this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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As a advid user of lightburn for my business, this truely saddens me.

I loved being able to have the freedom to run linux and have 1st class support.

Lightburn states in this post, about how linux is less than 1℅ of there users. They also state it costs lots of money and time to develop for each distribution. To which i gotta ask WHY not just make a flatpak or distribute source to let the community package it. Like its kinda dumb to kill it off ive been using zoronOS for 3 years running my laser cutter! And it works bloody great!!!! The last version for linux will be 1.7 which will continue to work forever with a valid liscence. I do not plan to switch back to ~~windows~~ spyware or ~~MAC~~ overpriced Unix. I hope the people at lightburn reconsider in the future, There software is the best software for laser cutters period. And when buying my laser cutter (60watt omtech) i went out of my way to buy one with a rudia controller as it is compatible with lightburn.

--edit just got the email this is what they sent

"To our valued Linux users:

After a great deal of internal discussion, we have made the difficult decision to sunset Linux support following the upcoming release of LightBurn 1.7.00.

Many of us at LightBurn are Linux users ourselves, and this decision was made reluctantly, after careful investigation of all possible avenues for continuing Linux support.

The unfortunate reality is that Linux users make up only 1% of our overall user base, but providing and supporting Linux-compatible builds takes up as much or more time as does providing them for Windows and Mac OS.

The segmentation of Linux distributions complicates these burdens further — we've had to provide three separate packages for the versions of Linux we officially support, and still encounter frequent compatibility issues on those distributions (or closely related distributions), to say nothing of the many distributions we have been asked to support.

Finally, we will soon begin building LightBurn on a new framework that will require our development team to write custom libraries for each platform we support. This will be a significant undertaking and, regrettably, it is simply not tenable to invest our team's time into an effort that will impact such a small portion of our user base. Such challenges will only continue to arise as we work to expand LightBurn's capabilities going forward.

We understand that our Linux users will be disappointed by this decision. We appreciate all of our users, and assure you that your existing license will still work with any version of LightBurn for which your license term is valid, up until LightBurn version 1.7.00, forever. Prior releases will always be made available for download. Finally, your license will continue to be valid for future Windows and Mac OS releases covered by your license term.

If you are a Linux-only user who has recently purchased a license or renewal that is valid for a release of LightBurn after v1.7.00, please contact us for a refund.

Rest assured that we will be using the time gained by sunsetting Linux support to redouble our efforts at making better software for laser cutters, and beyond. We hope you will continue to utilize LightBurn on a supported operating system going forward, and we thank you for being a part of the LightBurn community.

Sincerely,

The LightBurn Software Team

Copyright © 2024 LightBurn Software. All rights reserved. "

I appreciate that there willing to refund recently bought liscences and all versions up to 1.7 forever instead of DRM bullshit (you gotta buy the newest subscription service) {insert cable guys from southpark} But if your rewriting the framework then why kill off linux??? They said there working on a native arm build for MacOS which knowing apple your gonna half to buy the new macbook cause the old one is old and apple needs your money. So its not anymore of a reason to kill linux

TLDR: there killing linux support because its less than 1% of there userbase and they spend more money and time maintaining the lightburn build.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Crazy to me how developers would rather abandon a project (e.g. the Linux version of their software) than open source it so that the community can continue it. If you're abandoning it then it's not generating profit for you anymore anyway, so literally no reason not to open source it. Oh no, are you worried people will use that to build Windows versions for free instead of paying for a licence? Boo hoo.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago

Man i was literally looking into laser cutters like 2 days ago and saw that Lightburn supported Linux. Guess that was short lived.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The only reason I paid for Lightburn in the first place is because it's the only even slightly mature laser software that supports Linux.

Given this news, what are our options?

LagerGRBL seems to be open source, but nobody packages that for Linux as far as I can tell.

And I wasn't able to find anything else when I was looking last year.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

This does not help with Ruida Controllers and fiber Lasers. Both things I have at my company and we don't have any Windows System.

That is such a shame. And since we need to talk over usb, wine will not work either 😞

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Honestly, Lightburn is hella developed. Even stagnated at its current state, it's still leagues beyond anything else. It'll continue to be a worthwhile purchase for a long time.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago

Reverse engineers have entered the chat

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

@Steamymoomilk At the very least, they could create deb & or rpm packages. They also have the option to use flatpak, snap, or appimage....

[–] [email protected] 125 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Many of us at LightBurn are Linux users ourselves, and this decision was made reluctantly, after careful investigation of all possible avenues for continuing Linux support.

If y'all use Linux, then how the fuck do you not know about Flatpak, or even AppImage? Christ.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Read the thread they said they have provided appimage for years.

Agree on the flatpak part tho, that would have solved this issue.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 months ago (2 children)

So then why do they think that they must support every distribution? You would think they would jump on the chance to switch to Flatpak. The reasoning is ultimately pretty poor, so hopefully this isn't a shitty cover for some other decision like layoffs.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

Doesn't really matter if it's not open source anyway. I prefer something open source without Linux support (that can thus have community builds) than something proprietary with Linux support.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 months ago (2 children)

same old excuse. all they need to do is shit out a deb and the distros can all figure out their garbage from there

[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago

Just open source v1.7 and let the community make their "openLight" version. They said they're moving to custom libraries anyway, and people would be able to keep buying their products, so doesn't seem like they stand to lose much by going the open source/abandonware route.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I was honestly looking at one. No more.

Are there any open source alternatives?

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 months ago (1 children)
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