"When will it be time to bring our tools to Linux?" chief software architect Kevin Lynch and his colleagues at Macromedia, Inc., have been asking themselves recently.
The answer, he said this week at Macromedia's latest "FlashForward" conference - the 11th of its kind - is right now.
First to emerge, thinks Lynch, would be optimizations allowing Flash MX to work with Wine. Then if all went smoothly with that, next would come a Linux version of Flash MX - and eventually of Macromedia's other market-leading apps too.
This move would parallel Macromedia's introduction of "Flex" to woo Java developers, in particular, to its tools. Which in turn is going to be followed by "Brady" - which will will do for XML what Macromedia's Dreamweaver already does for HTML.
Flex was described in detail by various speakers at the MX track of the recent EDGE 2004 Conference & Expo in Boston. One of them, Macromedia's own Christophe Coenraets, blogs:
"If you're interested in tracking what problems people are having with current Macromedia software on Linux (or the lack of problems thereof!), then check the individual Macromedia entries in the WineHQ App Database. If you have any additional comments or workflow issues with current Linux emulation of Windows, then the individual product wishlist would be the best way to get it logged with the appropriate Macromedia developer team, thanks."
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#11
Stephane commented on 9 Apr 2004
Flash for Linux Great!!!!
But we absolutly need a Server Communication MX open-source to democratise RIA Concept.
Anyone has an idea of a such tool?
IF some from Macromedia read this:
Why not putting FlashcomMX in open-source you will maybe have the same market-share as Apache and this will boost Flash MX sells.
(I'm Dreaming...)
Bye!!
#10
anonuk commented on 17 Mar 2004
try crossover office - flashmx and dreamweavermx run fine for me in version 2.0
I gave up trying to run StudioMX in Wine, and MX 2004 I can't even run nicely in Win4Lin. Which means I'm still stuck dual-booting into windows. A Linux version of StudioMX would be about the only thing stopping me from dropping /mnt/win2k altogether. I'm not sure working through Wine to develop this will solve any problems, but the fact the Macromedia realise it's a significant enough market for them to try is great news!
#8
polyp2000 commented on 6 Mar 2004
I have my issues with Flash , and Dreamweaver too, just like everybody else.
But for heavens sake this is great news and I support it whole heartedly. Consider this, suppose this initiative was a success, and we have industry standard applications running, on the linux desktop , Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Homesite and so forth? There are a lot of New Media shops out there who are going to benefit immensely from avoiding the Microsoft OS tax. The repercussions of this are immense.
#7
zpok commented on 6 Mar 2004
First of all, porting flash mx means better flash player support.
Second, momentarily forgetting all the bitching about flash not being a true web standard/tool, not W3C compliant, bandwidth hogging, introducing GUI chaos on the web, ... most flash developers are more techie minded than the average content/sparkle provider on the Internet. Meaning they're a better part of the population to introduce to Linux madness.
For all the negatives you can sum up, there's one huge positive: when talking about Linux Desktop, a lot of people are convinced that even more important than installers, standards, ease of use etc ... are the "Killer Apps". Flash MX is pretty heavy in that category, at least for an interesting subset of computer users.
Wine is probably the most ambitious OSS project around... cloning the Win32 API is no small feat. WINE really is about there... Crossover Office is just a few steps ahead of Wine at any given time, and it runs Office flawlessly, and other apps too.
I use the Crossover version of WINE every day and I don't have any complaints. It does what I need it to do. And considering it just as a porting library to speed up porting efforts to Linux is an entirely reasonable thing to do.
Long term WINE is going to be an important part of moving people off of Windows.
#5
anandrajan commented on 5 Mar 2004
Dreamweaver MX is already listed as a bronze application in Codeweavers Compatibility center's list of win32 apps. That means it is able to perform some of its functions under either the latest wine or crossover office 2.1 Take a look, vote for it and/or pledge money to help make it work.
#4
cbreaker commented on 5 Mar 2004
If Macromedia is going to make it work under Wine, it will probably work really well, unlike say Photoshop which never had linux in mind.
#3
damiam commented on 5 Mar 2004
WINE can work damn well, it just usually doesn't, unless it's been tuned for a specific app, or the app's been tuned to it. At Macromedia they are going to work to get Flash working well in WINE, hopefully on the same level that Office works with Crossover (which is really WINE).
#2
Smallpond commented on 5 Mar 2004
RAID management software that I tested ran under Wine OK, but it didn't need any special OS features or hardware, just a GUI and network access.
#1
TuxFlash commented on 5 Mar 2004
They might as well just come out and say they will not support Linux. My experiences with WINE have been, shall I say, bitter. I've managed to get a few games running with it, but never without significant hassle or loss of resources (sound, fullscreen, etc.).
The roadmap to desktop acceptance for Linux cannot go through WINE.
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