I had a chat on Adobe forums under the CS 3 section.

[suchawato]

What I asked was "when can we expect a version of CS 3 for Ubuntu?"

The responses I got were basically saying that due to the cost involved and the lack of customer support on the unix side of things, and willingness to pay for it, there was unlikely to be release of CS software any time soon for the *nix platform.

The main reason sported was that due to the open source roots of the *nix community, that the community has been showing an unwillingness to pay for software.

CS 3 costs arround 900.oo USd or so for the full comercial liscense.

They were saying that due to past experience in the field as well, such as Corel releasing Corel Draw for Linux and even releasing Corel Linux, that lack of demand for sales limited the willingness for them to release software.

So it seems we have a catch 22.

On the one hand, we need Full comercial support to get a market.
On the other, they don't want to support us as a current market, because we don't wan't to pay for software.

That's a pretty good point.\

I mean, If we want them to help us, we have to show ourselves to be a willing market.
Why would they want to pay thier programmers to make a Creative Suite program version for linux, if all we do is download free software.

That's not much of an incintive.

The bean counters run the companies.

If we want thier support (and Creative Suitte is listed as one of the top most wanted software for Linux) we have to be willing to pay for it.

We can't put the cart before the horse.

My thoughts are that perhaps after explaining to them(the companies) that they are investing in a future market and not just the current one, that perhaps they would be willing to commit to developing a release if the other companies did so as well.

Like "hey they are willing if you are willing"

So if we got a petition that said "are you willing to release a version of CS 3 if apple is willing to release a versions of iTunes, and Sony is willing to release a version of Soundforge, and Auto Desk is willing to release a version of CAD, etc. That way there is full software support on the contingency that the other major players are willing as well.

What do you think of that idea?

Sara

[fatality_uk]

The problem is the same ol tune. Market share. Adobe, who are quite a conservative company in my opinion, wont invest in a desktop market of a quoted 0.56% (which is plain wrong!!). For them to invest in developing a *nix version, will cost a fair amount.

I think things are changing. The view of the *nix community is now being seen by companies like ID software as a possible player in the next few years. Not yet though.

Give you an example. The last few days I have been working with Panasonic UK to get support for some new MFC printers. I have had a few betas new drivers and been testing getting them up and running under Ubuntu. They have had them running under Suse 10 but no joy yet under Debian. There is a market there, and the smarter companies know it. It will just take time :(

[aaaantoine]

0.67% now...

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustom=Linux

[popch]

... Adobe, who are quite a conservative company in my opinion, wont invest in a desktop market of a quoted 0.56% (which is plain wrong!!). For them to invest in developing a *nix version, will cost a fair amount.....


Are not most Adobe products available for the Mac as well as for Windows? Mac is, after all, a *nix version. This is not to say that the Mac version runs on Linux, of course. But one may wonder how difficult and expensive a port of Adobe products to Linux would be.

[fatality_uk]

0.67% now...

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustom=Linux

Damn that was quick. See growing every second :)

[fatality_uk]

Are not most Adobe products available for the Mac as well as for Windows? Mac is, after all, a *nix version. This is not to say that the Mac version runs on Linux, of course. But one may wonder how difficult and expensive a port of Adobe products to Linux would be.

At a guess, MINIMUM £750,000 in year one.

1 x programme/project manager
1 x lead developer
2 x developers
2 x test team (*NIX specific)
1 x support lead manager
5 x support team.

Hardware support
Path to market team
Legal *nix specific


etc, etc...

And the return in year 1?

[Ub1476]

If the market share for Linux continue to grow as it is (x2 a year), it would take about 3-4 years before Linux reach Macs current market share (which is about 10%?). Maybe Adobe will consider us then (I bet the "not paying for software" is just a a lame excuse, they probably haven't even considered it even yet..), but maybe GIMP has blown it away by then:)

[Namtabmai]

It's not a good point on Adobe behalf and certainly isn't a catch-22.

The only catch-22 in this situation is that they don't produce a Linux version of their software so can't say it Linux users would pay for it or not.

It doesn't matter if you're a Windows user or a Linux one, if you're willing to pay for software you'll pay for it, if not you won't.

All Linux users are that by choice, they use Linux because they either love linux and/or they don't want to pay for Windows. This certainly doesn't mean they aren't willing to pay for other software. Far from it, a lot of Linux users seem to be a more moral bunch softwarewise, paying for software where they believe it the software is worth it.

Going back to the Windows user for the moment. How many people do you know that have actually paid for Photoshop? Unfortunately amongst my friends, it's 0 and they're all Windows users. How many companies do I know that have payed for Photoshop? 100%. If these people where using Linux as their desktop this wouldn't chance, because they're the sort of people that don't believe in paying for something if they can get it for free, even if it is illegal.
Where as the Linux people I know, have paid for software when they believed the software is good enough. They either pay for good software or use a free alternative, sometimes the alternative is better than the paid alternative.

Simply dismissing all Linux users as people unwilling to pay for any software is wrong on so many levels. They may as well be suggesting that every Linux user is a hacker. Their stance is not only wrong, but ultimately offensive to me as a Linux user.

[DeadSuperHero]

I used to really want Photoshop ported over to Linux. Unfortunately, Adobe doesn't seem interested in having any developers do this, and I don't really see the point in paying 900 dollars for a painting program.
GIMP and Krita are really coming along, GIMP has gotten to a point of being very useable on a day-to-day basis, and Krita seems pretty nice.
Want to make them REALLY lose money? Help develop OSS alternatives, then give it to people who would otherwise pirate Photoshop.

[RebounD11]

I used to really want Photoshop ported over to Linux. Unfortunately, Adobe doesn't seem interested in having any developers do this, and I don't really see the point in paying 900 dollars for a painting program.
GIMP and Krita are really coming along, GIMP has gotten to a point of being very useable on a day-to-day basis, and Krita seems pretty nice.
Want to make them REALLY lose money? Help develop OSS alternatives, then give it to people who would otherwise pirate Photoshop.

+1

GIMP may be a little behind Adobe Photoshop but the difference between the 2 is of about 5-10 dollars, not 900.

[bufsabre666]

i honestly think that if there was a linux port that alot of companies would start using it more becuase of security and stability of linux and the use of the familiar software

[aaaantoine]

If the market share for Linux continue to grow as it is (x2 a year), it would take about 3-4 years before Linux reach Macs current market share (which is about 10%?). Maybe Adobe will consider us then (I bet the "not paying for software" is just a a lame excuse, they probably haven't even considered it even yet..), but maybe GIMP has blown it away by then:)

At the same website as I linked earlier, note that Mac OS market share is increasing at a faster rate than Linux.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9

But good news: Windows market share is gradually decreasing.

[DeadSuperHero]

Maybe so. It's kind of a big problem, though.
The only way I can really see Adobe supporting Linux is by developing a Linux version with their next version release.
I think the best thing they could do is make it with Qt 4 (some people think it's overrated and prefer GTK, and they probably have good reasons about it), and work with Oxygen and Plasma devs to help them build the frontends and interface. That way, the Linux version would have similarities to the Windows and Mac ones, but have its own visual standards to it. Besides, they'd be paying Open Source developers (even if it's half of what they regularly pay developers), which would be pretty cool.

Apps I think are really important for Linux to gain true dominance:

-Flash MX (or whatever it's called nowadays)
-Dreamweaver
-And yes, Photoshop

However, if they don't go this route, Open Source/Free Software apps will probably be a better option within the next few years.

[RebounD11]

Maybe so. It's kind of a big problem, though.
The only way I can really see Adobe supporting Linux is by developing a Linux version with their next version release.
I think the best thing they could do is make it with Qt 4 (some people think it's overrated and prefer GTK, and they probably have good reasons about it), and work with Oxygen and Plasma devs to help them build the frontends and interface. That way, the Linux version would have similarities to the Windows and Mac ones, but have its own visual standards to it. Besides, they'd be paying Open Source developers (even if it's half of what they regularly pay developers), which would be pretty cool.

Apps I think are really important for Linux to gain true dominance:

-Flash MX (or whatever it's called nowadays)
-Dreamweaver
-And yes, Photoshop

However, if they don't go this route, Open Source/Free Software apps will probably be a better option within the next few years.

I like Quanta+ and Bluefish more than Dremweaver... The dammed thing destroyed my nervous system.

[Incense]

I really think our best bet of getting CS3 on Linux, is to throw more support behind the WINE project. I see Adobe's point, and I for one would not spend $900 for proprietary software when a FLOSS version (GIMP, Krita...)does everything I need. So if you really want CS3 to work on linux, throw some donations at the wine team. They are doing amazing work. You see threads pop up all the time about Office 2007, or CS2 working in WINE now. It's really just a matter of time before they iron out all the kinks for CS3.

I would also have to agree with other posts about throwing more support behind GIMP. It really is an amazing bit of software.