One last thing occurred to me regarding "Linux developer statistics". While you wouldn't necessarily consider web developers the same as Linux developers, they most definitely are developing on Linux/BSD principles, standards and platforms because the vast majority are programming for Apache. ... View more

Google telling their employee not to use windows to me is like Apple telling their employees to use Mac OS not Windows on their Mac. Not the same thing in the least because Google is a software developer first and platform agnostic. They've chosen to develop using Linux/UNIX standards first and foremost because of their web services, and on Apple OSX because it's the first BSD-based operating system to receive UNIX 3 Certification (2007 Leopard) I know some mac users that run both OS. Well now you "know of" one more, since I do as well daily, specifically for our RIPs and large-format printer software. The numbers in you link. When it come to desktops and laptops where most development is done has Linux with even lower numbers then the one I showed,  Why would that surprise you? If ~98% of desktops in use at the moment are either Windows or OSX, why would you think that Linux would have an outsized number of developers? But once again, you're throwing all desktop/laptop users and usage into one big bucket and stirring. This is not the subject here. Banks, retail, health care... wait.... darn near every single business on the planet runs on Windows. Except were discussing software development and tools that NONE of those businesses use in large licensed scenarios other than maybe in media. While there are scattered licenses and usage in for example medical imaging, or engineering... in general without looking up numbers I think I'm safe in saying that 90% of Windows-based businesses are and never will be Adobe CC subscribers. Your link does show that Unix Like is a big in the server market  68.5% and over half of those are Linux, So the Linux 35% share beats out Windows 32% share in the server market.. In the link I sent you under "Public Servers on the Internet" they lump all public accessible servers including web, mail and DNS together in one statistic. "Public" does not mean as in free for anyone to log into, it just means that it has a web-facing address. Or else mail servers, which everyone needs to log into, would not be included. Most large businesses around the world are known to use Windows Exchange and other internal Windows services and servers accessible by their employees with proper login credentials over the internet. Once again, the statistic is one big barrel of mixed beans that have no baring on this discussion whether a Linux version of Adobe CC should be developed. Microsoft Enterprise Service customers are not Adobe's target demographic. t also shows Mobile devices run Phone OS where IOS and Android dominate. Windows phone only has something like a 2.6% share. Microsoft is trying to change that with Windows 10 with their dream of universal apps and tools for porting IOS and Android apps code to Microsoft universals dream. "With Windows 10"? They've been attempting a One-System-Fits-All approach for longer than a decade. Their tablets since 2001 have attempted this and have failed. The NT kernel has too much legacy baggage and does not scale well to make this work, but they are too scared to ditch it.... simple as that. So instead they wait for Moore's Law and miniaturization to catch up to their ambitions. Gutless strategy as far as I'm concerned. Also financially expensive, since they've lost billions on almost every single mobile initiative they've ever attempted. The real problem with current mobile devices is they simply do not have the compute power to run application suits like Adobe Creative cloud with good performance. Hybrids like Microsoft Surface pro 3 may be able to run some Applications like Photoshop with usable performance  Other Applications Like Premier and After Effects I would not expect very good performance. See what I wrote above: that is Microsoft's problem... waiting for Moore's Law to take effect. However, did you know that Office for iOS is a huge success? Is smooth and powerful and came out FIRST before Microsoft's Surface? Why do you think that is? Naturally one reason is the money and the huge user base of iOS, but also telling is that the underlying system is far more efficient allowing for more powerful and lightweight apps than if developed for Windows (NT kernel) based systems. I will admit I did not know what to make of this in you l link These figures have a large margin of error for a variety of reasons The largest margin of error is lumping everything together. Even Linux/UNIX or especially Android can not be fairly lumped together to make a point, I admit that. So we're back full circle: statistics, charts, or graphs of anything computer related, have NOTHING to do with whether Adobe should develop a Linux version of Adobe CC. While Linux is not BSD/UNIX, it mimics it enough to be a small effort on the part of a huge software company such as Adobe to port it from their working frameworks for Apple devices, both OSX and iOS. Also their Android efforts and close association with Google could make a port to Linux a "small project" rather than a major undertaking (in relative terms). Imagine for a minute, a version of Adobe CC, that within Creative Cloud Manager, you could choose to download a compiled stand-alone package including the OS (FreeBSD or a customized Linux distro) and all necessary drivers for your computer pulled at compile time, that you would then be able to either boot from in a VM... or burn to SD/USB3 to run stand-alone as a boot-drive. No fluff, no baggage, no legacy, no unnecessary software. Pure Adobe CC+OS. Also don't forget, you would already have a browser built in (Google based on Webkit) due to Brackets and Dreamweaver, so internet communications and all of your browser-based apps and services would immediately also be available. Apache, MySQL, Python, PHP and other assorted web and server technologies all baked in.... something that's been available for literally ages. I bet that package would be a screamer speed-wise... and possibly the preferred way of running Adobe's software no matter what OS or device you're using now. Regardless, it's a far more innovative...  possibly even game-changing... than waiting for Microsoft and Moore's Law to get up to speed. ... View more

Wow! I must hand it to you for being honest about: a) not knowing why I'm replying to you, even though I quoted your post(?!) b) not being able to follow a hyperlink to where and which numbers I was referring to(?!) c) not being able to comprehend that I complimented Adobe, since they are NOT missing the boat and are developing more apps for Linux/UNIX/mobile OSes than they are for traditional desktops; ...and finally d) not having any ***"Skin in the Game" to be able to objectively or subjectively give an opinion on this matter. So why did you? *** "Skin in the game" is an English saying that originally meant whether you had any money bets on a horse race or sporting event. In this case since you do not care, you have no desire to ever use the products, and this does not effect YOU in the least, you have nothing to gain or to lose by weighing in with your opinion. You stated that and made it clear, so why even write a comment? ... View more

JJMack wrote: I have no customers to lose. At 74 I do not have much force left.  While 90% of developers may use Linux they represent a very small fraction of computer users. All computer users use the Internet. All you need to do to see how the computer market stacks up is look at web statistics. In 203 Linux users represented 2.2% of the market Today that has grown to 5.5%. What percent of Linux users are developers? Linux devloper also love to hack.... You're reading the numbers wrong in regards to Linux vs. Windows and the number of POTENTIAL users/subscribers to Adobe CC. [UPDATE (June 2015) – Adobe just updated the total number of subscribers to over 4.6 million! You forget that Google Chrome (education mostly) as well as Android are considered "Linux" devices. In June 2010 Google started to ban Windows computers from it's network, and only allowing those departments with administrative functions to do so. The entire development and engineering teams and departments are using Apple or Linux machines. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7792685/Google-bans-Microsoft-Windows-on-office-computers.html Mobile has overtaken desktop browsing and web services. Usage share of operating systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The entire Internet including web services and server infrastructure is +97% Linux/UNIX. Animation, CGI, and film editing pipelines, along with specialty rendering farms are almost all Linux based. Adobe itself uses UNIX-based machines (Apple) to develop and to demo almost all of their products and future technologies. You're using statistics and charts that have absolutely no baring whether Adobe should... or whether it would be a good financial decision to develop a Linux version. In fact you are behind the times because Adobe themselves are developing for iOS, OSX... and Android first due to their respective cohesive underpinnings and frameworks. A number of advanced technologies that Adobe is integrating into it's products, such as web standard HTML5/CSS3 and Open GL/CL to name just a couple, are all Linux/UNIX/Apache/Google/Apple initiatives. Adobe makes tools for creatives in print, film and photography... and most important of all... for emerging and ever growing mobile web design and app development. Both of those markets are using UNIX/Linux based devices for development... and also have the vast majority of consumers worldwide for a multitude of devices from TVs, tablets, phones, to notebook/desktop systems. Administrative vs. creative/development/server/web-services computers is what needs to be considered by Adobe. Not total market-share of all computers. That's just pumping up Microsoft's chest with air rather than muscle... which they do not have in this game any longer like they used to. ... View more

parashep wrote: the day Photoshop is released for Linux or BSD is the day that I finally buy Photoshop. Surely you meant to say "subscribe", right? ... View more

@ Noel Carboni - bringing out world wide statistics*** for an OS is just plain sloppy, because this is a discussion about Adobe Photoshop and bringing it to Linux. What *I* would like to know, is how many of Adobe's paying customers worldwide are on Windows, OSX, and/or have Linux pipelines and workflows. Then, lets break that down to traditional strongholds... the one where Adobe's products are used most I might add... creative shops in North America. You might take a look at AdobeTV, events, and learning videos to see which platform is "preferred" for most Adobe installations. Now... since you know where I'm heading with this, and other OP's have stated as well, there is not a whole lot of difference between the UNIX that OS X is based on and Linux. I would even venture to guess that porting to Windows is probably far more difficult from version to version and synchronizing updates than OSX/Linux ever would be. *** Throwing up a world wide percentage of ALL computer users, most that will NEVER, and have NEVER, considered purchasing Adobe's products, is just throwing out mythical numbers you've read somewhere that make you feel better about choosing a specific system. A system that calculates in it's world-wide share, ATM's, manufacturing systems, processing software, enterprise customers from banks to lawyers to bookkeepers, as well as gamers, sale-minded consumers, and casual computing users, etc. None of the above are Adobe's traditional customers, so their part of the market-share pie plain doesn't count IMHO. Please revise your numbers and thinking accordingly. You might also consider the fact that no less than 3 of the above bolded categories of computer users, are fleeing the Windows platform and moving to UNIX/Linux based systems provided by Apple and Google. This is where all of the creative energy is today, and dare I say tomorrow and into the foreseeable future as well. Adobe, being the premier provider of creative tools needs... no must be... optimized for those workflows. Again: UNIX/Linux, and you can toss the A:Drive folks out with the diskettes that are no longer needed. NOTE: I also find it ironic that you point out the need... the absolute necessity in my opinion... that you, someone you know, or a paid support technician is on hand to make Windows work well and stable. That's the only varifiable and rather unfortunate truth behind your original post. ... View more

I find your survey answer incomplete, because just asking people if they would consider purchasing on Linux asks a pointed question about software that many (most?) people have never heard of. And if they have, it's only the old myths from many years ago. Ask them the same question and insert (just to play dumb) "Android" or for "Google Chrome"... you just might receive a completely different answer. I mention this because many people don't know that Linux is the underpinnings and base of a lot of the hardware they're using today, they just don't know it. Maybe Adobe should consider working closer together with Google on technology that has a future, rather than Flash. Ask them about developing for Goobuntu (Google's inhouse baked Linux) or Chrome. You might also ask them how many of their engineers use Windows at all these days, considering that already 2 years ago it was rumored they were trying to go 'Windows free" including in the admin offices. From everything I've seen of late in their conferences and YouTube presentations, they are using almost always Mac OS X... and their Goobuntu. If Microsoft doesn't have the balls to move to a UNIX-based system (which they were also rumored to be doing with Longhorn)... then maybe Adobe should give them one more reason to take a look at that, amid their recent struggles. ... View more

@ Chris Cox Maybe you misunderstood what I was getting at. Because calling "modular based" software a disaster in the making, is the same as saying iOS, Android... and a number of your biggest plug-in developers (Nik and OnOne for example) ... well... disasters. Modular the way I understood it at the time, is something that Adobe is doing as we speak with the Edge Tools and just yesterday with the PS 14.1 update. HOWEVER... IMO Adobe is still doing it wrong. Why isn't Adobe Generator being exposed for use in Illustrator or InDesign at the same time? These are also "web design and asset creation tools" are they not? And what about SVG assets? While being scalable vectors is their main usage, which will be more and more in the future, don't they also need to be exported? I'm thinking Illustrator with it's improvements to CSS exporting, why not Generator? As an example of "modular", I'm talking about the simple and effective "plugin architecture" that is already in place in most of Adobe's products, but they use different plugin APIs and SDKs themselves, rather than be "cross-program". Adobe's job is to create a cross-app API and SDK for their own software plug-ins if you will. For example: Character and paragraph styles and palettes. Why do these work differently across programs within the suite? Modular would mean that they would be synced across the suite and possibly even projects, and use the best developed panels in the arsenal, meaning those from InDesign. Two palettes with the most powerful functions that Adobe has already developed, available to ALL programs in the suite that use text.... RATHER than 6 (8, 10, 12?) palettes that do something just a little bit different to make them frustrating going from one program to the next. It's also very user UNfriendly to expect a simple thing like character/paragraph styles to be re-learned in each program. There is so much to learn in the suite, why should we not expect that once you "get" a function in one program, it carries over to the next? I know you're going to come back and say that certain functionality and user-defined features are not needed cross-program. But that's not what we're seeing is it, as design software evolves into uses that even Adobe itself never intended nor foresaw. Such as: Photoshop as a primary web design tool? As a content creation and editing tool for photos that would find their way to the web: yes; but I seriously doubt that any of your colleagues thought it would evolve into the "go to tool" for web layout, wireframes, CSS, and now, GUI and sprite generation. While the tech is great for a subset of users that have chosen PS for unintended tasks, the photogs (majority use of PHOTO-shop) that I have as clients all went, "Huh?" yesterday when I told them about the update. Couldn't really get them excited about it, even if there are some under-the-hood advantages for them specifically. That Adobe is taking notice of the wide and variable usage of PS is one thing, and I guess I have to compliment them on that at least. However to continue to develop isolated software solutions today for unforeseen usages of tomorrow, is to ME... a disaster in the making.... and we the users will be (are) paying for it. Adobe is still making "Silo Software" rather than a "Software Suite" IMHO. NOTE: your quote, "write or maintain code that gets used by real people" struck me as especially odd. 1) a modular approach is far easier to maintain, or else Apple and Google are doing something wrong; 2) your code that is being used by real people every day is rather bug-ridden, quirky cross-program within the suite, and even exports differently to the point of importing into another program in the suite is many times a fatality... rather than an easy and problem-free click-to-open-in-xxx. We should talk cross-meta data problems within Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop some day... this post is long enough. ... View more

Chris Cox wrote: Note: Photoshop is built using modern APIs, frameworks and compilers.  We constantly refactor the codebase and update it. Also, nobody has retired from the Photoshop engineering team (and we keep adding new college hires as well). Question: are your APIs and frameworks cross-application, or singular for example only Photoshop; the reson I ask because since Adobe sells the apps as a "suite", many dialogs and functions across programs (InDesign -> Illustrator ->Photoshop) are not synced, nor allow the same capabilities. Example: Scale dialog i.e. pop-up control panels. Note: when I state "modern", I'm specifically talking about Adobe's very own stated desire from some 12-15 years ago when CS1 came into being, that they were working on a way to "modularize" the entire suite, rather than develop every program as an island. More or less a creative platform OS. Think iOS or Android, specifically built for creative programs, plug-ins and "apps". What ever happened to that "modern thinking and engineering"? Question: ever? The original team is still intact? I'm impressed. So I assume they would know what I'm talking about, because I believe it was either before or shortly after "plug-ins" came into being and were the "first phase". Just curious. ... View more

Woah! Sorry guys... I am NOT dissing Linux or OS, and do not for a minute think that those professional M&E houses don't spend literally 1000's on licensing. I do think I may need to apoligize for bringing my rant and skepticism along for the ride, against those that don't see the benefits to CC now on Win and Mac. So I wouldn't expect any less moaning and groaning from the Linux crowd truthfully; and then I'm almost sure that the OS-Traditionalists would add a negative spin to the discussion. From Adobe's side: would it be worth it? From my skeptical side: could they even do it? Adobe's programming chops seem to have left with the last generation of retirees. IMHO, the Linux community could and should do something about bringing a competitive alternative to Photoshop. Gimp doesn't cut it.  As with Blender and assorted other "alternative" titles, develop something that is community-driven, expandable, updatable, and BETTER than PS. CHARGE for, or license it even, so that development and growth could be achieved, while at the same time giving users a peace of mind that their efforts and learning curve isn't a waste of time. Which, speaking of learning curves, is the biggest detriment to Adobe, MS and a number of "commercially successful" and widely used software companies being able to truly innovate. Linux doesn't carry that baggage, and as soon as Adobe for example would bring anything out on Linux that doesn't emmulate 100% the software on other platforms: I foresee a big B*** & Moan Festival! I personally believe (and for a long time) that PS should be torn down and rebuilt using modern API's, frameworks and code-compilers. Why shouldn't... or couldn't... the Linux community show them the way? So you see... I'm not against "you guys" or P-ing on your dreams; I'm just hoping for something so much better... and I succumb as humans do once in a while to "generalized snarky comments"... Mea Culpa. ... View more

@g - Really? You're serious that the Linux i.e. OpenSource community would embrace a subscription to Adobe CC? Why do I doubt that??? ... View more