>Will we still have just three operating systems to choose from - of which only two are really suitable for a worker's desktop?
That's going to go down poorly with the Linux enthusiasts
That's going to go down poorly with the Linux enthusiasts
With that said, the desktop Linux ecosystem has come a long way over the past 20 years that I've been following it, and I think desktop Linux serves the needs of people who are not reliant on the Windows and Mac ecosystems.
I like some of the Linux alternatives more than the "brand name" software, but I don't work in media or document creation. If I had all the keystrokes for Adobe Premiere memorized, it would be a pretty tough sell for me to drop that to move to something like Lightworks or something.
When I worked at uni I saw people rescinding when applying for a web design job because the computer they gave to them didn't had Photoshop installed - not that it was required to do anything super special, they just needed to crop images and export them to a given size. People, specially in the media sector, are incredibly dependent on "brand name" software.
Imagine that you've been using Windows for twenty years. You have been doing paid professional work with Adobe Premiere for twenty years. You have a workflow with the two that has worked for about twenty years. Linux might be better, but it's probably not that much better than the setup you have right now, and the applications you have built your business on don't exist on that platform, and there would be a pretty steep learning curve to pick up the new stuff.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I probably wouldn't move to Linux at that point.
Now, if I were already using the Windows version of Lightworks or Resolve, that might be different; a lot of my knowledge would transfer over, and that might be enough for me to change over.
Sure, if you require a piece of software that can't run on Linux, then you're stuck wherever you are. Otherwise? ::shrug::
A lot of the "mainstream" apps simply do not exist on Linux. LibreOffice isn't so bad, but most people simply want Microsoft Office. Lightworks is decent software, but most people want Adobe Premiere. Gimp is alright but most people want Photoshop, etc.
This isn't to say that Linux software "worse", I actually like Lightworks more than Premiere, and there are some applications that are competitive with the "brand name" applications like Krita, but "having good software available" is only half the battle. People get used to certain workflows, and if Linux doesn't support that workflow most people aren't going to think it's worth it to switch over.
I do work in software, and I run NixOS, and I like it a lot, since programming tools on Linux are generally very good (especially if you work in server-land like I do). I'm just saying that I don't really blame people who don't want to switch over.
The problem with desktop Linux software is that it generally doesn't have the demands put on it that would push it to develop competitively, so it tends to get stuck spinning in circles for decades. LibreOffice Writer isn't really a competitor to MS Word - it's more of a bloated Wordpad. Ditto The Gimp, etc. It's just not there.
I don't work in law or accounting, and I can only speak to my own experiences, but I have generally thought that LibreOffice Writer is fine. Even back when it was OpenOffice, I edited and formatted a weekly newsletter in high school with it, and it never really bothered me. I admittedly don't use it a lot now, I'm one of those irritating LaTeX people. I've heard that OnlyOffice is better, but I haven't used it yet.
I definitely agree that LibreOffice Calc is considerably worse than Excel though. It works ok most of the time, but even the free online version of Excel is generally better.
I think that Krita is pretty competitive though. I don't work in art but I've talked to people who do and they've said Krita is pretty ok, and at least one person uses it for paid work. There's also Blender, which is (I think) being used for "real" movies now?