply and demand are governed by what people actually want…
Hmmmm - I partially agree with you.
Problem is - is there actually a market for CD burning software on _any_ platform? Do you know anyone who has paid money for CD burning software on Windows? Or do they just use the software that came with their burner?
I’m all for creating a market for software under Linux. But not if they’re trying to create a market for software that no-one pays for on other platforms.
Does anyone pay for CD burning software? Good question!
Just off the top of my head, then, I’m thinking — maybe?
Yes, you have the people who bought and installed their own burner and just use the software that shipped with it — which is often Nero, IIRC. So on that front, the hardware manufacturer is buying the CD burning software and just bundling it with the drive. In that case, the message would need to be sent to the hardware manufacturer that their customers are interested in having the Linux version of the software included with the drive.
A lot of people, maybe more, get their CD burner when they buy their computer, and the software they get is whatever is bundled with the PC (at least, I know that Dell and HP almost always include something like this). Again, someone’s buying the software, and again, it’s not the end-user, it’s the hardware company. If Desktop Linux as an option became standard, I can see how Nero’s Linux product, or something like it, might well be pre-installed.
All that to say — I see your point. Most end-users don’t go out and buy CD burning software. I think maybe a few do, but… yeah. So… um, hooray for Linux?
Bottom line, on which I think we can all agree, it is not a bad thing to see vendors port their desktop software to Linux.
I agree. However, what I don’t want is for Nero to say, publically, in a couple of months time - “These Linux guys don’t want to pay for anything. We brought out our wonderful software especially for them and no-one bought it.”
Yes… also true.
I sort of reason it like this: in this particular case, Nero seems to be among the first doing this — not the first, by any means, but it’s still by no means “common” for commercial vendors to port their desktop applications to Linux.
Being that they’re stepping out to do this, I’m going to do them the favor of assuming that they realize that most end-users don’t buy burning software off the shelf. I imagine they are well aware that the lion’s share of their business comes from hardware vendors, and that the minority of it, even for Windows, comes from retail. That being the likely case, I would hope they going in aware of the fact that they won’t sell a million copies of Nero Linux 3 to end-users, and that they’re prepared to wait it out while desktop Linux grows in popularity and viability…
I would hope that’s their attitude, at least — I think that would serve them best.