Indeed but this is a discussion about Blender and you posted originally:
> Making a feature platform specific to a negligible fraction of the users is inefficient, as many applications will never be ported to Linux platforms.
All the large studios use Linux, that's why all the third party software that is used in feature animation and vfx is supported on Linux. So I'm just saying 'negligible fraction of users' in the case of Blender (which as a project would like to increase adoption in professional feature animation and vfx) isn't really true.
I am sure Studios account for a small portion of the 4.5 million unique downloads each release. Note that less the 20% of users ever touch film or animation projects, 73% are single users, and most related user applications are Adobe products.
Stats are available from the published 2024 feedback data:
I'm not sure download stats are hugely relevant because that would imply the needs of every person that downloads Blender are weighted equivalently which would make little sense.
Or are you suggesting the Blender foundation has no interest in getting wider adoption among film and animation studios?
I think the foundation projects hold a lot of potential, but what they release as "stable" is rarely ready for a production setting. People do use Blender for small side tasks commercially, but would you honestly bet your company reputation/job on their 31 years of shenanigans?
Updates still permute the core to break parts of the program, and brick countless add-ons or custom code. People turn users into Beta testers, partners into IT support, and hide workflow details under layers of feature-creep kludges.
When Blender updates for feature X, they will usually brick feature Y. YMMV
The Foundation may intend to improve user adoption, but they can't even cover there own unit-tests on internal add-on code. =3
I like Linux (use it everyday), but many CAD, Media, Animation, and Mocap application vendors simply don't publish ports outside Windows.
Most studios have proprietary workflows with custom software. =3