P: Provide support for Linux (2011)

I agree with the Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaign, that's what I'd do. I didn't mean that Steam would guage how well CS would do on Linux, but rather how companies will use Steam as guage whether a company could be successful on Linux or not. Do I think that's the right thing to do, no. But I'm sure that's how other companies will validate taking a stab at Linux or not.

I do like paying only for features that I use type model.

Again, if you want a gauge of how much your software is in demand for a particular platform, try a kickstarter or indiegogo fundraising campaign. Steam is not an accurate gauge and we already know that there is tremendous interest in it. Also, it's just games on steam for the time being though not much longer. Plus, a successful fundraising campaign can cover or significantly offset your dev costs where as looking at a successful steam port or paying for market research will not.

Many companies I'm sure are thinking about Linux support, but don't want to be the ones to spend the money and take the risk. Valve is willing to do so. Steam is going to be the guage. If it's successful, other companies will follow. If it is not successful, many companies will move on.

Steam ? why support steam to have phosotshop and illustrator ??
Steam is for video, personnally i never do any video, then ...

i think this argument ridiculous.

1) Really the only recent info would be the Humble Bundles. It's been proven time and time again that Linux users are willing to pay more. But mind you this is only ~$15. I do believe that Steam will prove to be a success and that it may sway Adobe's mind. OSX is really BSD plus a microkernel plus their proprietary API, etc. Porting would not be as big of a deal as you may think. I don't think the devs would actually mind working on this, it's probably just investors not wanting to do this, or I could be wrong and they could all be Mac fanboys. [Not saying Apple makes you a fanboy]

2) They really should use Qt. It's crossplatform and very extensible. It works great across all Desktop environments. Using something like Qt would make this point completely invalid.

3) This may be the case for personal use, but for people/businesses who use this software for a profit, there really are features that open-source software, as good as it is, are missing.

On a completely different note. I think many applications should adopt a new model. Release the base application with only Core features for a lower price, and promote extra plugins at a cost. This would also allow independent devs a platform to generate revenue, and would allow novice users to start using a higher end piece of software without having to shell out $700. I do think this would also decrease the amount of piracy there would be against applications. Obviously not eliminate, but would have an impact.

#1: I pay for several programs that I run on Linux including CrashPlan and IntelliJ IDEA. I also pay for Windows, which I need, in order to run my full-price-paid copy of Photoshop on Linux, meaning that I'm paying extra, right now, to run Photoshop on my Linux desktop (albeit in a virtual Windows machine). I am currently holding off on purchasing Finale (another $600 product) because it will not run on Linux and running it in a virtual machine is a pain.

#2: The GTK+ toolkit works on all desktop environments (Windows, Mac, Linux) and has for over a decade. Granted, it would be a huge undertaking for Adobe to switch. But they would rid themselves of their Microsoft ball-and-chain. I'm sure they are rapidly updating their software to "work" with Windows 8 right now - as much as anything can work with Windows 8 (remember Vista anyone?). The one hang-up here might be the GPL and distributing the GTK+ code separately. Hmm... I think there was a recent court ruling that you couldn't copyright or maybe patent an interface, so desigining a tookit based on the GTK interface would at least be a starting point... It could be done under the Apache license, to maybe leverage some crowd-sourcing, but that's not a silver bullet either - still lots of work. I might have to cede point #2 to you for now. But the fact that the GTK has cracked this nut for so long means it's crackable. Open-source provides as much a resource (in the form of testing and even coding under a proprietary-code-friendly license such as Apache 2.0) as it may take away in profit from the Everything-Is-Free-Beer mentality of some users. It's a double-edged sword.

#3: I think the Linux user scene is changing. Less and less technical people are using it, many who couldn't care less about Free Software. If you consider Android to be Linux, then the fact that it has the largest share of the phone OS market and that smart-phones have already overtaken desktop sales, means that most people are using Linux now, often as their primary OS.

My assumption is that Adobe have seen the writing on the wall and are working on Linux compatibility as we speak. But then, I always thought they supported Windows because it was the most popular operating system and am just assuming they will continue to support whatever the most popular OS may be. Heck, Microsoft themselves are porting one of their flagship products, Office, to the web so that it can presumably be accessed equally well from any OS. It's the first Microsoft product I've looked forward to paying for in a long, long time.

Read Chris Cox's comments above, and you'll see why Adobe is trepidacious ( to say the least) with bringing a product like Photoshop to Linux. For a TL;DR,

1) Unproven market. No evidence to really show that Linux users will pay for professional software. Porting Photoshop to Linux is no small task, and Adobe would need substantial evidence that a profit could be made by porting Photoshop over to Linux.

2) Unstable desktop environment. GNOME 3 is a...controversial desktop, and new forks pop up every other month. The tools just aren't standardized (or mature, in some cases) enough to be used for something like Photoshop.

3) User mentality. This ties into point 1, but Linux users are not used to/philosophically opposed to proprietary software that costs money. Ever since I switched to Linux, I've always asked the question "What open source program can I use to do the same thing I would do in a program I would pay for?" I'm sure I'm not the only one.

they are now favorite for Microsoft and Apple is against their products.
so why not they are trying to port it Linux...

we are migrating lots of Desktop to ubuntu...

Assuming they don't set a ridiculous amount for their goal and pledge levels that is.