From a sales and numbers POV, Linux users count as a rounding error, so there's no way a corporation could make back the cost of cross-development. And even if it could it would either have to run development in parallel, which complicates everything, or have Linux conversions running six months to a year behind the 'official' releases.

But it's also a cultural issue. The me-too aspect comes from the way that current Linux apps are second rate versions of their professional equivalents. And emulators like Wine are always a generation or three behind what's needed to run native Windows apps reliably and successfully.

There is exactly one professional recording studio in the world that (sometimes) uses Linux commercially. But considering how expensive ProTools is, it's not as if there's a lack of interest from potential users. But the community isn't together enough to put together a viable alternative.

The problem is that amateur spare-time development can't compete with full-time cube-farm development with professional project oversight.

Linux will always be me-too until the community realises this and organises itself to put together a BIG showcase prestigious project that's very obviously superior to the equivalent professional app.

Users want apps. They don't much care what the OS is. Until Linux gives them the apps they want, without compromise, it's always going to be a footnote. Drivers would inevitably follow if the interest were there.

I don't see this happening. It might, but I don't see any evidence that Linux developer culture is focussed enough to pull it off. There's just about enough interest to put together a kernel, but it doesn't seem likely that finding a thousand people would be willing to work together to develop a full-featured video editor.

(To a smaller extent similar issues apply to blogging and activism, IMV.)

No recompile. No virtual machine. No memory hog. WINE on steroids. Works for real, all MS Office, IE, etc...

Well worth the price.

Pierre