Adobe Answers to Linux Development Questions

One of the prior articles here dealt with the ease of installation of Adobe Reader on Linux. The first comment to that article speculated on Linux development being a “pain” even for Adobe. So, I contacted the media inquiry service that handles Adobe’s media contacts and asked some questions. I received a nice reply from Kelly Murphy, who represents Adobe’s PR firm. She handled asking the people at Adobe and relayed the responses to me. Here is the result:

Hi Gene,

… The below answers were compiled by various Adobe product managers. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Kelly

• Q: How difficult, or not, it is to create an application that will install across many Linux distributions?
  • A. It is difficult to create a proprietary binary that installs across many Linux distributions. Some applications (such as Google Earth) get around this by packaging every library they need alongside their binary and establishing a runtime environment where those distributed binaries override any system libraries while running the application. Library compatibility is the biggest issue. With Flash Player, for example, we don’t have the luxury of bundling a library (because of download size), plus we are a plug-in, not a standalone application. However, we see efforts like LSB as one way that the community is working towards making it easier. We also work with Linux vendors to enable them to distribute Flash Player so that it is preinstalled for the end-user (e.g. Red Hat,Novell, Dell). Distribution licensing is free, http://www.adobe.com/licensing/distribution.
• Q. Is Adobe using Linux Standard Base (LSB), or some other method to determine what to do during installation?
  • A. With regards to Flash Player, we would appreciate being able to use LSB at some point in the future. We have been involved in their forums and Adobe is a member of the consortium. Adobe Reader tests against LSB, so we support it when we can.
• Q. If not using LSB, why not?
  • A. Reader 8 certifies against LSB 3.1: http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/systemreqs/#812linux. Reader 9 is not available on Linux yet, but we expect it to certify against LSB.

That last answer is very interesting. There is some ridicule out on the WWW and on USENET that looks at the LSB Product Directory and scoffs that LSB is no good and thus Linux is no good. This is one of the usual Fear and Uncertainty through Disinformation (FUD) tactics used by those who hate Linux and want you to hate it too. Obviously companies, like Adobe, are using the LSB tests and certifying for themselves. They are not then certifying with The Linux Foundation to be placed in the LSB Product Directory nor are they using the LSB trademark. After all, this does usually cost money which is rather difficult to recoup on products given away for “free”. However, as one can see by examining the LSB Certification Fee Schedule fees for Application certification are waived in the year 2008, the year of this article. So perhaps a few more companies will certify their applications against LSB before the end of the year and be placed in the list.

Once again, FACTS win out over FUD.

Edit Tue Sep 23 21:42:38 UTC 2008: Clarification about Kelly Murphy.

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