[osflash] Flash 9 IDE for Linux

[Darron J. Schall]

Keith Peters wrote:
> Pretty simple economics actually. Most people use Windows. Fact of life. 
> That's where you concentrate your development. How many Linux IDEs would 
> Adobe sell right now? Enough to justify the engineering efforts? Maybe 
> someday, but not quite yet.
I think it's a little trickier than that, sort of like the chicken and 
the egg problem.  How many people would switch from Windows to Linux if 
the software was available?  How many people buy the Windows version 
only because there is no Linux version?

Do you need software on the platform first, or developers on the 
platform first?  I think a better question would be, can Adobe justify 
the risk in building software for Linux?  There's little risk in 
building for Windows because you know you have a developer audience.  
But, with Linux, the risk is higher.  The developer base doesn't exist 
yet because software doesn't exist yet... or is it the other way around?

Although for a program like FlexBuilder, already built on top of Eclipse 
to help ease platform dependencies, my hope is that we'll at least see 
FlexBuilder for Linux at some point.  I understand the Linux port 
wouldn't be trivial, but one can only hope.. that's the main thing 
holding me back from switching at the moment (a good Flex 2 IDE).  I'd 
like to see Adobe test the waters there at least... but I understand the 
risk since Linux users typically aren't used to paying for software, 
especially IDEs.

-d