>but it strangely does not support Linux.

Support reasons. Still isn't the year of Linux Desktop.

> "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."

Were I live and work (IT and consulting in central south-east Norway) it has been the year of the Linux Desktop on and off since 2009.

That was the first time I worked full time at a place that deployed Linux for everyone and everything that didn't have a verified reason for needing Windows.

I think we had one 3rd party trading software running on a Windows machine and maybe the CEO and someone in accounting got Windows.

Everyone else was upgraded to Linux and it worked beatifully. It was my job to support the sales department with desktop related issues and it was absolutely no problem to do it while also being a productive developer.

Since then I have not worked on a place that required Linux, but I think most of the places I have worked on since has had Linux as an option as long as you supported it yourself, and some places also have been very active writing how-tos and working with me to troubleshoot issues that were related to Linux, since many of them were also Linux users.

At the moment I use Mac, but at my current job I'm also allowed to use Linux.

Open Source Support reasons. If Linux developers want better MAUI support there is a "Community Repo" to contribute to and help move things further along. The impression is that if things were further along it might get formally "adopted" (by the Dotnet Foundation) for "official" out-of-the-box "support", but it isn't far enough along and doesn't seem to have enough contributors with enough momentum. It currently seems that the Venn Diagram of "Developers that say they want MAUI support for Linux" and "Developers that would contribute to Linux support for MAUI" has too small of an intersection.

Sure, Microsoft could pay more employees to work on it faster, but Linux loves and prefers open source from Linux devs "untainted by Microsoft", right?

Last I knew it is also considered pretty lackluster. Every time I read up on it it feels like, even beyond the lack of Linux support people just don't care for it.

If I was building a cross platform native app with .NET I'd probably use Avalonia right now.

Yeah, the took an age delivering it, then it came out and most of the early reports were “It’s still not ready.” and then I think Microsoft just gave up.

I think not supporting Linux was a tactical error, though. Some people will put up with a lot for Linux GUI support, and some of those people are the types who can resolve problems with your half-baked GUzi framework.

Oh yeah I agree lack of Linux support is a major issue. Just even without it there are so many other issues I dunno that Linux support helps much.

Does it really need help? I struggle to imagine a scenario where one would consider MAUI not supporting Linux to be an issue (if we discard superficial bad faith concern) when Avalonia, Uno or, if you care about Linux as the main target, Gir.Core exist.

And, at the end of the day, you have a tool with an extremely rich FFI capability so whatever is available from C you can use as well.

Sorry I clearly was not clear enough. I mean specifically an issue with MAUI itself. I agree dotnet/c# have some solid UI options cross platform at this point. MAUI however seems to be at best a mess and at worst dead in the water.

Windows: it's cross platform! Looks inside "Except for Linux"

Huh

Contribute to the Maui backend for GTK and/or Qt, nothing is stopping you

Alternatively, just because you're on .NET doesn't mean you need to use Microsoft sanctioned UI toolkits, just as C++ has no "official" UI toolkit. You're free to pick up some GTK or Qt bindings if you want a native feeling and your application is already architectures correctly. Alternatively, throw Imgui at it if you just need dev tooling, or maybe try other cross platform toolkits in the ecosystem like Avalonia or Uno

I don't think it's very productive to contribute to projects that are the victim of strategic sabotage.

Reminds me of when Microsoft told Apple…I’ll let Wired break down “knifing the baby”…

https://www.wired.com/1998/11/knifing-the-baby/