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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.'"

8 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 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 :)

  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. 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.

  4. 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.