Sadly enough, the GIMP (while an amazing piece of software) is *not* 'so much better' than Photoshop. Anyone with production graphics experience who's looked at the GIMP will express that opinion.
Despite the fact that the GIMP *is* a very powerful and useful piece of software, it isn't up to giving all the tools to graphics professionals that they need.
I don't think Adobe feels any particular need to move anything towards the Linux platform. It's just not their core market.
The question they were hoping to ask with Frame was "Will our existing Frame/Unix customer base be moving to Linux, and will we lose those customers if we don't have a Linux offering." I can only conclude that their market studies answered that with a 'no'.
There have been semi-reliable reports on the 'frame users' mailing list, and in comp.text.frame that Adobe's sole consideration for supporting Frame on Linux is popularity. If enough people had registered for the beta to show that Frame could commercially consider supporting a full release on Linux it would have been a go.
My guess is that Adobe realized that supporting Frame on Linux would not have made them enough money. Seriously -- how many folks do you know in the Linux community who would have shelled out 800 US dollars for FrameMaker?
How many companies would have chosen Linux as a production platform over Solaris?
A much *more* reasonable hope would be that Adobe will finally decide to support Solaris on x86, or produce binaries that would run on either Solaris x86 *or* Linux.
I suspect that the marketing folks at Adobe know full well that Frame/Unix is a very specialist market, not broadband, with most of their customer base in (say) the "AeroSpace" industry...
Sad for me: I would have liked to migrate everyone fully over to running Frame on Linux here; but as it stands, I'm satisfied to continue running Frame on Solaris, and use our Linux machines as display hosts...
One of the big (well, big to me anyway) issues about P2P networking is the number of folks like me whose primary access to the 'net is through their corporate firewall. P2P software is not nearly as useful to me, and others like me, because we plain and simple can't use it -- our firewalls come up hard against pretty much any ports other than those used for "business". Right now, I can use HTTP, FTP Get, and that's about it. And I can well imagine a day when even those will go away.
The OSX Beta seems available only from the US Apple Store, not the Canadian one. On top of which, the US Apple Store refuses to accept all of my Canadian Postal Code (even though I know that Fed Ex and UPS can brave the frozen tundra to deliver packages up here).
Poo.
I'm a power user, not a developer. I've tried both Gnome and KDE. I far preferred KDE for two simple reasons: (i) it was more stable, and (ii) the KFM file manager was a decent, light-weight web browser that handled 90 percent of my browsing needs.
However, now I'm using neither KDE nor Gnome. Why?
I decided that I didn't want all the extra desktop cruft that came with a "desktop environment". I'm using Enlightenment now, just Enlightenment (and KFM by itself when I want to do that light browsing). However, given that Enlightenment (while reasonably feature rich) is still pretty hefty, I'm thinking very seriously about moving to using Sawfish (just Sawfish) full time.
Why? Because I'm an Emacs power user, and I like lisp.
Frankly, I don't care which desktop "wins" as long as I can still run the apps. There's Gnome apps I use (Gnomba, frex), and KDE apps I use (kfm), and the one primary thing I like about Linux is *I* get to decide which apps I use, what my work environment functions like, and how to get the job done, not some focus group hired by Redmond middle management (thank-you very much).
Well, while I don't want to get into an argument here, I have two comments:
(1) Your assertion is essentially correct.
(2) I don't know whether you think this is a good thing (state lotteries as a means of "voluntary" taxation) or not. I personally think the concept is hideous. Why? Because study after study has shown that the concept of gambling revenues as a replacement for direct taxation does little more than shift the tax burden off onto people who can't afford it (i.e. the poor and lower middle classes), and away from the people who *can* afford it. There's a good reason you don't see a lot of millionaires buying lottery tickets, using VLTs, or hanging out in bingo parlours -- it's a waste of their hard earned money, and they know it.
Anyway -- off my soapbox now. The difference between state sanctioned (and that's not necessarily the same as state *sponsered* but you didn't touch that issue) and illegal gambling is that one's against the law.
Tthe client (the person holding the BB) doesn't really need to even see a MS computer, as long as the email redirection is done on a server. Right now, as I understand it, the only server available is one that runs on an NT box, and connects to Exchange.
BB isn't really targeted at "Joe-Linux-God on the street who wants his email on his hip" -- it's targeted as a corporate solution where MS Exchange is more than likely to be either the only tool used, or at least one of the tools used.
I'm sure that RIM realises, however, that BB could easily slip into the "email on your hip" market, given that expanded options for where/how you're getting your email redirected.
As I said, I have a BB, run it off RIM's server, and don't use Outlook at all. As for any part of BB being open source, I have serious doubts whether that's EVER going to happen.
Viktor (yes I work for RIM, no I'm not speaking for them specifically, my opinions are my own)
Blackberry doesn't necessarily require you to use Outlook. It requires either (a) that you connect to a Microsoft Exchange server to get your mail, or (b) that your host is running the BlackBerry Server software. The difference is either having your desktop or the server do the mail redirection for you. Personally I use NTEmacs to handle all my mail, and I have my BlackBerry running off a server, so I never have to fire up Outlook.
Yes, I work for RIM. No I'm not a company spokesman. Yes, I think BlackBerry is useful. No, I'm not an evangelist.
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Sadly enough, the GIMP (while an amazing piece of software) is *not* 'so much better' than Photoshop. Anyone with production graphics experience who's looked at the GIMP will express that opinion.
Despite the fact that the GIMP *is* a very powerful and useful piece of software, it isn't up to giving all the tools to graphics professionals that they need.
I don't think Adobe feels any particular need to move anything towards the Linux platform. It's just not their core market.
The question they were hoping to ask with Frame was "Will our existing Frame/Unix customer base be moving to Linux, and will we lose those customers if we don't have a Linux offering." I can only conclude that their market studies answered that with a 'no'.
There have been semi-reliable reports on the 'frame users' mailing list, and in comp.text.frame that Adobe's sole consideration for supporting Frame on Linux is popularity. If enough people had registered for the beta to show that Frame could commercially consider supporting a full release on Linux it would have been a go.
My guess is that Adobe realized that supporting Frame on Linux would not have made them enough money. Seriously -- how many folks do you know in the Linux community who would have shelled out 800 US dollars for FrameMaker?
How many companies would have chosen Linux as a production platform over Solaris?
A much *more* reasonable hope would be that Adobe will finally decide to support Solaris on x86, or produce binaries that would run on either Solaris x86 *or* Linux.
I suspect that the marketing folks at Adobe know full well that Frame/Unix is a very specialist market, not broadband, with most of their customer base in (say) the "AeroSpace" industry...
Sad for me: I would have liked to migrate everyone fully over to running Frame on Linux here; but as it stands, I'm satisfied to continue running Frame on Solaris, and use our Linux machines as display hosts...
One of the big (well, big to me anyway) issues about P2P networking is the number of folks like me whose primary access to the 'net is through their corporate firewall. P2P software is not nearly as useful to me, and others like me, because we plain and simple can't use it -- our firewalls come up hard against pretty much any ports other than those used for "business". Right now, I can use HTTP, FTP Get, and that's about it. And I can well imagine a day when even those will go away.
The OSX Beta seems available only from the US Apple Store, not the Canadian one. On top of which, the US Apple Store refuses to accept all of my Canadian Postal Code (even though I know that Fed Ex and UPS can brave the frozen tundra to deliver packages up here). Poo.
I'm a power user, not a developer. I've tried both Gnome and KDE. I far preferred KDE for two simple reasons: (i) it was more stable, and (ii) the KFM file manager was a decent, light-weight web browser that handled 90 percent of my browsing needs.
However, now I'm using neither KDE nor Gnome. Why?
I decided that I didn't want all the extra desktop cruft that came with a "desktop environment". I'm using Enlightenment now, just Enlightenment (and KFM by itself when I want to do that light browsing). However, given that Enlightenment (while reasonably feature rich) is still pretty hefty, I'm thinking very seriously about moving to using Sawfish (just Sawfish) full time.
Why? Because I'm an Emacs power user, and I like lisp.
Frankly, I don't care which desktop "wins" as long as I can still run the apps. There's Gnome apps I use (Gnomba, frex), and KDE apps I use (kfm), and the one primary thing I like about Linux is *I* get to decide which apps I use, what my work environment functions like, and how to get the job done, not some focus group hired by Redmond middle management (thank-you very much).
My 2p.
Viktor Haag
Well, while I don't want to get into an argument here, I have two comments:
(1) Your assertion is essentially correct.
(2) I don't know whether you think this is a good thing (state lotteries as a means of "voluntary" taxation) or not. I personally think the concept is hideous. Why? Because study after study has shown that the concept of gambling revenues as a replacement for direct taxation does little more than shift the tax burden off onto people who can't afford it (i.e. the poor and lower middle classes), and away from the people who *can* afford it. There's a good reason you don't see a lot of millionaires buying lottery tickets, using VLTs, or hanging out in bingo parlours -- it's a waste of their hard earned money, and they know it.
Anyway -- off my soapbox now. The difference between state sanctioned (and that's not necessarily the same as state *sponsered* but you didn't touch that issue) and illegal gambling is that one's against the law.
Tthe client (the person holding the BB) doesn't really need to even see a MS computer, as long as the email redirection is done on a server. Right now, as I understand it, the only server available is one that runs on an NT box, and connects to Exchange.
BB isn't really targeted at "Joe-Linux-God on the street who wants his email on his hip" -- it's targeted as a corporate solution where MS Exchange is more than likely to be either the only tool used, or at least one of the tools used.
I'm sure that RIM realises, however, that BB could easily slip into the "email on your hip" market, given that expanded options for where/how you're getting your email redirected.
As I said, I have a BB, run it off RIM's server, and don't use Outlook at all. As for any part of BB being open source, I have serious doubts whether that's EVER going to happen.
Viktor
(yes I work for RIM, no I'm not speaking for them specifically, my opinions are my own)
Blackberry doesn't necessarily require you to use Outlook. It requires either (a) that you connect to a Microsoft Exchange server to get your mail, or (b) that your host is running the BlackBerry Server software. The difference is either having your desktop or the server do the mail redirection for you. Personally I use NTEmacs to handle all my mail, and I have my BlackBerry running off a server, so I never have to fire up Outlook.
Yes, I work for RIM. No I'm not a company spokesman. Yes, I think BlackBerry is useful. No, I'm not an evangelist.
Viktor Haag