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Adobe Forming a Linux Strategy?
rocketjam writes "According to cnet, Adobe Systems, the 800-pound gorilla of commercial graphics software is looking to become more involved with desktop Linux. The company has recently posted two new jobs, one for a director of Linux market development to 'identify and evaluate strategies for Adobe in the Linux and open-source desktop market', and one for a senior computer scientist who will 'become maintainer and/or architect for one or more Adobe-sponsored open-source projects.' Additionally, Adobe has joined the Open Source Development Labs and is active in the desktop Linux working group. A company spokesman said they are not currently looking to port any of their flagship products such as Photoshop to Linux yet, as they currently don't see sufficient numbers in the platform to make a good business case for it."
Aren't there quite a few Adobe programs that run/ran on IRIX?
This would almost be a way for SGI to re-enter the market, with Linux/Adobe workstations. Out-Macintosh the Mac, I guess.
they could spend a little more time developing/testing their wares so they run fine in wine/cedega/crossover just like corel did once.
this would help creating market to an eventual native port.
What ? Me, worry ?
Hopefully, Photoshop and Illustrator will be ported. If they are, Linux can count me in as one of their users. My Adobe applications are the only reason I still use Windows.
With how (seemingly) easy they ported Acrobat Reader to Linux, I can't imagine Photoshop being too much different.
;) (unless you're writing with evil compiler-specific hacks)
:-P
The only difficult part would be the GUI stuff, all the underlying code is just C++, which, IIRC is pretty portable
Funny story my friend bill told me about WWDC (refrencing Photoshop's portability)
Apparently Apple gave free t-shirts if you have a project with over 5000 lines of code that you compiled with XCode. Some really dorky guy quietly walks up, writes down "Photoshop"....the apple guy looked at him for a second...and then just handed him a shirt, no questions asked
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...for a while - witness their use of Tomcat and MySQL in GoLive as far back as 2002.
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. . . about Sklyarov, do they? They can port Photoshop to Linux; I'll stick with the GIMP, thank you very much.
I really have to wonder why it took so long for Adobe to jump on the Linux bandwagon. Sure, everybody and their mother will say that there is the GIMP and I agree, it is a great program and ver powerful. However, that being said, it is no Adobe Photoshop.
In the election spirit, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen
"I have used Photoshop. Photoshop is my friend. Mr. GIMP, you are no Photoshop." (Sorry, I couldn't resist)
Seriously, if Adobe moves into Linux with Photoshop and the other heavy hitters from their lineup (e.g., Illustrator) it will do two things. The first is truly and absolutely, positively legitimatize Linux (but honestly, it didn't really need it but this is a true stamp of approval). Second, they will just further extend their lead in the computer graphics market because it would be hard not to believe that a Linux-optimized Photoshop would do well in terms of marketshare. Also, just as important, when does Macromedia jump into the deep end of the Linux pool? They would almost for certain have to make some kind of move.
Sure, it would cannibalize some of their Mac and Windows market, but I feel pretty confident that there is a significant number of people that are waiting for this offering. While we can argue all day about some of Adobe's policies and other doings, I tip my hat to them on this one.
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The problem be that you have an inferior project. Why is not GIMP used professionally? At many companies the tech departments have heard of GIMP, but the design departments prefer Adobe Photoshop. Why? Simple quality issue. Nothing more. The GIMP must be the furthered develop before gained market share.
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How hard would it be to port the kinda-sorta BSD code from Photoshop CS (or the entire Creative Suite, for that matter) to Linux?
(Actually, this is question is not facetious--really, how hard would it be?)
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Sorry but like the Open Office vs Microsoft Office debate.. for free products they are astoundingly good, and given the choice between not using office and graphics tools and using OO / GIMP then i'd use the free software in a second.
But if price were no issue, the commercial applications would rule the roost! THATS a no brainer... IMHO of course.
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You mean like the G5 hack?
It isn't? Do you doubt that the GIMP is used professionaly in non-print graphics (web design, games)? Even if GIMP isn't used Cinepaint sure is.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I fell for the parent's trick yesterday. If you click the links your browser window will reduce to a smaller size and bounce around the screen, and an audio clip will play saying "I'm looking at gay porno", and because your browser window is dancing around it's hard to close. Really, it's a pretty nicely crafted troll. But a troll nonetheless.
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IIRC, back in 1997, I was running Photoshop 3.x on an SGI O2. Gee, don't they have Photoshop for Mac OS X? I think porting to the Linux platform would be one of the killer apps we've all been looking for. Now, I'm a big fan of Macintosh in the commercial graphics industry, but I've been saying for years, besides a great office suite (see OpenOffice), good image editing and manipulation software would plant Linux right in there as a great desktop alternative.
Yes, this is open for great debate, but the fact is, many companies that can't afford the great Macintosh (no disprespect intended) would gladly plop Photoshop on Linux. But that's my opinion.
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
There is an adobe reader for linux. I just can't read Adobe E-books in Linux.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
they are not currently looking to port any of their flagship products such as Photoshop to Linux yet, as they currently don't see sufficient numbers in the platform to make a good business case for it.
WTF??
Of course not!! i believe the very act of porting the software to a linux machine would create the numbers they need!!!i don't think i only speak for myself when i say it feels like i am stuck with windows as long as i am trying to stay marketable in the graphics design world. Sure those of you Linux people might say, "Linux has a lot of software that acts like Photoshop..." But thats just not good enough... i promise, i for one would reformat this weekend if i could use the same graphics software on a Linux machine...
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Most viable project that Adobe can open source is Postscript above all else.
Postscript is not a end product thus no real self threat, it can however very much gain a large programmer pool and a good image.
Their image currently is one of being very hostile towards the community.
It's obvious why Adobe is now thinking about building some leverage here:
With Linux making considerable inroads in the server market, Adobe needs to ensure their backend products are still going to be available.
Of course, tying in with that is Adobe's total dominance of PDF as a standard and their stranglehold on fonts... If Adobe can get a toehold in how things like PDFs and fonts are displayed on the Linux desktop, they can push out the little Linux PDF players and retain dominance.
From there, if Adobe makes some serious impact, THEN we'll probably see desktop apps starting to port to Linux.
If you see Acrobat as a Linux app, that's your first step.
Well, contrary to some oppinions voiced, I must admit that Adobe might be aiming at deploying its more sophisticated tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator on Linux platforms. Why? Well, after various goverments on local and national levels, such as Germany, France, UK, Indochina, Brazil, even Basque Parliament and more have started migrating to Linux en masse, it is not even a matter of when but now that Linux users' market will develop serious need for Adobe's products. Thus, I'd dare say Adobe knows damn well what it's doing, and might well hit a platinum vein in this little undertaking.
'...computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons...' Popular Mechanics, 03/49'
It's always struck me as odd that Adobe, known initially for Postscript and then its compressed offspring PDF, is not a big FOSS player. Their model for the free Acrobat Reader versus the full version of Acrobat was risky, but strangely enough Microsoft never included a PDF print driver in Windows, assuring Adobe of some revenue there.
They claim they don't see a market for Linux products, but what they really mean is they don't see a way to sell a Linux PhotoShop when the GIMP is Free. They've got good name recognition and well-developed good will with most computer users (ever since they quit making you register to download acroread :-).
I'm not a big graphics user, so under Windows I use PaintShopPro v4, which is uncrippled shareware, and the GIMP under Linux. For the casual user who just needs to crop an occasional picture from the family trip to Wallyworld, I don't see much difference in usage. I know the GIMP is scriptable and has an Open library, but I'll probably never use it that way.
Not to start a religious debate, but is there a huge gap in functionality between the GIMP and Adobe's PhotoShop? Would Adobe be able to take market share away from the GIMP, which is bundled with a lot of distributions?
sigs, as if you care.
In addition to the threat that GIMP might pose to the sales of Photoshop, dont forget Scribus, a competitor with InDesign (and the old FrameMaker) product. With tight integration (via XML docs, KDE, etc), these could be a real threat down the line, especially at a savings of (over) USD$500 per ! and when people say GIMP is not Photoshop, what percentage of the people even use 30% of the capabilities ?
adobe already checked out what's possible by using Trottlechs QT for their windows version of photoshop album. they made the design mistake to enable cleartype antialiasing - so the interface looks quite fuzzy - but the overall design is quite a success IMHO.
PAT
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Sorry, this is going to be highly redundant, but sadly I must weigh in on the side of those who say Photoshop STILL beats GIMP.
I am a graphics professional turned web guy, have used various versions of Photoshop on PC since 1995. Believe me, I really WANT to like GIMP. I've installed it on Windows and Linux over the years, and tried it....but I agree with those who say Photoshop still rules.
GIMP, as good as it is (and it has gotten MUCH better over the years) still feels like a knockoff. Photoshop feels much more intuitive, as it should, given the years Adobe has used fine-tuning their interface, which, incidently, they stick with on all of their graphics products. Part of the appeal (I'm guessing) with the Graphic Professionals is that ability to jump from app to app without a lot of re-learning of the user interface.
Type handling in Photoshop has always felt easier, which for someone making web graphics is a big deal.
Again, much as I love the idea of GIMP, I still shell out money for Photoshop. But your mileage may vary, and to each his own.
Web and video graphics are ALOT different from print media which is where Adobe shines.
If you're making a spread for a magazine, it _has_ to be in PDF/X-1a format which Gimp doesn't do.
Gimp is starting to get into color seperation with CMYK support but it isn't there yet.
Adobe Illustrator is the leader for SVG. The Linux alternatives aren't as good yet for print output. As far as usability and making a cute web graphic, sure Inkscape is fine.
Finally, Adobe InDesign is starting to replace the cumbersome Quark. There is NO layout tool for Linux for print. Again the support for PDF/X1-a goes without saying.
The only program I see that has support for PDF/X1-a on Linux is the libraries that come with PDFlib
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
But if price were no issue, the commercial applications would rule the roost! THATS a no brainer... IMHO of course.
That's because of the inherent problem with software GUI development: it can not be parallellized to a great degree. There is nothing comparable to a central knowledgeable UI tzar or core team when you need a mainstream usable environment. Most open source projects still let just about anyone who has submitted more than a few lines of code to the project tinker with the UI, and as a result most open source projects have UI's that are horrible compromises and seem designed by committee.
Well, it seems as if Adobe will want to maintain dominance ffor SVG and PDF standards in Linux. Obviously, they won't port creative software to Linux. Maybe Elements or something, but who on earth would use Linux for Illustrator or Photoshop?
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
I wonder if the existence of Scribus is giving them reason to wake up and realize that eventually (maybe not today, but eventually) they're going to be facing some real competition in the DTP universe. If so, I have to applaud Adobe for being proactive about it.
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I agree with the Illustrator/Potoshop things but there is quite anice layout program for Linux called Scribus. Check it out. It does PDF/X-3 at least
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I really have to wonder why it took so long for Adobe to jump on the Linux bandwagon.
Because the Linux bandwagon currently only exists for servers. That's where the big spotlight is in the market. Adobe has some very minor server software for PDFs, but everthing else is the desktop. And the Linux desktop isn't taking the market by storm like the Linux server.
Developers: We can use your help.
I would not hold out too much hope for a Linux version of Photoshop any time soon. I predict Adobe will be late to this game.
THe only reason holding me back from using Linux for my work computer is the lack of proper photoshop. Sure I can Wine it but it still doesn't quite cut it. I have been trained to work with Photoshop and really The Gimp is not that good of imgae editing program. I can't do numerous this with it which I can do with Photoshop under Windows (2k). And I do hope when they port it to Linux (even if it's a closed-source program) I hope they'll allow licence transferring. The day that happens I'll be freed from the Dark Side.
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I don't know, as a destop Linux user since Redhat 4.2, I've sent many an email to Adobe and the only response I've ever got was "F off".
I consider them like a Unisys,Sun, etc. They have to look like they are doing something with Linux, especially since Macromedia is working on Linux versions.
I think they pretty much hate the Linux community.
Most people using Photoshop professionally have a large amount of time invested in learning and mastering the program. These people aren't going to casually switch to another image editor because of price or a handful of cool features. There have been some very good commercial competitors to Photoshop over the years including the highly regarded LivePicture, but none of them has threatened Photoshop's dominance. Adobe now markets heavily to the consumer end of this market with Photoshop Elements which still contains most of the Photoshop features a casual user might need and this ultimately reinforces Photoshop's market-leading position.
If I were Adobe (which I'm not), instead of just an Adobe user (which I am), I'd be putting more effort into porting my flagship products to AMD/PPC/Intel 64-bit platforms now for the next release. Most Adobe products are compute intensive, and run by people who can afford leading edge hardware. 64-bits has been out for over a year now in both their main markets, and that would be the compelling reason to buy the next upgrade.
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Hopefully, Photoshop and Illustrator will be ported. If they are, Linux can count me in as one of their users. My Adobe applications are the only reason I still use Windows.
I used to run Windows for this precise reason as well as you. Now I run both Photoshop and Illustrator quite happily on OS.X. I am free from Windows viruses/worms/trojans nor do I have to put up with the multitude of petty annoyances brought on by immature open source apps when running Linux as a desktop OS (Linux as a server OS is a whole other chapter of course). I did try to run Photoshop for Windows under Linux/Wine but it does not work 100% and it's generally just to much hassel for my taste to run Windows apps on Linux when I can run most of them natively on a Mac or find an acceptable substitute. The only thing I'm missing now is a G5 PowerBook (not on the market yet) although Photoshop runs amazingly well on my current 1.25Ghz G4 PowerBook.
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...to have Premiere and Audition ported over to Linux. I'd totally download those programs from bittorrent if they were available!
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Of course not!! i believe the very act of porting the software to a linux machine would create the numbers they need!!!i don't think i only speak for myself when i say it feels like i am stuck with windows as long as i am trying to stay marketable in the graphics design world. Sure those of you Linux people might say, "Linux has a lot of software that acts like Photoshop..." But thats just not good enough... i promise, i for one would reformat this weekend if i could use the same graphics software on a Linux machine...
You've said the same thing about 100 other people have said in this thread. But, you're not thinking... you're ALREADY an Adobe customer. Why would they bother to port to Linux for you, and everybody else that says, "If I had Photoshop on Linux, I'd use Linux"? What do they stand to gain? You're not a new customer. If anything, they'd make LESS money, because they're not going to gain any new customers, but will have to spend ($100,000's?) to port to Linux.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm a graphic designer, as well. I agree that Gimp versions 2.0 had a 'really bad' UI, but I think it's fine now -- in some ways even *better* than Photoshop (I love being able to just right-click to get to the menu w/o moving the mouse to the top of the screen [this can really make a difference on a 22" monitor :-)]). It is different from Photoshop, so if what you're looking for is something *exactly* like PS you will be dissapointed, but that's through no fault of the Gimp, just people's own conditioning.
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Actually, it is also a platform issue. When you are working in print graphics, the chances are there is a mac in front of you. You can install and run gimp on a mac, but it runs under x-windows and does not play well with other programs or the native GUI. Most people are not going to run Linux just to run the gimp, especially when they already have a working environment. The gimp is a pretty nice application, it is functional and free, but when you compare it side-by-side to photoshop on a mac, well the non-native GUI and the relatively steep learning curve to become productive, combine to give it a reputation among graphics professionals as cludgy and unfinished. If the gimp ever takes off in market share it will be because linux has dominated, or because it has been popularized by the video editing market.
(insert text editor of choice) is all you ever need to design a website, i've never used a wysiwyg application for creating my websites because there's no need to; you have far greater control of what's going on when you're doing the markup and CSS by hand than you ever will with Dreamweaver/Frontpage/whatever. Additionally you can make sure that only the attributes needed are specified; i've lost track of the number of site's i've had to overhaul which were originally made in these wysiwsy applications and wading through the crap it puts in is soul-destroying.
There's mischief and malarkies but no queers or yids or darkies within this bastard's carnival, this vicious cabaret.
It supports ENCRYPTION, not DRM.
Sites like http://drivethrurpg.com/catalog/index.php have content that XPDF can not view.
Another of those 'it must be crap because it's free' people. There are things that MS Office can do that Open Office cannot do and GIMP is not a drop-in replacement for Photoshop. If OO office or GIMP will not meet a person's needs, of course they will need to choose another product; it is not a matter of whether a product is "free" or commercial, it is a matter of needed functionality. Just because a particular piece of software is "free" does not mean that it is not useful.
You must also be one of those folks who prefers to run IIS or Netscape/iPlanet (or whatever it's called now) just because they are "commercial" products rather than running Apache, which is "free".
Of course it won't get photoshop ported to luinux! Did you read the summary?
A company spokesman said they are not currently looking to port any of their flagship products such as Photoshop to Linux yet
Most viable project that Adobe can open source is Postscript above all else.
How is postscript not open? Adobe provides full specifications available to anyone to implement it. Completely royalty free and without patent encumbrance.
Postscript is not a end product thus no real self threat
Wrong. Postscript is a product. Who makes the embedded PS systems for the millions of PS printers out there, eh?
it can however very much gain a large programmer pool and a good image.
It already has these things. Have you been living under a rock since 1985 when Postscript language specifications and reference manual (AKA 'the blue-book' and 'the red-book')
Their image currently is one of being very hostile towards the community.
In your mind perhaps.
Actually Quanta (included in KDE and included in pretty much any distribution) seems to fit your needs.
I think the most important contribution Adobe could make would be to lessen the restrictions on several key Intelectual Property (sic) assets. Of course to make this even potentially reasonable for Adobe, they could do so in a copylefted-approach, so that the IP rights are only granted in a non-discriminatory manner when used in open-source code or applications. Surely that has to be a way for Adobe to keep its monoplistic protections against other commercial players, yet allow the free software community enough leeway to actually deal with Adobe (and in the long run help Adobe). This is in some ways similar to the Sun/Java debate.
Several key technologies currently keep Linux way behind, especially in the high-end graphics market. Some I can think of surround fonts, such as hinting, or even the free distribution of the core fonts that make up PDF or Postscript; and also especially around color processing. Adobe has literally hundreds and hundreds of patents and other protectionist assets that are an extreme hinderance to Linux adoption of their "standards"; especially in the higher-end markets and applications.