There is a native Linux tax program called OpenTaxSolver. I´ve been using it for the last 10 years. The user interface is not as pretty and as ¨modern¨ as TurboTax and other tax programs but it is free and it does the job. However, it can only be used to do personal taxes.

Personally, I use the Libre Office spreadsheet to calculate my taxes, then download PDFs for the tax forms I need, fill them in, print them off, and sign and mail them. This is more work than using Turbo Tax, but it costs nothing and once you have a good spreadsheet put together you can reuse it by making minor modifications each year.

There are people who need commercial software. I’ve got no quarrel with any of them, but I’m not one of them.

I do video editing, desktop publishing, application development, graphics, writing, epub creation, flight simulation, etc. entirely with open source applications.

You just perfectly summarized the issue. That Garmin story is what we’re dealing with — they immediately changed the argument from fragmentation to market share the second you proved them wrong with AppImages.

As for how it gets fixed? I honestly think we need a Valve/Proton moment for productivity and creative software.

Thank you so much! I appreciate it.

They are every OS or application I have clicked on to donate. I would appreicate if just one took a check. Maybe are some out there, but it’s not ones I ever wanted to contribute too.

Big, Fat, Hairy Deal. Wsl is an emulator. It is not like running Debia, Arch or Fedora. Bottom line, WSL is about as good as Wine.

Get over yourselves.

Ali, thanks for having the big brass ones to write such an article, and reply politely to everyone’s critique, even when they were wide of the mark.

Well, spot on! It really does all come down to the money, right?

That’s what we’re stuck in — businesses won’t adopt Linux until it has those industry-standard apps, and Adobe/Microsoft won’t port the apps until Linux has the business market share. It’s a vicious cycle… That’s why I’m hoping a commercial compatibility layer or a “Proton for Productivity” steps up to finally break the loop.

Haha, ouch! To clarify, I definitely don’t mean ‘hobbyist’ as an insult to the quality of the software — open-source tools are amazing. But in the professional creative world, if an app can’t natively open a client’s project files, the industry treats it as a hobbyist tool, regardless of how good it is. Definitely not a Windows shill here — just a guy who wants to use Linux full-time without losing my clients.

Wow! Migrating 1000 machines is a massive achievement! Huge respect to your team in Bangladesh for pulling that off.

You’re totally right that for general office work, FOSS tools are fantastic. The roadblock hits with specialized creative work where clients demand specific proprietary formats (like Ableton or Premiere). But your story proves that when the apps do fit the workflow, Linux is the absolute best OS for the job!

I actually have massive respect for FOSS contributors. But it’s unfair to expect volunteer developers to spend their unpaid free time perfectly reverse-engineering multi-billion-dollar enterprise suites just so the rest of us can use them. They shouldn’t have to bear that immense burden.

I’m glad workarounds have worked for your business over the last 20 years. But in some industries, workarounds and broken file formats mean losing clients. I don’t want to go back to Windows — I want to stay on Linux because the kernel is brilliant. Advocating for official, commercial support from software giants isn’t an insult to FOSS — it’s just asking those giants to finally treat Linux users as a serious, viable market.

True, and the funny thing is, we actually agree on almost everything. You’re right about WINE — it’s an endless, frustrating guessing game, which is why I called it duct-tape.

But I love that you brought up SoftMaker Office. That’s how you solved your compatibility issue — a commercial app running natively on Linux. And you’re right in doing so — a paid commercial tool is the best way to get seamless interoperability for your work. That’s exactly what I’m advocating for — just on a larger scale.

I definitely don’t want Linux to be Windows — I just want more official bridges like the one you are already using.

You’re highlighting the exact dilemma I’m talking about! Because proprietary apps are closed black boxes, reverse-engineering them for compatibility layers requires a crazy amount of effort from the community. And you’re completely right — vendors won’t port natively until the market share grows.

While Euro adoption is a massive win for Linux, bureaucratic offices aren’t really using creative suites like Ableton or Adobe. To get those specific professional tools onto Linux, we need a reliable, commercially supported bridge to break free right now, rather than waiting years for geopolitics to slowly shift the market. We kinda agree on the root of the problem.

Fair question, but actually, Windows does run Linux apps. Microsoft built the WSL for developers to run Linux tools without dual-booting. One of the few times Windows actually listened to its users. I just think Linux users deserve that same flexibility in reverse.

The lack of Linux support for tools like TurboTax is exactly the problem I’m highlighting. We shouldn’t be forced to borrow a Windows PC or wrestle with WINE just to file our taxes. Precisely why we need a reliable, official way to run these apps on Linux.