Google Funds Work for Photoshop on Linux

S point 2 writes "Google has announced that they have hired Codeweavers, maker of the popular Wine software to make Photoshop run better on Linux. 'Photoshop is one of those applications that desktop Linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now...We look forward to further improvements in this area.' It is unknown whether or not the entire Creative Suite will be funded for support, but for the time being it seems Photoshop-on-Linux development is getting a new priority under Google."

Wine

[Archangel Michael]

I suspect that as things start moving more and more in this direction, WINE will become the new "windows" API, taking it from Microsoft. If I were working on software, I'd write something platform independent as I could, and if I had to use Windows API, I work with WINE to make sure it ran flawlessly under that environment.

Imagine Windows API not in the hands of Microsoft.

For what reason?

[russotto]

What does Google get for this? Is this just a shot at Microsoft because Microsoft has been taking shots at Google?

Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies

[Mr. Underbridge]

The GIMP might be very powerful and feature packed, but the learning curve to get into it is cliff shaped. That makes for a vey significant barrier for newbies. Most people don't want to do hugely complex photoshopping, just remove red eye from phots and a few other simple effects.

GIMP isn't a program designed for people who want to just remove some red eye from photos. For that matter, Photoshop would be exceptionally overpriced and overly complicated for that as well. Photoshop is a tool designed for professionals and highly skilled amateurs, and the GIMP replicates many of those features.

People who want to mess with simple stuff can get Picasa for free, from Google.

I personally think that the GIMP's major problem is that it's interface is different from Photoshop, which is a problem given its target audience is Photoshop users. I would claim that it's not more complicated than Photoshop, just different. I learned GIMP first and found Photoshop awkward to use.

Re:We already have Photoshop!

[avandesande]

I think the photoshop interface is horrible. If you want to look at a powerful image editing paradigm check out Adobe After Effects. Although a video editing/special effects package it could apply directly to photo/print editing.
The endless levels of composition and the post-rendering are incredibly powerful.

If they built an AE interface on top of the gimp engine we could have a truly special piece of free software.

Re:wut?

[HappySmileMan]

As far as I know Codeweavers sell a version of Wine, so is this deal going to mean Photoshop will work better on Wine that I have installed for free, or the version that you sell.

WINE is an interesting strategy

[mlwmohawk]

With all the nonsense of Vista, a WINE porting strategy makes sense.

Think of it like this: Microsoft is trying to push a product (Vista) that its customers do not want. The *only* reason that any consumer would buy it is because they have virtually no choice because of Microsoft's monopoly.

Step in Google, fund WINE, work to create a Windows execution environment that supports many of those XP programs that will not work under Vista. Linux already supports many of the hardware devices that Vista does not. A working WINE may be able to eat away at Vista adoption.

What is needed is a smooth integration of Windows executables with Linux execution code. Conceptually, windows programs are nothing more than binaries that need their own environment, similar to the way one runs GNOME applications of KDE and vice versa, or better still Java programs. (Yes, I know that Java is a tokenized interpretive environment with a JIT, but this is a discussion not a compsci course.)

IMHO, the programs that should work out of the box on Linux with wine is quicken, quickbooks, peachtree, and photoshop. This would open up so many home and small business users who would love to use Linux but can't.

Re:Why not port it to Linux they have a win and ma

[Chandon Seldon]

Not enough return on investment... (at least in the near future)

That's the simple answer, and what Adobe would say to their stockholders.

The correct answer is this: It's impossible to estimate the return on investment and so they're erring on the side of not doing anything - since it's hard to blame someone for *not* taking an action that could be portrayed as risky.

When it comes to raw return on investment, a Linux port of the Adobe creative suite would probably pay for itself pretty quickly - porting is damn cheap compared to what they charge for a copy of their software.

The real issue here is one of business complexity. Corporate executives *hate* complexity because it makes it harder for them to hold all the business details in their head. They're perfectly willing to throw away a percent or two of revenue just to avoid the staff required to maintain and support something like a Linux port. It's not the cost of the staff, it's the slots on the organizational chart that allow for more risk of mismanagement.

Re:We already have Photoshop!

[Curtman]

I don't really see why we don't see Adobe and others specifically tailoring software for Ubuntu.

You mean like Maya?

P.S. I hate the Motif toolkit.

Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies

[Kaetemi]

If you actually read the license for most Adobe products, you'll find a nice piece of text that looks like this:

2.4 Portable or Home Computer Use. Subject to the important restrictions set forth in Section 2.5 below, the primary user of the Computer on which the Software is installed ("Primary User") may install a second copy of the Software for his or her exclusive use on either a portable Computer or a Computer located at his or her home, provided that the Software on the portable or home Computer is not used at the same time as the Software on the primary Computer.

;)

Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies

[m0ns00n]

The main problem is not the interface, it is the features. I use Gimp almost every day at work, professionally, but the devs really don't seem to use the app themselves much. I think this is the OSS curse. Devs work on projects they find interesting, or give prestige, or both, but they don't code on it to use it. And it shows.

Without layer grouping and proper layer management, and better text support, Gimp remains hard to use for complex designs and so on. It hasn't been getting new usability features in a long time, and development is super slow. Gimp will always be there, but it isn't going to impress anyone, and they do not seem to want to either.

Re:We already have Photoshop!

[Dogtanian]

While I don't agree with the GP that the GIMP is a Photoshop replacement, I think you're being pretty harsh. It's a damn powerful piece of software, and the fact that it doesn't do _everything_ does NOT make it a toy.

I think that the underlying point he was trying to make was probably quite legitimate, but the *unqualified* dismissal of GIMP as a "toy" did come across quite harshly.

I believe that he was basically saying that GIMP is missing features which would be considered essential by many professionals for medium and high-end graphics work. From their point-of-view, the fact that it lacks certain things like *proper* CMYK support and 16-bit colour are probably deal-killers, even if the rest of the package is good. (*)

OTOH, Photoshop CS is overfeatured for most people, and GIMP is still a powerful and economical tool that will meet their needs. It's certainly not a "toy" like MS Paint, but I can understand why a professional might see it that way.

(*) It reminds me of my film SLR camera. In a lot of respects, it was a good model for the money. However, IMHO the fact that it lacks depth-of-field preview or any form of remote shutter release (amongst other things) are serious omissions that can't be reasonably overcome, and count against it regardless of how nice the rest of the camera is. Stupid omissions that were rectified in the replacement model, but ones that rule this one out from being considered remotely "professional" or even "serious amateur". Not that I'm saying that GIMP is that hobbled (it's actually pretty good), but you see what I'm getting at.

Re:Wine

[serviscope_minor]

If I were working on software, I'd write something platform independent as I could,

Personally, I wouldn't. I think that UNIX (and specifically Linux) is a fantastic platform to work on. By coding up something platform independent, then you loose all of the really cool features of UNIX.

Re:We already have Photoshop!

[morgan_greywolf]

Try reading what I wrote; I didn't say "prefer writing for Windows" I said "creating off-the-shelf software." The religon behind OSS will keep those developers (and many investors) away.

But there isn't really a vast number of "I only write proprietary code" developers. Most major open source projects include some developers who work on closed-source applications during the day and write OSS in their off-time. There are even open source projects that include people who work at companies like Microsoft.

I can think of several developers right now work for a company called UGS who write OSS projects in their spare time.

Re:We already have Photoshop!

[0100010001010011]

I disagree. I'm going to fork your comment. Therefore I'm in charge. And I'm going to devote minutes of my free time reinventing what you may have posted. But I'm going to do it MY way because I'm MY own boss. And if anyone disagrees with me, you're free to fork my comment and do it how you want. And at the end of the day we'll have X comments saying the same thing, in our own ways and we'll have gotten nothing done. And We can all make our own websites dedicated to our forked comment and we can all fight over the same market because we believe our method of the comment is right.

One extreme of this is Apple. Apple has One leader. From what we've heard it's a complete dictatorship. Features and designs live and die by what one person says. Consequently everything feels very well integrated and you can leverage numerous people to get more done and get it done better.

Re:We already have Photoshop!

[arivanov]

Not possible I am afraid. Adobe has patented something related to most of the items which make the difference between Photoshop and the competition. It is nearly impossible to get past them.

The real solution here is to license the IP and create non-free plug-ins for GIMP. As a result the GIMP will continue to develop without resources going on a Wine Photoshop abomination. This is not necessary anyway, photoshop supports enough architectures to make an X native port trivial.

Winelib less native than GTK+/Glib?

[tepples]

There are plenty of open libraries and APIs that can be used to build native ports of software if the company wanted to do so, I'm pretty much sure most of them are either LGPL or BSD-like in terms of licensing.

Correct, such as wxWidgets.

Not saying each platform doesn't have it's own quirks that needed to be ironed out, but a native port > wine emulation any day. Not saying WINE aspirations are without merit, but I see WINE as nothing but a crutch for developers who can say "This product runs on Linux" but skate around making a native port because WINE is there.

Define "native". GTK+ runs on top of Xlib, and wxWidgets runs on top of GTK+. How is Winelib any less native than GTK+/Glib?

Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies

[jimmux]

I used to use Photoshop quite a lot, but that was many years ago. In recent times I have found myself in need of similar software, but because I don't run Windows anymore I decided to stick it out with the GIMP and see what happens.

Yes, it was bizarre and unfamiliar at first, but it doesn't actually take that long to get the hang of it. Just don't expect to find things in the old places. Instead, take a few minutes to explore it for what it is and you might just find you appreciate it's differences.

Having done a bit of work with the GIMP last night, I would say I am right now at the tipping point where if I had the choice of either application for a given task, I would go GIMP. I would suggest people who have dismissed it in the past give it another try. Recent versions really feel like the product is coming together - or maybe I just think that because I'm getting comfortable with it.

Admittedly, I am not a professional graphic designer or anything, but I do enjoy my photography and digital art.

Re:Forgive my ignorance...

[Salsaman]

Then rejoice ! The next major release of GIMP will be based on GEGL, which provides native 32bit floating point RGBA.

Re:We already have Photoshop!

[superpulpsicle]

Not one bit true. Wordperfect was already in trouble long before its port to linux. Is because it was dominated by evil^H^H^H M$ word that pushed it to an infant linux market. And it didn't work. Now I hope this attracts Paintshop pro, the better graphic program.