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Adobe To Port AIR To Linux

Posted by kdawson on from the breath-of-fresh dept.

unityofsaints writes "Up until now, Adobe hasn't done much in terms of porting its applications to Linux, as its only product to have recieved any kind of Linux implementation is Flash. This may be about to change because the company has announced a Linux port of AIR, its web application development software. No definite release date is mentioned in the interview with Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch, just a vague 'later this year.'"

15 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Port the Adobe suites to linux.

    1. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by SCHecklerX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No thanks.

      Google took that approach with picassa and the results are horrible.

      Native GTK please. If gimp, pidgin, sylpheed, gvim, etc. can be cross platform, then certainly it wouldn't be too large a task for a company the size of Adobe to do the port the other way around.

    2. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by Telvin_3d · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, it couldn't possibly be a massive undertaking to port almost 15 years of built up code, working across an entire suite of interconnected programs, to a completely differnt set of APIs. They should get on that right away!

      Please note, of the programs you listed, combined they are a drop in the bucket in terms of code base and complexity compared to the full Adobe Suite. You may not agree with commercial software and that is fine, but don't try and pass it off as less than it is.

    3. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by pherthyl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No GTK apps are what I would consider to be truly cross platform. GIMP on Windows looks like GIMP on linux with a theme applied. No GTK apps integrate properly with the native environments in Windows or OS X. Qt at least makes a decent attempt. So a port to GTK would make Photoshop only gnome-native anyway. Better to just use Wine, make the interface exactly familiar to all users of photoshop, and save thousands of man months of effort.

    4. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why would Adobe care? People switching from platform a to platform b will just cause them to loose money on their other platforms and make it up on their Linux platforms. These people are Net 0, as well if they did switch to Linux and depending on what they did with graphics they may find that The GIMP does the work for them that they want to do (Yes there is GIMP for windows too, but it is not defaultly installed). So they could loose costomers in the process. If people feel locked into their product the last thing they want to do is introduce them to change where a competing product is prevlant.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by Tarlus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Web != Web Application

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      /* No Comment */
    6. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by Albert+Sandberg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      (This layer is likely to be rather complex -- witness how long it took them to bring Photoshop to MacIntel)

      Speaking as a programmer myself, I know the step from linux code running on macintel or vice versa is not an extreme step to take. I release demos on all three major platforms and by using libraries that helps us with input/output (such as glfw and audiere, but there are plenty of others for each use) it's not a huge task to take on.

      And this day of age your code (or 99% of it) shouldn't been done in assembly either, so no problem porting to other platforms really. And they don't utilize sound :)

    7. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by John+Whitley · · Score: 2, Insightful
      With any such "port my favorite non-OSS app to Linux!" request, two thoughts come to mind:
      1. Is there really a market that would pay for the development and QA effort?
        In the case of Photoshop, I would suspect that many of those potential users are simply using Mac OS X as their platform of choice these days.
      2. Which release of which distro?
        You've got to develop and QA against something, and as anyone who has worked with a variety of distros knows, they often just aren't drop-in interchangeable. This question is even more important, as it highlights fragmentation of the Linux desktop userbase. "Linux" doesn't really refer to a single desktop platform target. WINE may help to insulate against some of the lossage here by adapting Linux to a single platform spec (unfortunately, Windows)... but I doubt it'll cover all bases.

      Specific to the Adobe Creative Suite apps, what about fully color-managed workflows? Do modern Linux distros have any support for monitor calibration? I'll assume that for soft-proofing and printing, the Adobe apps would handle the print ICC profiles internally as they do on other platforms.
    8. Re:People use Photoshop to Dev the Web too Adobe! by zsau · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Adobe also uses GTK+ for their port of the Adobe Reader. Also, I'd prefer GTK+ simply because it looks and feels the way an X11 toolkit library should; I've find Qt programs like Opera and Skype have a non-native, ported feel to them. If you're going to settle for a non-native, ported feel, why not just use Wine Lib?

      --
      Look out!
  2. More Info... by PortHaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I guess Slashdot's trend toward suckage continues. Yes, I love that Slashdot is becoming a political site more than a tech site and the bias' run deep.

    So Slashdot rejected the story submission about Adobe's release of AIR, and announcement that they were open-sourcing the Flex 3 SDK. And had released a new open-source project site for Flex, Tamarin and a few other products. Nope...that stuff isn't noteworthy to Slashdot's editors.

    Bah!...rest assured if there is any political BS topic it'll be posted (even if it's been posted 2-3 times and is a year old).

    So yes...

    > Adobe AIR launches
    > AIR being ported to Linux
    > Flex Builder 3 being ported to Linux
    > Flex 3 SDK being open sourced

  3. What about making Flash actually work by heroine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They could also make Flash actually work before moving on to traditional development tools. Supporting the half dozen Alsa derivatives & video scaling R the main issues. However, moving to development tools instead of focusing on Flash makes sense since Linux is mainly a development platform.

  4. Re:I think we deserve an answer by normal_guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It'll be released just as soon as desktop Linux surpasses 1% market share.

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    Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
  5. Re:I think we deserve an answer by chubs730 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Congratulations! It's been only 23 minutes since an article mentioning Adobe and Linux has been posted, and already you've mentioned the gimp. In doing so you've made one or several incorrect assumptions:
    1. Adobe ported Photoshop to Linux and renamed it to the gimp. (We're all hoping it's not this one).
    OR
    2. The gimp is a viable replacement for Photoshop for Adobe's target group (professionals).
    OR
    3. Slashdot users don't already know about the gimp. If this was an article discussing Photoshop alternatives for Linux, maybe it would be nice to mention the gimp; it's not. These comments wouldn't be so annoying if they didn't show up every single time there is an article about Adobe. The "use Linux!" comments on every Windows article can be funny (sometimes) because at least everyone knows they're more or less joking.

    The gimp is not Photoshop, and is still missing some features that professionals really need, it isn't a viable replacement yet.

  6. Comming after AIR by pavon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    AIR is a cross-platform development environment that also allows easy porting between desktop and web-based applications. Adobe is planning on creating webapp versions of their major desktop software, including photoshop, within the next 5-10 years. How are they going to do this and keep a manageable code base? You guessed it, they are porting them all to AIR. So Linux should get a native port of Photoshop when that effort is completed, whose "nativeness" is roughly equivalent to the "nativeness" of XUL-Runner applications like Thunderbird.

    Here is one article on arstechnica that has a little more detail. I'm sure you can google for more.

  7. Re:No thanks. by tangent · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You say that like you believe you deserve to buy these products at prices you like. This is capitalism: the market will bear these prices, so these are the prices they charge.

    Those who can afford the Adobe Creative Suite often make enough on a single job to pay for their license. Sure, it'd be swell if the programs were all free, but I can point to several of the Creative Suite competitors that are still trying to catch up after years and years of development. Sometimes free software moves faster, sometimes paid does. In the case of creative software, it seems to me that paid software moves faster, and so produces the sharpest, most powerful tools.

    If you can't or don't want to buy the Suite or elements thereof, several Adobe products now come in inexpensive versions with fewer features, but which suffice for most purposes.

    As for free software, I use it daily, and both my personal occupations and the company I work for depend on it. I maintain a popular LGPL'd package. (No it's not a "creative" tool.) Free software is great, but it doesn't cover every need. Sometimes the best tool for the job is commercial. I wouldn't argue that all of the components of the Creative Suite are the "best tool" -- some are, some aren't -- but combined, it's an awesome force, well worth paying for if you make money using these tools.