The Wine team has recently announced that Adobe Photoshop CS2 works under Wine, a program to enable Windows programs to run on Linux. (Softpedia news article) Although Photoshop CS2 on Wine may not be perfect yet, it may well be soon, potentially opening Linux up to many people who rely on Photoshop. CS2 is one version back from the current version, but it has not been long since CS3 was released, so it is likely that most users are still on CS2. While it is great that Photoshop CS2 works, this is just the beginning.

Adobe’s applications, ranging from pro photo management, to web design, to video, are widely used by many, many people, including web designers (of course, I use GIMP and it works just fine), photographers, graphics people, videographers, and so on. One application might not enable many of these people to use Linux, but as time goes by and the Wine team makes it possible to use more and more of these applications, many people who have been tied to Windows will suddenly be cut free and able to choose Linux.