this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Linux was the NFT or Blockchain or AI of 1999, so every tech company was jumping on board.
The sales pitch, as I remember, was that you could run your Wordperfect or CorelDraw shit on it, and not need to have Windows to use it and instead could join the future, which was Linux. Though, amusingly, their version of the future was running Windows binaries via Wine on Linux which, eh, okay but...
Of course, nobody used Wordperfect or CorelDraw at that point in history so I'm not entirely sure how that was supposed to sell you on buying not-Word and not-Photoshop.
WordPerfect continued to thrive in the legal industry for years to come due to its “reveal codes” feature and the way it counted words.
Here’s a post about that from 2008.
https://ask.metafilter.com/96820/Why-do-so-many-laywers-use-WordPerfect
Yeah, I've read about that. But, then again, the legal industry was probably exceedingly low on the likely-to-change-to-Linux probability list in 1999, as well. I've worked for some lawyers in the past and they're a shockingly traditional dont-change-anything-ever group. (Not particularly shocking.)
Corel was, and still is, used in a lot of industries, like signmaking, embroidery, etc. It has been losing share in the general vector graphics space for years though.
Honestly it wouldn't be too incredibly crazy for them to make a Linux graphic suite. They could even start maintaining a Linux distro.
However this is would be high risk with a high chance of failure as Linux users don't usually have big wallets unless you count enterprise servers