Would Linux help Adobe pummel Microsoft?
Columnist John Dvorak thinks that Adobe Systems has a Microsoft problem and that Linux provides a clear solution:
Adobe could port its Creative Suite...to Linux as a shot across Redmond's bow. Then the company should embrace Linux in-house and develop a complete, optimized Linux OS designed to run a high-performance version of its Creative Suite on Linux optimized for Adobe products, to be sold as a bootable bundle for multicore-workstation hardware.
The idea is to produce a near-dedicated Adobe computer designed to use all the power of the newest chips to run the Adobe software under Linux. Having complete control of a high-powered OS would make all of the performance-demanding Adobe software run rings around any other implementation, if engineered correctly. It would become the viable desktop alternative to both the PC and the Mac.
It's not a bad idea, though I'm not sure the world is ready to move to single-purpose PCs, at least not those that focus on creative applications to the exclusion of e-mail, Web browsing, etc.
Yes, Dvorak notes that all of these applications can be had on the Linux desktop. Applications like Firefox work as well on Linux as on the Mac or Windows. But I think I'd take Dvorak's suggestion one step further: perhaps Adobe should band together with Google (or Yahoo) in a desktop partnership to bring the best of the Web and creativity applications together. Adobe and Google may butt heads in some areas, but they are the respective leaders in their markets and could find compelling reasons to work together to unseat Microsoft.
His vision of an Adobe-centric Linux desktop has potential, but it has a much better chance of succeeding if it managed to marry Adobe to a great Web brand like Google. Google has an equal interest in tying its bits down into a desktop, and Linux provides an ideal, open platform.
Possible?
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Instead of selling it for $500 apiece, Adobe should give Creative Suite for free. Then, because it's "community owned", they don't need their in-house programmers, so they can save on salaries. And they don't need their retail channel, and a website - just host it on codeproject or alike.
That you do not know the difference between open source and freeware is not surprising. You are one of the known MS shills that post on CNET, and as such are ignorant of what is really happening.
I realize that you couldn't write even a hello world program but lets say you write some program and then release under whatever open source
Is BS like "community owned", "freeware", "rev. Richard Stallman" really part of the MS talking points these days?
That is some of the hilarious, pack of BS I have ever read!
Linux is quickly becoming a powerhouse platform for various graphics work, particularly at the FX houses for movie studios.
Dvorak is right in that the lack of Adobe on Linux is probably the single biggest obstacle to mass adoption of Linux. With that domino fallen, a lot of people would be able to switch.
Although Adobe apps aren't FOSS, their existence doesn't really bother me. There are plenty of free competitors to all these apps and they provide an increasingly capable suite of graphic and web design functions. The fact that so many pros still feel the need to use them, however, has been a consistent block to the progress of Linux.
Another retort to Dvorak is that Adobe is already ported to Mac. Isn't that enough of a competitor to MS? No, it's not, because there's no performance advantage. With greater control over the guts of the OS, Adobe could get a whole lot more performance out of the whole stack. Apple is no way no how going to let Adobe have any control or even look at their source. The only way to do that is with an open source OS.
Linux needs a competitor to the Creative Suite before Adobe will have any incentive to port it to Linux.
Right now what is keeping Microsoft alive is PC games and Adobe. I tired Vista recently and what a horrible OS. SOO Bloated and slow even with 2 gigs of ram. With linux, 512 megs the system still runs beautiful.
Anyways lets cross our fingers and see what happens.
Silverlight is indeed competition to Adobe but I don't see it as sufficiently important that it would prompt a Linux port of their core software. Rather, a proper competitor to Creative Suite on Linux that threatens to eat into Adobe's market share would be the catalyst for any move to Linux. In the meantime Adobe can continue to receive license payments for the software on the platforms that they already support. Until such competition appears Linux is stuck in a Catch-22 situation: users won't migrate to Linux until Creative Suite is available for it and Adobe won't port Creative Suite to Linux until there is sufficient demand for it.
A vast majority of Apple users and Graphics professionals. You put CS on well behaved, stock hardware and graphics houses around the world would dump Apple in a second.
1 = update their players to run on Linux as capable as it is in Windows (Flash, Shockwave, etc)
2 = port the creative suite over Linux. It needs not be open source or free.
As the Novell/Microsoft deal is showing we live in a mixed world and you can either fight it or try to work with it. Both parties' success shows that there people want their things to work and are less inclined to be "open source pure". Sure, will use open source if all-said are equal or better than alternatives but won't rule out binaries and proprietary drivers.
Now that Mac's are Unix-based and running on Intel chips they may find that porting to Linux is easier than before and with Linux on an up-tick in adoption it opens a potential user base.
If they don't open themselves to the growing Linux market they risk loosing an opportunity to counter the competition while there is still time. The existing open source apps are not only getting better but are crossing the line back to work on Windows (don't know about Macs)
Photoshop => Gimp
Illustrator => Inkscape
InDesign => Scribus
Even their ubiquitous Flash Player is potentially being challenged from the Silverlight crowd because Microsoft is working with Novell on a Mono-based version called Moonlight.
I for one would love to see Adobe products ported to Linux. They took a while to move over when Apple moved from OS 9 to OS X but to port form OS X to Linux should be technically easier.
And I read on PromotingLinux.com that there are serious Intellectual Property issues involved.
With Microsoft's OSes greedily hogging every bit of CPU time and memory byte on PCs, there is hardly any left for Adobe's packages, which are the real reason people like me are forced to use Windoze on our PCs and not shift to Linux entirely.
How cool would an Adobe Linux distro be? Instant death for M$!
Porting the core apps is a lot harder task, and Adobe will start working on it only if the small-time goodies (Flash and AIR) will see sufficient adoption / usage on Linux. A full Linux distro is a hard thing to do when operating systems are not your core goodies, but we can hope to see cross-distribution binary packages for Adobe's applications.
But let's not forget, Adobe's powertools are so far platform-dependent on Microsoft, and Adobe will not make any major sudden move to upset the owner of the platform. You simply don't start stumping of a 500-lb gorilla when you're a 100th of it's size. No, you wait to grow to be the elephant, and then you can reign on all other creatures in IT's jungle.
Instead of making their own version of Linux, they should just work with the major Linux vendors to make sure their software worked well on them.
http://chilipress.com/technology.php
- by finscape December 7, 2009 11:51 AM PST
- Make it happen already. I mean to learn that this would increase the performance of Adobe I mean come on. Stop treating us like little *******.
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(20 Comments)Dear Adobe, there is a reason why I wait to invest in your products as long as humanly possible (I'm editting on Premiere Pro 1.5) it's because I hate you. I hate you for you budding up with Microsoft and Apple. I hate you for making me abandon the best OS in the world. I hate you and all like you for trying to make a great idea die just because it threatens your corporate culture. I hate you and I make it a point to spend as little money on you as possible.
Be good to your customers and we will be good to you. Stop the animosity and freakin put your lame ass, time wasting products on Linux. If you make me buy Windows 7, I will never forgive you.