Not enough support from Adobe?

[1clue]

There's no reason to unify toolkits. I think to try to do that is a big mistake. The advantage of multiple toolkits is that developers can choose the one/ones they want to support, and use those. The very nature of this process means that as some toolkits get better, people will gravitate to those and abandon others. At some point, the least used ones will fall entirely out of favor and nobody will care.

If you "unify" them then that implies that the crappiness of each one gets implemented into the "unified" one so that all the software that was written for the crappy toolkit can use the new one too.

IMO the best way to "unify" toolkits is to make one that kicks ass over all the rest. The Adobe developer had great points I thought, and one of the biggest he made was that the graphics toolkits sucked. Provide one or two really good ones and that might convince a few specialty developers like Adobe to give it a try. It would also be a boon to every software developer writing for Linux.

I'm all for the idea of multiple implementations and approaches for this sort of thing, I just don't think they should be combined.

<rant>
I'm not sure why, but for some reason people who insist that Linux users use Linux because they're cheap really offends me. The last few Linux boxes I built cost thousands of dollars each, and there were no laptops involved. One thing that seriously disappoints me about Linux is that high end hardware is not very well supported, especially if it's a niche market. I'd love to know that I could get a thousands-by-thousands touch screen that worked flawlessly on Linux. It might take me awhile to afford it, but I would definitely want one, and probably buy it.

I know a lot of people, especially from foreign countries, use Linux because they just can't afford an operating system. I use it because it's the best thing for me, and I like it. I would like to think that MOST people who run it felt the same way, although I guess if the software has no monetary cost for use you'll always get the bottom feeders.
</rant>

[lykwydchykyn]

Every desktop platform has multiple toolkits. It's insane to say we should only have one.

What we don't have is an "official" toolkit, because in free software there is no "official" anything. If a distro wanted to claim some toolkit as "official", then that's one thing; but there is no organizational structure around what we commonly call "linux" (not meaning the kernel specifically) to make anything official.

I'd be interested in knowing how QT is deficient compared to whatever Adobe is using on Windows. 'Cause in my experience it's pretty awesome.

[divergex]

As a former user of Adobe products, I am not so sure that I want to see their software on Linux. Adobe products need to be activated, and the activation can be revoked if they believe you are abusing the license. I have seen this happen to a client when a computer hard drive crashed, and now it is happening to me. In my case, I upgrade or build a new machine often, and each time I have deactivated my copy of Dreamweaver CS4 as directed by Adobe. Just the other day, a message popped up when I launched it telling me that my license is no longer valid because I have activated it on too many computers. I always made sure to deactivate the software to avoid just such a situation. Well it turns out that according to Adobe, you can only deactivate software 20 times. Apparently I have hit that limit, and I'm stuck. I don't even know if I want to try to work with customer service. I feel like I should not be in this position in the first place.

I understand Adobe wanting to fight piracy. Photoshop and their other products are bootlegged more than anything but Microsoft Office, but I paid full retail for the software. I have activated it and deactivated it as needed so that I could continue to use it. Now I'm being told that I can't use it anymore? This is a perfect example of how copy protection/DRM/activation hurts innocent, law-abiding people. Do we want this kind of thing on Linux? I know I don't.

Needless to say, I have decided to no longer give Adobe my money. Instead, I will donate to the open source software projects that I use as replacements.

Adobe makes great tools, but after this experience I won't recommend their products to anyone.

[LillyDragon]

I don't build or buy computers very frequently, so I wouldn't be affected by that limitation, but by principle that is biting the hand that feeds you; i.e, working against the paying customer. That greatly discourages me from considering a Photoshop license in the future, if I have to keep track of how many times I've deactivated a product. I moved away from Windows as a primary operating system to get away from such pointless micromanagement, (Defragging, spyware scans, registry cleaning, etc.) so that sounds greatly irritating.

There's no reason to unify toolkits. I think to try to do that is a big mistake. The advantage of multiple toolkits is that developers can choose the one/ones they want to support, and use those. The very nature of this process means that as some toolkits get better, people will gravitate to those and abandon others. At some point, the least used ones will fall entirely out of favor and nobody will care.

If you "unify" them then that implies that the crappiness of each one gets implemented into the "unified" one so that all the software that was written for the crappy toolkit can use the new one too.

IMO the best way to "unify" toolkits is to make one that kicks ass over all the rest. The Adobe developer had great points I thought, and one of the biggest he made was that the graphics toolkits sucked. Provide one or two really good ones and that might convince a few specialty developers like Adobe to give it a try. It would also be a boon to every software developer writing for Linux.

I'm all for the idea of multiple implementations and approaches for this sort of thing, I just don't think they should be combined.

<rant>
I'm not sure why, but for some reason people who insist that Linux users use Linux because they're cheap really offends me. The last few Linux boxes I built cost thousands of dollars each, and there were no laptops involved. One thing that seriously disappoints me about Linux is that high end hardware is not very well supported, especially if it's a niche market. I'd love to know that I could get a thousands-by-thousands touch screen that worked flawlessly on Linux. It might take me awhile to afford it, but I would definitely want one, and probably buy it.

I know a lot of people, especially from foreign countries, use Linux because they just can't afford an operating system. I use it because it's the best thing for me, and I like it. I would like to think that MOST people who run it felt the same way, although I guess if the software has no monetary cost for use you'll always get the bottom feeders.
</rant>

You make a great point. The nature of open source software allows the better technologies to evolve quickly, while the rest is left behind to their bugs and limitations. Nice rant as well; not everyone is using Linux because it's the cheapest thing to do. A lot of us do choose an alternative operating system for countless reasons.

Every desktop platform has multiple toolkits. It's insane to say we should only have one.

What we don't have is an "official" toolkit, because in free software there is no "official" anything. If a distro wanted to claim some toolkit as "official", then that's one thing; but there is no organizational structure around what we commonly call "linux" (not meaning the kernel specifically) to make anything official.

That's true. I guess that's why Valve is only supporting Ubuntu, since that's the closest to an official standard you can get by supporting one distro and it's default dependencies/libraries/tech exclusively. If Adobe were to support Linux, they might have to do something similar.

Besides that, if there were an "official" standard released for Linux, it's not like the other distros would have to follow or comply; they still have the choice of doing their own thing. So I think setting a standard that others would follow might be virtually impossible either way.