Google funds Wine work

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 20th February 2008
Comments (10) Stumble
The funding should get the latest Photoshop release, CS3, working as well as its previous incarnations.

The funding should get the latest Photoshop release, CS3, working as well as its previous incarnations.

Tempted by a move to desktop Linux, but need better support for your day-to-day apps? Tired of waiting for Adobe to pull its finger out and support the rapidly-growing desktop Linux movement? The answer you're looking for may just have arrived, and from an unlikely quarter: Google.

The ad brokerage cum search engine has taken the decision to chuck a not inconsiderable sum of money at the programmers behind Wine, CodeWeavers. For those who haven't dipped their toes in the open-source pool, Wine – a recursive acronym standing for Wine Is Not an Emulator – is a compatibility layer that allows certain Windows applications to run on Linux without recompilation.

Dan Kegel, a member of Google's software engineering team and the release manager for Wine 1.0, stated that “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.”

Although Wine has had tentative support for older Photoshop versions in the past, the compatibility has never been that great due to the complexity of the application. Although there are native equivalents – the GNU Image Manipulation Program, as an example – none of them quite live up to the expectations of a creative type brought up on Adobe packages. The boost brought about by the Google money has got Photoshop CS and CS2 working nicely under the latest Wine builds, and Dan says support is just going to get better.

Although the latest version, CS3, isn't yet supported the team is working hard at getting that running just as well as its predecessors. And so another hurdle in the long road to Linux being able to compete with the closed-source competition on the desktop is removed.

Does this make desktop Linux more of a possibility in your eyes, or is it still for neckbeards and hippies? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.
Quote naokaji 20th February 2008, 11:58
its only a question of time until google actually starts making its own linux distro, google backing wine is just a big hint in that direction and with their good financial background... watch out ms, they are comming for you.
Quote identikit 20th February 2008, 12:00
Google? WINE? Linux?... Photoshop! Hell yeah!
Quote p3n 20th February 2008, 12:08
surely the mac version would be a shorter bodge? :>
Quote Glider 20th February 2008, 12:19
Hmm, CodeWeavers != Wine...

CodeWeavers == Crossover == PAYED, Wine is released under GPL and developed independantly... CodeWeavers just base their releases upon the Wine project...

So, Google chunked out to the wrong project so it seems...
Quote Jamie 20th February 2008, 12:21
Quote:
Originally Posted by p3n
surely the mac version would be a shorter bodge? :>

Wine provides windows environment libraries, to get the mac version running they would need to start providing all the mac libraries.
Quote UncertainGod 20th February 2008, 12:55
Google have been funding WINE for ages as well as dozens of other projects, not least among which being Mozilla.
Quote coniferous 20th February 2008, 12:56
Quote:
or is it still for neckbeards and hippies?
Sadly i fit into both of these stereotypes...
Quote chicorasia 20th February 2008, 14:26
Macintoshes running windows, PCs running OSX, Linux running photoshop.... these are strange times indeed...

This is great. Some apps will never go open-source - autoCAD, Adobe CS and many many others - but if one can get them to run on Linux professionals and businesses have one more choice of OS - that means we have more competition. In the end, everybody wins!
Quote TomH 21st February 2008, 09:44
Quote:
Originally Posted by p3n
surely the mac version would be a shorter bodge? :>
By that logic, you would think Adobe might actually consider porting it to Linux. If it was simple, they'd probably have done it by now.

All hail Google, is all I can say.
Quote completemadness 21st February 2008, 14:26
Quote:
The ad brokerage cum search engine has taken the decision to chuck a not inconsiderable sum of money at the programmers behind Wine, CodeWeavers.
Umm i thought codeweavers is a company that uses wine in its apps (like cedega does) but isn't actually wine itself?

I know they make "Crossover Office" (which works very nicely)

The page on codeweavers site
Quote:
Everything we do at CodeWeavers revolves around the Wine Project. Wine is the primary driving technology of our CrossOver Products, and enhancing and supporting the Wine Project is one of our key corporate goals.

Thanks to the support of our customers, we have been able to fund significant work on the Wine Project. Many, many of the capabilities of Wine, including its ability to run many substantial applications have flowed directly from our customers purchase of CrossOver and into Wine. You can see our contributions page for more details on what we have been able to add to Wine.
seems to support the fact they are not actually the wine developers, although they do contribute
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