Is there any intention of producing a Linux version of emClient - the BEST email client in the world? I used (and paid for) the Windows version for years but have decided to dump Windows in favour of Ubuntu. emClient for Linux would be welcomed by me.
At least could you make it available in an .exe, as .msi is not recognized by wine on linux.
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Is there any intention of producing a Linux version of emClient
Not likely as per the small percentage of peeps globally who use Linux compared to Windows and Mac as @Michal_Burger advised in another thread post below on this subject, that it would Quote: not make much sense from a business point, and typically these are users that are not use to pay for any kind of software as they use opensource and free products only.
(Quote extracts) from the following thread posts.
https://forum.emclient.com/t/emclient-with-linux/51045/38
“Based on StatCounter (Operating system/Windows share (December 2023) | Born’s Tech and Windows World)
the market share on desktop is 73% Windows, 16% macOS and 4% Linux”.
“Typically these are users that are not use to pay for any kind of software as they use opensource and free products only”
https://forum.emclient.com/t/emclient-with-linux/51045/40
“This would not make much sense from the business point”.
“With Chromebooks it is a bit different story. We plan to support Chromebooks in our Android app soon”.
Suggest you also read this Linux thread if you haven’t already, where some users have tried getting it to working on Linux other ways via Wine and Crossover etc.
I personally would recommend the Mac if you don’t use Windows anymore and haven’t used a Mac, as it’s a rock steady platform and works great with eM Client and has all the apps like Windows now.
Ps I have tried just about every flavour of Linux but it’s too limited and difficult for the average user. 99% of my friends all use Windows or Mac.
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I agree with @cyberzork comments and with Michal’s statement that it doesn’t make business sense to put in the large engineering effort to port the software to Linux. I know other users on the forum have tried to get it to work using Wine (Make eM Run On Linux Wine), but ran into a couple issues. I think the best chance to get eM Client to run on Linux with the least engineering work would be to get it to run in Wine without errors. This would be the solution with the least effort for eM Client if they were to consider it.
Lastly, if you want eM Client to run now on Linux, then your only option would be to use something like VirtualBox to install a Windows guest to run the software.
Otherwise if you want a full port, then your only chance to get eM Client to reconsider would be for enough users to vote for it: Linux support / eM Client for Linux | Mail | eM Client
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I think it’s more of a chicken/egg problem. I would be willing to pay for eM or other software like Affinity if there was a Linux version. But since there isn’t, my only options are to stick with Windows, use a VM, or somehow tinker with Wine or similar (MacOS isn’t one, for reasons :D). None of this is a very satisfactory option, except native Linux support.
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You simply have no idea how complex and costy would that port be. It really does not make any sense business-wise. We’ve considered it several times, but the figures say it very clearly.
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We want to have the Android app full featured in a few months, which might be quite a good workaround on Linux.
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A guy here (Costs of development) is talking about community donations for that and he is talking about 50k USD, but the figure is way WAY bigger. There is no chance we can get that from such donations.
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miércoles 24 julio 2024 :: 1306hrs (UTC +0100)
I totally agree concerning the development investment that would be required being way in excess of the figure quoted, and would not want to be in the position of having to make a case for this based on ROI.
¡Buena suerte!
skybat
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Porting to Linux ist definetly a costly enterprise. On the other hand side it is also an investment. Big companies like CERN or NASA are using non Microsoft software and pay for it. Maybe the EU is also interested in partial funding of software. I know from my experience politicians can be convinced if you show that it works.
You may be right, the thing is we are not big enough to resolve this chicken/egg problem, and even though we love our product and our users, we are still a company and we have to make business decisions that makes sense and are sustainable. Otherwise there’ll be no eM Client even for Windows and Mac.
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May one day a wonder happens Linux support
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What kind of BS are you selling here?
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What kind of BS are you selling here?
That statement by @Michal_Burger is not BS and is true “that currently still in the world today” the majority of Linux users (only use all open source or freeware software) and don’t pay for anything.
If your paying for your Linux OS software and Linux apps then that’s great 
, but unfortunately most Linux users don’t. None of my friends or business colleagues who use Linux pay for anything.
That may change in the future if globally eg: “everyone shifts to Linux”, but most work places and home computing is still mainly Windows or Mac so I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Won’t you be forced to a port any way rather sooner than later if you want to keep supporting Mac? AFAIK, your Mac port (and likely iOS and Android as well) is only feasible, because you can use Xamarin with their portable WinForms implementation. But Xamarin is unsupported since this year. You are therefore relying on a dead tech stack which means the technical debt will start to pile up.
So I think you will have to consider a migration path to something else like Avalonia any way. I hope you at least consider picking a framework that also allows you to target Windows, Mac and Linux.
(Btw. Avalonia for example offer a migration path where you can have parts of the application in WinForms and other parts in Avalonia MVC, which would allow you to tackle this step by step until you get rid of WinForms completely one day.)
Xamarin has been replaced by .NET Maui. As Microsoft, themselves, say “.NET MAUI is the future of Xamarin.Forms and .NET MAUI Essentials is the future of Xamarin.Essential”.
The migration path from WinForms to MAUI is the same as to Avalonia. MS may call MAUI the successor to Xamarin, but it’s not a drop-in replacement at all. From what I heard, also MAUIs mobile support is pretty ****.
That’s why I said it would be nice if a (unavoidable?) rewrite of the UI would take Linux into consideration … and Avalonia would allow that.
Unless Em Client is based on Xamarin, I do not see your point. And if it were not, why in the world would they adopt a dead platform?
So, if you want to go back in time and suggest Xamarin, you are going back in time far enough where Avalonia has no official Linux support.
Have a great weekend.