I am a very passionate Linux user, and I appreciate the philosophy that works behind the “Free Software” and “Open Source Initiative”. Linux in the computing world acts as an equivalent to the opposition parties in a democracy. In a democracy, an opposition party is needed to keep the ruling party in check. Just like in the computing world, the ruling party is the big tech companies that enjoy a large market share of their products. Linux (or any alternative OS to Windows and macOS such as FreeBSD, Haiku, etc.) keeps checking on the operating systems that have a larger market share. Users always have the option to move away from the operating system they are currently using if they are not satisfied with the services. Linux provides that option. However, many users can’t make the change because of the unavailability of software and apps for Linux. A lot of software developers do not make their software compatible with Linux because the market share is comparatively lower than that of mainstream operating systems.

The thesis argument of this blog is that “how could the web apps help popularise and make easy the move to Linux for the users?” As we move closer to making the web capable of doing almost all things natively on PCs, More and more software companies are providing web apps for their software, like Adobe Photoshop, which does not have a Linux version of their software. So, the user can actually use the web version of Photoshop on Linux as it can on Windows or macOS. Linux supports browsers and performs natively with web apps, and in many cases, it performs way better than Windows. With the growing popularity of web apps, it is going to be immensely easy for those users who hesitate to migrate because the software they work on does not support Linux.

This is an excellent thing for Linux as well, not because it can garner more profit from the increase in users. Rather, it will be good because more people will come to know how good the Linux operating system is, regardless of the myth that it is only for tech enthusiasts.