Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of proprietary software for Linux


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. The effort put into an article is, for better or worse, a very weak argument at AfD. Lists need to meet LISTN or LISTPURP, and no strong argument has been put forward for either criterion here. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:40, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

List of proprietary software for Linux

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Contested prod, this article does not meet WP:LISTN. Sources are low quality primary sources. Seems to be a collection of miscellaneous facts, which falls under WP:NOT. PhotographyEdits (talk) 15:45, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2023 May 21.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 15:59, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Software and Lists.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 16:18, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete The category is too expansive, even if limited to notable programs for which we have articles, to form a reasonable list. According to PetScan, there are 80 unique articles within Category:Proprietary software for Linux and its subcategories, most of which are not exclusive to Linux. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 20:08, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTIINFO. Unwieldy list of practically every third party software for a particular operating system. Ajf773 (talk) 21:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. The vast majority of entries either have no article, or are cross-platform software. (As an aside, Minecraft is amusingly in the 'Visual novels' section.) SWinxy (talk) 18:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete I disagree with the assertion that it's a collection of "miscellaneous facts" or unnecessarily long, any more so than any other tech list. List of Intel Celeron processors, for example. The number of columns for the parts that have been organized are comparatively concise. That said, from a maintainability standpoint, it's hard to argue that the information couldn't be conveyed better in other ways/places, such as List of Linux games, or that it isn't overly prone to mistakes, due to many editors not knowing what "proprietary" means. inclusivedisjunction (talk) 21:01, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep On the basis of some of the arguments brought by User:Inclusivedisjunction above: There are other lists, such as the List of Linux games, and lists of various microprocessors, and they survive fine. The presence of the article helps to inform people who would want to migrate to Linux, away from proprietary operating systems, but who would need a specific proprietary program to run their business. The article Firefox version history survived its second deletion proposal for some of the similar reasons, and that is to inform people from a reliable repository of information, which Wikipedia is. - Mardus /talk 02:04, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem there was even a deletion debate on List of Linux games and the Firefox version history was not really a true keep outcome but a no-consensus (which defaults to keep), so I don't think that is a particular good argument. The current article uses even worse reference quality. I agree with @Ajf773 that this list is unwieldy. There is also no List of Microsoft Windows software because that would result in a far too big list, the same applies to Linux these days since so much software is cross-platform. PhotographyEdits (talk) 09:25, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * At the time the article was created, Linux was a very niche operating system, and remains so to this day on the desktop. Android was never a consideration. The common complaint has been, that 'there's no software for it' to justify migration from Windows to Linux. Some of the proprietary titles listed might also be Linux-only, and not available for Windows. - Mardus /talk 20:10, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not for convincing or helping people to switch to Linux. Android is a Linux distribution too (but not GNU/Linux). PhotographyEdits (talk) 09:53, 26 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment I don't yet want to vote for delete because I haven't checked this thoroughly but likely there are a) too many potential entries b) the list is missing a lot of notable entries c) it's not a list that's useful (or similar) to readers. Concerning c) and Mardus' point about people who want to migrate to Linux: they aren't looking for proprietary software that runs on Linux in specific but various specific applications or application purposes that run on Linux. For example, if Photoshop doesn't work on Linux distros, an alternative would be GIMP. But if Photoshop were to run on Linux it would be listed here instead of in a List of graphics editor software for Linux with a subsection (or sortable column) for #Proprietary software. I suggest people work on actually meaningful and useful lists that are fairly complete and/or only have relatively few potential notable items. All in all I tend towards delete.
 * Prototyperspective (talk) 09:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @Prototyperspective To me, that seems like a reasonable basis to make a vote :) PhotographyEdits (talk) 09:44, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep per Marcus. When I removed the PROD tag this week, I pointed out that this article had 802 edits by 348 editors. It’s been added to and maintained since 2006. That’s a lot of interest and effort by a lot of people. This AfD is ill-advised. Note: I encourage notifying some of those editors of this AfD - that’s a common practice that I don’t think has been done yet. — A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 12:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The fact that people are merely interested in it and/or the article is old are not good rationales for keeping information on Wikipedia, it has to be in the scope for the Wikipedia project and adhere to our other policies and guidelines. PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:23, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:POPULARPAGE is not a suitable argument for retaining an article. Ajf773 (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it could make a valid point for the topic being notable, that guidelines (not policy) even admits . However, it only got 627 pageviews in the last 30 days which is not a lot (actually that's very little albeit the imo notable topic of pandemic prevention – a topic one may be interested in in the near-term if continuation of present civilization is of value – doesn't get much more either). Having "802 edits by 348 editors" just shows that the page requires a lot of work to maintain and expand (probably still missing even a lot of basic info) which should rather work on more useful lists like "List of gaming software for Linux" or similar and so on. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:09, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.