Linux on the desktop feels about the same as Mac OS X back in the early 2000's. It hasn't quite taken off yet, but it's past the point where you can be a user and generally expect things to work well. Overall, I'm very happy with where Linux on the desktop is these days.
Pre-mobile, pre-'fast internet', there wasn't really a home in Linux land for paid-for apps, there were a few, but not many. And devs flocked to Windows, and to a lesser extent Macs.
Fortunately, in 2025, people are developing software as a service, and that can be successfully achieved using Linux as your buyers aren't other Linux users. Paid-for (native/desktop) apps are still a rarity and probably will continue to be.
Most of the software used in my field (industrial automation) is commercial. Our engineers use AutoCAD. I use Control Expert, Kepware, and Aveva System Platform. Our techs use software that's specifically designed to interface with field equipment, such as flow computers, VFDs, and valve actuators. There are no real alternatives to these; we'd use them regardless of what OS they run on. They're all Windows-only because all the other industrial software is Windows-only. It's a massive chicken-and-egg problem.
(And before someone brings up FreeCAD and the like - no, those aren't real alternatives for an existing engineering company. We have lots of stuff we've developed for the tools we have. We're locked in.)
I never thought about it like that, but it makes sense in a lot of ways! PS Linux desktop has reached 5% I believe.
> I never thought about it like that, but it makes sense in a lot of ways!
Yeah. I developed Linux/open-source software for more than a decade, and the point was never to gain marketshare for Linux. The point was to develop good software that people would want to use. I don't care what software other people use, so long as it doesn't impact what software I can use. We would occasionally get suggestions from particularly enthusiastic users to make the experience worse(!) for Windows users, because it would promote the Linux experience. Just completely missing the point.
It would be to have them sitting in a room, in front of a Linux laptop with a perfectly usable userland utility and expecting them to not reinvent the wheel. The door would be unlocked and the developer would be free to leave at any time.