[lug] WINE

[Michael J. Hammel]

Thus spoke Matthew Snelham
> I think that's very generous.  Gimp is a powerful tool, but it's not in the
> same class.   There are a lot of patent issues around color correction and
> publishing which I hope gimp gets a chance to fix, but a lot of the
> disparity is in the UI.  Gimp is just not as polished.  

LittleCMS offers some code for color management that can be (though I don't
know if it currently is being worked on) integrated into GIMP.  It's a start,
even if it's not Pantone.

As for "not as polished", that depends on your point of view.  I started with
GIMP, learned by using Photoshop texts, and now find using my wife's version of
Photoshop to be far more difficult than pulling her images into GIMP and doing
what needs to be done there, then letting her import them back into Photoshop
or InDesign to finish her work.

> <Insert standardized rant about how those most one with the code
> are the least likely to conceive a decent UI>

Huh?  Just who do you think determined the UI for PHotoshop?  Cake decorators?
A "decent UI" is highly subjective, no research withstanding to the contrary.
I've done plenty of that research and written plenty of UI code.  UI's are
highly dependent on the target audience to determine "decent".  The more
general the audience, the less likely it is to be decent to a majority of
users.  

> > I don't think this is a technical issue.

Depends on your point of view.  In the field of CGI in the television and movie
industry it is a *very* technical issue.  The API of GIMP was of far greater
importance to Rhythm and Hues than a pretty menu system provided by Photoshop.

> > Marketing! Installed base...

Blah.  See above comments re: the FX industry.   Marketing failed miserably to
penetrate Windows into that community.

> > Seriously, a lot of ISVs build their applications on M$ purely on the
> > strength of the installed base - they hate it but they make money. They
> > build their support platforms by rank stacking the installed base of
> > potential customer's platforms.
> 
> Exactly.  Development and Support are expensive, even when you have full 
> economies of scale working for you... and when you don't...

And the installed base is saturated currently.  This is why you find many high
dollar products being pushed in slimmed down versions targeted for the masses
or why you see tools like Maya in free personal editions.  They *have* to
expand their markets to keep growing (status quo is not acceptable in the
graphics industry).  Adobe won't ignore Linux forever, especially if places
like Dreamworks are purchasing desktop systems in 1000+ unit lots.

> Who came blame a company for taking the low hanging fruit?

No one.  In fact, the ones rooting them on are the hare and the grasshopper.
Take the easy road and reap the short term benefits.  Beyond that, you're on
your own.

> Adobe has tried selling their products on a secondary platform (Solaris)
> before and was rather discouraged by selling roughly 2 copies (okay, maybe
> 3).  Once burned, twice shy.  Which, besides the CEO's frothing dislike of
> the Open Source community, is probably the reason Adobe has ignored the
> Linux market thus far.

The latter is more likely currently.  But CEO's come and go.  Companies go on
and on (unless they're cousins of Enron).  Who would have thought IBM would be
such a bandwagon leader?  Adobe will come around eventually.  Not that it
matters that much to me.  They're still overpriced.

> But critical mass is building.

Definitely.

> Photoshop for Linux, _native_ to Linux, has existed for some time.  Roughly
> two years that I'm aware of, with varying feature sets and levels of
> stability.  I've been told the Linux Photoshop tree was an underground
> project to begin with, and is now maintained for much the same reasons as
> Apple's maintinance of an x86 port of OS X. 

No doubt.  See previous comments regarding CEO's.

> It was more stable than the old Solaris port (okay, so that's not saying a
> whole lot), and they couldn't seem to decide between WM managed windows and
> an MDI window environment...  but it was otherwise full featured.  Best of
> all, a team at Adobe was actively accepting bug reports for it from the
> client.  I don't know anything for certian, but most companies don't go to
> that trouble unless they're planning a release.

Eventually.  There is strong demand in Hollyweird.  GIMP16 left a bad taste in
their mouth for open source.  They'd bite quick on Photoshop for Linux, I'd
say.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel           |
The Graphics Muse           |          Ambivalent? Well, yes and no.
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  |
http://www.graphics-muse.com