Microsoft took over the computing world because they built a really good enterprise management toolset. Say what you will about their shitty business practices both in history and today, both AD and GPO are fucking incredible pieces of software. Microsoft Office and Exchange email are also pretty much the only game in town unless you want to jump to Google which is objectively worse.
Those tools meant that workplaces adopted Windows instead of Mac and Linux and slowly transitioned their Unix servers to Windows. Then people started getting PCs at home, and they didn’t want to learn a whole new OS. Guess what, Windows is also available for home use and does all the same things that your office PC does.
Now that Microsoft has the vast majority of the install base on PCs, it’s not economically viable to develop or troubleshoot software for the other platforms, as you’re putting in a ton of extra time for about 5% of users.
Until Linux can promise ~90% compatibility with all software and they can put out some kind of real competition to AD and GPO, people are going to take the path of least resistance and just get Windows.
both AD and GPO are fucking incredible pieces of software.
AD is really the only way to manage an organization with thousands of endpoints and users.
I have some hope that someone in the EU will develop a competing product now that they’re pushing to get away from Microsoft, but it doesn’t exist yet.
I have to disagree here - you can absolutely run a large organisation on Linux (the Frenchies do it,e.g.).
The issue is the middle ground.
A large company can absolutely invest into what’s needed for that. They might even come out cheaper.
The small to middle companies are the issue. The ones with 1-10 people running their whole IT.
For them, Linux based operations are an issue - there currently is absolutely nothing that is as “one module working well with another” than AD. (Which should please not imply that AD is well designed and working too well). Period.
I have just kicked Microsoft (mostly) out of my company. But that is my personal decision - I am the CEO and we are small enough that I can do most IT support myself or with the help of a small outside company. But boy,did that cost us time and therefore money and still there are drawbacks and things that will not work as smoothly as they did on windows.
I am thankfully able to do that - as I have no external venture capital I have to answer to, have staff that is very tech literate (especially considering that none has an IT background),willing to learn and don’t need software too much that requires windows. (Well,some, e.g. occasionally CAD)
But would I ever recommend that to anyone? Nope.
Definitely not.
the issue with this take is that they have been transitioning their enterprise services to web services. i and others on my team effectually use Microsoft enterprise tooling on Mac and Linux machines.
i don’t think AD has anything to do with desktop Linux adoption?
You’re ignoring 20+ years of how it was the only player when web wasn’t so big as it is today. It was a major reason windows became the default OS in many offices, and as an extension of that, in the majority of homes in the 2000s to 2015. Thus majority of software industry and video gaming companies made their home in windows. Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD, and many other industry software was made to work in Windows first.
There was also the case of Microsoft tilting the playing field by significantly discounting laptop and Desktop OEMs for Windows license keys just to be the sole OS installed on many computers. The concept of a PC was one which was running some version of Windows.
This also lead to another compounding aspect: Piracy of windows software made the windows AD/Server experts of today. Since Linux was free, there wasn’t as much of an intrigue on running it vs. A pirated copy of windows running pirated copy of many software.
Adobe is a garbage company. Big studios don’t use Adobe crap. And the alternatives are better anyways.
Excel also has alternatives. LibreOffice and even Google Sheets if you don’t mind Google.
And before you say LibreOffice isn’t good enough, take a look at all the European governments that have switched over to LibreOffice. I use it regularly at my company where everyone else uses Office 365, and no one has ever noticed. Compatibility with Excel is stellar. In fact, my wife uses Office 365 at her company and she’s daily running into issues with it. Either some outage, or some weird bug that’s been a complaint in the Microsoft support forums for years, or some other issue.
You asked what enterprise software. You don’t just get to act like those aren’t being used in almost every enterprise on the planet. I don’t care if they’re crap companies or not. They could literally be literally run by Nazis. As it is right now I ask you to find a single enterprise company that doesn’t have either of those in use on their systems somewhere. And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to “studios”.
In regards to LibreOffice or excel alternatives not being good enough I can tell you they aren’t. Using Drools rules, software written by Red Hat, you are unable to create drools decision tables that work properly with Kogito (another software written by red hat) with anything other than Excel. That includes LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Drools is the most used rule engine on the planet. Software devs use it, business stakeholders use it. Excel is an absolute necessity if you’re using the decision table functionality of drools.
You’re right, I did. But the question was in relation to things that prevent adoption to Linux. Excel isn’t one of them, as Office 365 is available as a web version, but there are also many entirely compatible alternatives.
As for Adobe, I don’t know what software of theirs is used by enterprises. Unless you mean Acrobat, which again there are better alternatives that target the enterprise. I actually haven’t worked at a company that’s used Adobe products in over 10 years.
Using Drools rules, software written by Red Hat, you are unable to create drools decision tables that work properly with Kogito (another software written by red hat) with anything other than Excel. That includes LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Drools is developed and maintained by the Apache Foundation. It’s FOSS software (Free and Open Source Software). Red Hat is the main sponsor of the project and the flagship product using Drools is Red Hat Decision Manager (formerly JBoss).
From the Drools docs:
Drools supports managing rules in a spreadsheet format. Supported formats are Excel (XLS), and CSV, which means that a variety of spreadsheet programs (such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc amongst others) can be utilized.
Software devs use it
I am a software dev, and I’ve used JBoss in the past. I can promise you that it’s not limited to Excel in the least. In fact, Drools isn’t even primarily designed for spreadsheets, and it’s generally deployed on Linux servers.
As it is right now I ask you to find a single enterprise company that doesn’t have either of those in use on their systems somewhere.
This is a valid point, but not because they can’t operate without them. It’s almost always because of ignorance of better alternatives, upper management comfort zone, and billions of dollars of marketing from Microsoft and Adobe for over 20 years.
And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to “studios”.
Studios as in Hollywood studios and VFX Houses. Some of them might use Adobe stuff here and there, but the “serious” stuff isn’t done with Adobe.
You’re right, I did. But the question was in relation to things that prevent adoption to Linux. Excel isn’t one of them, as Office 365 is available as a web version, but there are also many entirely compatible alternatives.
It is, I gave an example why.
As for Adobe, I don’t know what software of theirs is used by enterprises. Unless you mean Acrobat, which again there are better alternatives that target the enterprise. I actually haven’t worked at a company that’s used Adobe products in over 10 years.
of course I mean acrobat. Please do list an alternative (that works on linux) that has Adobe Sign or something like that.
Drools is developed and maintained by the Apache Foundation. It’s FOSS software (Free and Open Source Software). Red Hat is the main sponsor of the project and the flagship product using Drools is Red Hat Decision Manager (formerly JBoss).
are you just reading off wikipedia? Drools was created by Red Hat, same with Kogito and Quarkus. Drools and Kogito have been donated to Apache, but are still majority maintained by Red Hat.
Drools supports managing rules in a spreadsheet format. Supported formats are Excel (XLS), and CSV, which means that a variety of spreadsheet programs (such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc amongst others) can be utilized.
yep, and as I’ve already told you, Excel is the only one that works properly. I’m a drools expert. I’ve been working in drools for 15+ years. There are issues with using drools with anything other than excel. Of course you can use CSV but you lose a lot of functionality in the process. I’m telling you this as someone that has tried to get around these things and use alternatives for years.
I am a software dev, and I’ve used JBoss in the past. I can promise you that it’s not limited to Excel in the least. In fact, Drools isn’t even primarily designed for spreadsheets, and it’s generally deployed on Linux servers.
smh. jboss is not the same thing as drools. Maybe you didn’t come across the bugs I have, but I have literally listed out to you the steps to encounter it. Use Drools, use Kogito. Use xlsx decision tables (not decision manager, which is now owned by ibm). And yes, Drools isn’t ‘primarily designed for spreadsheets’. it’s a rules engine. There’s ten thousand different ways to use it. I’m telling you that you will eventually encounter issues with using Libre or Open Office with drools decision tables. I did. My team did. We literally had to get an Office subscription (it was a google suite company) just to use drools because of all the issues we encountered. I understand this is most likely MS doing something internal to their xlsx format to fuck with anyone using other software. That is incredibly likely. The point still stands. Some software is absolutely necessary for businesses and there is no other alternative. Linux radicals seem to think that there’s always a way around it. But there isn’t.
This is a valid point, but not because they can’t operate without them. It’s almost always because of ignorance of better alternatives, upper management comfort zone, and billions of dollars of marketing from Microsoft and Adobe for over 20 years.
I think it’s more that enterprises want support and they want to trust other companies. You do not get that with linux. Like I said, give me an alternative to Adobe Sign that works on linux. You’re not going to find one that is open source, because the fundamental trust model is that adobe is your signatory, and you trust them and their servers.
Studios as in Hollywood studios and VFX Houses. Some of them might use Adobe stuff here and there, but the “serious” stuff isn’t done with Adobe.
I’m not sure why you’re bringing up vfx houses. Adobe doesn’t have any vfx software. Their major products are Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator. All things that any major company would need to operate any sort of marketing material. None of those are used for VFX. There are good alternatives for Photoshop and Premiere and Illustrator, even ones that work on Linux (no not Gimp). But I don’t see you replacing Acrobat anytime soon. And Lightroom (which I didn’t list) is far better than Darktable (I literally started with Darktable and it was so horrid I literally got an adobe sub because there was no other option at the time). Now there’s some others, but I haven’t tried them. I’m going to look at RAWTherapee though and see how it does.
of course I mean acrobat. Please do list an alternative (that works on linux) that has Adobe Sign or something like that.
Well, Adobe Sign is a cloud based offering, which is distinct from Acrobat itself. And it can only work as a cloud offering because they need to ensure audit trails for compliance reasons. In that regard there’s DocuSign which is also cloud based. But as for Acrobat, there’s Xodo, OnlyOffice, and LibreOffice.
are you just reading off wikipedia? Drools was created by Red Hat
No I wasn’t, but I wasn’t aware that Red Hat developed it.
Excel is the only one that works properly. I’m a drools expert. I’ve been working in drools for 15+ years. There are issues with using drools with anything other than excel. Of course you can use CSV but you lose a lot of functionality in the process. I’m telling you this as someone that has tried to get around these things and use alternatives for years.
Ok, fair. I have limited experience with it, but in the time that I did work with it, it seemed fine.
smh. jboss is not the same thing as drools.
You’re right, I was referring to JBoss BRMS. It’s been a long time since I’ve touched it, over 10 years ago.
Maybe you didn’t come across the bugs I have
Clearly not, because as I mentioned, the project I was working on that used it switched to a different system. And no, I don’t remember which.
Some software is absolutely necessary for businesses and there is no other alternative. Linux radicals seem to think that there’s always a way around it. But there isn’t.
And that is fair. I always tell people to use the best tool for the job, and sometimes the best tool is the one they know how to use best. So if it’s Windows, then so be it.
I think it’s more that enterprises want support and they want to trust other companies. You do not get that with linux.
Sure you do. There are many companies with commercial offerings that support Linux.
give me an alternative to Adobe Sign that works on linux.
You can actually use the web version of Adobe Sign from any OS. I know that’s not what you were asking, but it’s still a workable solution.
I’m not sure why you’re bringing up vfx houses. Adobe doesn’t have any vfx software. Their major products are Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator.
They literally call it VFX software. And that is what it is. And Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator all fall into the VFX category because you would utilize all of them in a VFX workflow.
Anyways, I brought it up because that’s generally what people refer to when they mention Adobe when talking about Linux compatibility.
I’m going to look at RAWTherapee though and see how it does.
I know someone that does professional photography and uses Linux. They say they love RAWTherapee.
No good enterprise management. Doesn’t run enterprise software.
Most people don’t really care what they use, they just want to be able to use it. If it doesn’t run their programs, it’s no good to them.
Companies don’t use it on the desktop because enterprise management sucks. There’s no equivalent to group policy. Ansible is not the same.
Yeah, this is pretty much it.
Microsoft took over the computing world because they built a really good enterprise management toolset. Say what you will about their shitty business practices both in history and today, both AD and GPO are fucking incredible pieces of software. Microsoft Office and Exchange email are also pretty much the only game in town unless you want to jump to Google which is objectively worse.
Those tools meant that workplaces adopted Windows instead of Mac and Linux and slowly transitioned their Unix servers to Windows. Then people started getting PCs at home, and they didn’t want to learn a whole new OS. Guess what, Windows is also available for home use and does all the same things that your office PC does.
Now that Microsoft has the vast majority of the install base on PCs, it’s not economically viable to develop or troubleshoot software for the other platforms, as you’re putting in a ton of extra time for about 5% of users.
Until Linux can promise ~90% compatibility with all software and they can put out some kind of real competition to AD and GPO, people are going to take the path of least resistance and just get Windows.
AD is really the only way to manage an organization with thousands of endpoints and users.
I have some hope that someone in the EU will develop a competing product now that they’re pushing to get away from Microsoft, but it doesn’t exist yet.
I have to disagree here - you can absolutely run a large organisation on Linux (the Frenchies do it,e.g.).
The issue is the middle ground. A large company can absolutely invest into what’s needed for that. They might even come out cheaper.
The small to middle companies are the issue. The ones with 1-10 people running their whole IT. For them, Linux based operations are an issue - there currently is absolutely nothing that is as “one module working well with another” than AD. (Which should please not imply that AD is well designed and working too well). Period.
I have just kicked Microsoft (mostly) out of my company. But that is my personal decision - I am the CEO and we are small enough that I can do most IT support myself or with the help of a small outside company. But boy,did that cost us time and therefore money and still there are drawbacks and things that will not work as smoothly as they did on windows. I am thankfully able to do that - as I have no external venture capital I have to answer to, have staff that is very tech literate (especially considering that none has an IT background),willing to learn and don’t need software too much that requires windows. (Well,some, e.g. occasionally CAD)
But would I ever recommend that to anyone? Nope. Definitely not.
Which pains me to say.
the issue with this take is that they have been transitioning their enterprise services to web services. i and others on my team effectually use Microsoft enterprise tooling on Mac and Linux machines. i don’t think AD has anything to do with desktop Linux adoption?
You’re ignoring 20+ years of how it was the only player when web wasn’t so big as it is today. It was a major reason windows became the default OS in many offices, and as an extension of that, in the majority of homes in the 2000s to 2015. Thus majority of software industry and video gaming companies made their home in windows. Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD, and many other industry software was made to work in Windows first.
There was also the case of Microsoft tilting the playing field by significantly discounting laptop and Desktop OEMs for Windows license keys just to be the sole OS installed on many computers. The concept of a PC was one which was running some version of Windows.
This also lead to another compounding aspect: Piracy of windows software made the windows AD/Server experts of today. Since Linux was free, there wasn’t as much of an intrigue on running it vs. A pirated copy of windows running pirated copy of many software.
There’s Kolide and Intune.
Like what?
Adobe? Excel? Both of which are used in almost every large business on the planet lol.
Adobe is a garbage company. Big studios don’t use Adobe crap. And the alternatives are better anyways.
Excel also has alternatives. LibreOffice and even Google Sheets if you don’t mind Google.
And before you say LibreOffice isn’t good enough, take a look at all the European governments that have switched over to LibreOffice. I use it regularly at my company where everyone else uses Office 365, and no one has ever noticed. Compatibility with Excel is stellar. In fact, my wife uses Office 365 at her company and she’s daily running into issues with it. Either some outage, or some weird bug that’s been a complaint in the Microsoft support forums for years, or some other issue.
Whereas I never have any issues with LibreOffice.
You asked what enterprise software. You don’t just get to act like those aren’t being used in almost every enterprise on the planet. I don’t care if they’re crap companies or not. They could literally be literally run by Nazis. As it is right now I ask you to find a single enterprise company that doesn’t have either of those in use on their systems somewhere. And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to “studios”.
In regards to LibreOffice or excel alternatives not being good enough I can tell you they aren’t. Using Drools rules, software written by Red Hat, you are unable to create drools decision tables that work properly with Kogito (another software written by red hat) with anything other than Excel. That includes LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Drools is the most used rule engine on the planet. Software devs use it, business stakeholders use it. Excel is an absolute necessity if you’re using the decision table functionality of drools.
You’re right, I did. But the question was in relation to things that prevent adoption to Linux. Excel isn’t one of them, as Office 365 is available as a web version, but there are also many entirely compatible alternatives.
As for Adobe, I don’t know what software of theirs is used by enterprises. Unless you mean Acrobat, which again there are better alternatives that target the enterprise. I actually haven’t worked at a company that’s used Adobe products in over 10 years.
Drools is developed and maintained by the Apache Foundation. It’s FOSS software (Free and Open Source Software). Red Hat is the main sponsor of the project and the flagship product using Drools is Red Hat Decision Manager (formerly JBoss).
From the Drools docs:
Drools supports managing rules in a spreadsheet format. Supported formats are Excel (XLS), and CSV, which means that a variety of spreadsheet programs (such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc amongst others) can be utilized.
I am a software dev, and I’ve used JBoss in the past. I can promise you that it’s not limited to Excel in the least. In fact, Drools isn’t even primarily designed for spreadsheets, and it’s generally deployed on Linux servers.
This is a valid point, but not because they can’t operate without them. It’s almost always because of ignorance of better alternatives, upper management comfort zone, and billions of dollars of marketing from Microsoft and Adobe for over 20 years.
Studios as in Hollywood studios and VFX Houses. Some of them might use Adobe stuff here and there, but the “serious” stuff isn’t done with Adobe.
It is, I gave an example why.
of course I mean acrobat. Please do list an alternative (that works on linux) that has Adobe Sign or something like that.
are you just reading off wikipedia? Drools was created by Red Hat, same with Kogito and Quarkus. Drools and Kogito have been donated to Apache, but are still majority maintained by Red Hat.
yep, and as I’ve already told you, Excel is the only one that works properly. I’m a drools expert. I’ve been working in drools for 15+ years. There are issues with using drools with anything other than excel. Of course you can use CSV but you lose a lot of functionality in the process. I’m telling you this as someone that has tried to get around these things and use alternatives for years.
smh. jboss is not the same thing as drools. Maybe you didn’t come across the bugs I have, but I have literally listed out to you the steps to encounter it. Use Drools, use Kogito. Use xlsx decision tables (not decision manager, which is now owned by ibm). And yes, Drools isn’t ‘primarily designed for spreadsheets’. it’s a rules engine. There’s ten thousand different ways to use it. I’m telling you that you will eventually encounter issues with using Libre or Open Office with drools decision tables. I did. My team did. We literally had to get an Office subscription (it was a google suite company) just to use drools because of all the issues we encountered. I understand this is most likely MS doing something internal to their xlsx format to fuck with anyone using other software. That is incredibly likely. The point still stands. Some software is absolutely necessary for businesses and there is no other alternative. Linux radicals seem to think that there’s always a way around it. But there isn’t.
I think it’s more that enterprises want support and they want to trust other companies. You do not get that with linux. Like I said, give me an alternative to Adobe Sign that works on linux. You’re not going to find one that is open source, because the fundamental trust model is that adobe is your signatory, and you trust them and their servers.
I’m not sure why you’re bringing up vfx houses. Adobe doesn’t have any vfx software. Their major products are Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator. All things that any major company would need to operate any sort of marketing material. None of those are used for VFX. There are good alternatives for Photoshop and Premiere and Illustrator, even ones that work on Linux (no not Gimp). But I don’t see you replacing Acrobat anytime soon. And Lightroom (which I didn’t list) is far better than Darktable (I literally started with Darktable and it was so horrid I literally got an adobe sub because there was no other option at the time). Now there’s some others, but I haven’t tried them. I’m going to look at RAWTherapee though and see how it does.
Well, Adobe Sign is a cloud based offering, which is distinct from Acrobat itself. And it can only work as a cloud offering because they need to ensure audit trails for compliance reasons. In that regard there’s DocuSign which is also cloud based. But as for Acrobat, there’s Xodo, OnlyOffice, and LibreOffice.
No I wasn’t, but I wasn’t aware that Red Hat developed it.
Ok, fair. I have limited experience with it, but in the time that I did work with it, it seemed fine.
You’re right, I was referring to JBoss BRMS. It’s been a long time since I’ve touched it, over 10 years ago.
Clearly not, because as I mentioned, the project I was working on that used it switched to a different system. And no, I don’t remember which.
And that is fair. I always tell people to use the best tool for the job, and sometimes the best tool is the one they know how to use best. So if it’s Windows, then so be it.
Sure you do. There are many companies with commercial offerings that support Linux.
You can actually use the web version of Adobe Sign from any OS. I know that’s not what you were asking, but it’s still a workable solution.
And After Effects.
https://www.adobe.com/ca/products/aftereffects/vfx-visual-effects.html
They literally call it VFX software. And that is what it is. And Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator all fall into the VFX category because you would utilize all of them in a VFX workflow.
Anyways, I brought it up because that’s generally what people refer to when they mention Adobe when talking about Linux compatibility.
I know someone that does professional photography and uses Linux. They say they love RAWTherapee.