I was thinking about the recent story about the DB looking for windows 3.1 administrator.
A classic issue I’ve soon working in heavy industry is that hardware last longer than windows version. So 10 years ago, you bought a component for the product you design or a full machine for your factory which only comes with a windows XP driver.
10 year latter, Windows XP is obsolete, upgrading to a more recent windows might be an option but would cost a shit load of money.
I have therefore the impression that Linux would offer more control to the professional user in term of product lifecycle and patch deployment. However, there is always that stupid HW which doesn’t have a Linux driver.
it should be noted, that the hardware doesn’t necessarily last longer than the windows support- in large server farms that have been running for a long time, it’s normal for the occasional odds and ends to go down and not come back up. hard disks in particular come to mind.
you think windows 3.1 was old… the IRS’s largest database (and much of the financial world,) runs on emulations of the original IBM Mainframes; specifically running KOBOL.
Also Linux has a reputation of being used by pirates. a lot of industrial tools are expensive; and the fear is letting it go on Linux is likely to lead to it being pirated; so corpo dicks freak out over it. The reality is, it’s going to be pirated anyway, probably. Unless your tool is so obscure, uselss or just down-right awful. but don’t tell them that.
Finally, supporting multiple environments is relatively expensive, and leads to increased complexity. So, developers focus on the environment they think will be most frequently used by their end-users. which is why most games are “exclusive” to windows, for example.