Google sponsors Linux users Codeweavers as they work on Wine improvements for Photoshop PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 20 February 2008 09:11
Google software engineer Dan Kegel posted a message to the Wine mailing list last week describing some of the improvements to Wine that Google has sponsored in the past year. These improvements, says Kegel, have substantially improved the Linux compatibility of several popular commercial software applications, including Adobe Photoshop and Dragon Naturally Speaking.

"We hired CodeWeavers (photo credit) to make Photoshop CS and CS2 work better under Wine," Dan Kegel, of Google's software engineering team and the Wine 1.0 release manager, said on Google's open-source blog. "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...We look forward to further improvements in this area."
Google already uses Wine for the Linux version of its Picasa software for editing, tagging, and uploading photos. Photoshop is a larger and more complicated package, however, not to mention updated to version CS3 for nearly a year, so it's likely the CodeWeavers programmers will have a lot of work on their hands.

Google has sponsored development efforts conducted by CodeWeavers to improve Wine's support for these critical applications, resulting in relatively decent compatibility with Photoshop, including version CS2. Kegel also notes that several Google developers including himself use their personal project time at Google to work on Wine debugging.

CNET News - Google funds Photoshop-on-Linux work - Feb 19, 2008

Wired - Photoshop Works Better Than Ever in Linux, Thanks to Google - Feb 19, 2008

Ars Technica - Google intoxicates Linux users with Wine improvements - Feb 19, 2008

Google Open Source Blog - Google Sponsors Wine Improvements - Feb 14, 2008