I came across this announcement the other day, and it really bothered
me at how misleading this information is.  Even the title of the
article starts off with mild misinformation.  It ought to say
“Macromedia to test Wine support” … or even “Macromedia to test
UNIX-compatible support”.  It seems that few people really
understand what *is* Linux, and what is *not* Linux.

Macromedia to test Linux support
Speaking at FlashForward, an annual
conference for developers who work with Macromedia’s Flash format, Chief
Software Architect Kevin Lynch said the company would begin soon by offering
optimizations to allow Flash MX, its main set of tools for creating Flash
content, to work smoothly with Wine, an emulation program that allows Windows
programs to run on a Linux PC. Depending on developer interest, the next step
would be to produce Linux-native versions of Flash MX and other applications.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5170061.html

What is misleading is that Macromedia is not writing anything to Linux
per se … but instead writing code optimized to be compatible with Wine.  What is Wine?  Why
don’t we peek at the Wine web site where they define themselves:  “Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix.”

So the article even further blurs the “truth” when it says that Wine
has something to do with a “Linux PC”.  It really ought to
indicate that Wine allows Windows programs to run on UNIX and
UNIX-compatible operating systems.  Linux is simply a
UNIX-compatible kernel … coupled with a lot of UNIX-compatible tools
and applications.  Wine works with Linux because Linux provides
UNIX-compatibility.  Macromedia tools will work with Linux because
Wine works with UNIX-compatible operating systems.

As for the native versions of
these products, Macromedia would be far smarter to write to POSIX APIs,
or stay with UNIX-compatibility.  Why cut out FreeBSD, or Solaris
… or any of the other flavors of UNIX?