FabFilter

I personally hope they don't divert time/resources into Linux as is it comprises such a small userbase and it only adds to the complication of maintaining a whole other platform. I'd rather see Fabfilter continue to pioneer awesome effects as they have been.

We're not planning Linux support for the foreseeable future.

Cheers,

That's too bad, because in turn, I won't be buying anything form FabFilter (which I'd like to) in the foreseeable future.

... Sorry, too temping. Truth though!

Btw, Raj, the tool stack that's used to build the FabFilters is likely open source--certainly the source code AND quite possible Linux itself is in there somewhere.

I'd like to see a return contribution in kind--which, without hesitation I would buy.

Bitwig is a dismal failure of management and crappy pricing policies. I wouldn't forecast their future as positive. I'd like to see fabfilter support formats that people will actually use.

Bitwig is great! It's inspired my creativity a lot.

Linux is great too. The whole web runs on it. It's the only real Applesoft alternative and it's free.

Why not offer a Linux VST build? Like I said earlier, there's money waiting and more than you might expect.

While it would be ideal for FF to have Linux versions of their products, the reality is that it's just not cost effective.

FF is, after all, a company. Their foundation is making money. If they weren't making money, they couldn't make plug-ins. We all know this. This is of course not to dismiss their passion for making great plug-ins that we all love, but at the end of the day it has to be profitable.

Linux has less than a 3% market share on the desktop market (as of January 2017) - actually just above 2%. That's nothing. Far less than those ~2% will be making music. Even less than that will be purchasing FF plug-ins were they to become available.

Now hold that up against the time it would take team FF to make Linux versions of all their products, not to mention the testing required and added support. The time spent doing this will equally take away from fixing current bugs for already paying customers, as well as working on new products for the 93% OS users they do support and their already established customer base.

The fact that the whole web (well, most of it, there are after all plenty of Windows servers out there as well) means nothing. Webservers don't produce music. Also Windows is a fine alternative as well, but that's another discussion...
While there's certainly money to be found, there's not enough, not at this time.
Also consider that a lot of people use Linux because it's free and chase open source/free software as well. FF plug-ins aren't exactly free - they're actually quite expensive (but worth it). This will mean that a lot of potential buyers won't be buying them simply because of that.

Porting VSTs to the Linux VST format is apparently straight forward... manual.ardour.org/working-with-plugins/windows-vst-support

Hopefully this will entice the Fabfilter guys to give it a go!

I want to voice my support for this. Linux has seen a huge spike in adoption recently. Linux accounts for 4.56% global market share and growing (reference cited below). FabFilter already supports macOS which has a similar market share at 6.11%. Steinberg added official support for Linux to the SDK earlier this year.

I will be investing in plugins from Tracktion since they support Linux, probably one of your biggest competitors in the space. I will purchase plugins from FabFilter when / if you add Linux support.

There are a large amount of Pro Audio and Pro Video software vendors supporting Linux now. The platform is starting to grow very quickly, and I would love to see FabFilter in the lineup.

Desktop OS Market Share, September 2017
www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8&qpcustomd=0&qpct=6&qptimeframe=M

For those interested it's worth reading Urs Heckmann's (you know, the man behind u-he) comments regarding this, since it provides some developer insight. u-he actually have Linux versions of their plug-ins, albeit with a "but".

Like: www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6829397#p6829397

Currently their Linux downloads are less than 1% and mostly free stuff. That means that their Linux offerings account for less than 1% of their income. In other words: Next to nothing.

Some more: www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6833507#p6833507

As he points out here official Linux support would equal 5-10% more in company spending to be able to support and develop it. The same reason it is in the current "eternal beta stage" as he points out, since it basically means they don't really have to officially support it that way.
Remember that supporting it means offering technical support to a variety of different distros, which they'd have to hire someone capable of doing. That's a constant cost they'd have to sustain for what is currently less than 1% of their user base, where even less than that actually inject money into the company.

So the numbers, at least for u-he, are quite clear. There's currently no way that Linux support can sustain the cost, and it doesn't look to be able to do so in the near future either.

Again I want to point out that I am not against Linux support. I have no use for it, but I understand that others do and I hope that we get to a point where Linux users can get their hands on a much wider variety of plugins. I'm sure it will come, but the question is of course when.
However at the end of the day companies need to make money, and small companies like u-he and FabFilter can't just throw money at these things, hoping that they'll make up for it down the line.
When your investment sees no return now or in the near future, then how are they supposed to do it? Where should this money come from? Take it from things that actually gives you a return?
For instance for u-he a 5-10% cost increase would mean that Urs would have to let 1-2 employees go, since he couldn't sustain the company otherwise. That's 1-2 employees actually doing work giving the company a return and helping him to grow the company.

You need to get bigger companies to lead the way - the ones that can better sustain a 5-10% cost increase.

As a bonus here's a lengthy thread with talk about u-he's Linux releases: www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=424953
I don't have much knowledge of the content, as I haven't kept up with it, but at least there's the link if you want to have a look. :)

Torben's answer pretty much sums up why Linux support is not feasible for us. The market is very small, most users are accustomed to software being free and open-source, and last but not least, it's not an easy platform to develop for. With Mac and Windows, you have a clear single software target, but with Linux, there are various distributions each with their own quirks.

Cheers,

We are moving most of our shop to Linux as well. We would like to invest in some good sounding audio plugins with native Linux support. I was hoping Fabfilter would be ahead of the curve and offer Linux support ahead of others, so I can stear or money in your direction. ;-)

FWIW, I've been using FF plugs quite sucessfully in Reaper on Linux using LinVst/Wine. You can find the software here: github.com/osxmidi/LinVst