Tomato, tomato

edit: we are talking about replacements for Adobe products here, so context matters. Adobe products _also_ don't run on Linux.

I wouldn't call Adobe products "cross-platform" either, though.

Pretty sure there are lots of valid definitions of "cross-platform", and I will say again that context matters.

If I'm talking about a mobile app and I say "cross-platform" I probably meant iOS and Android. It would be strange to say "what about Linux??" in that context.

So here we are talking about competitors to Adobe products, where "cross-platform" means Windows and Mac, so when I say "cross-platform" in this context, I am also referring to that same set of platforms.

With linux desktop use at ~1.5% and dropping, at some point it becomes bad business to support it. It's not adobe's job to pick OS's for their users, it's their job to support the OS's that their users use. And their users are about 99% Windows/Mac it seems.

When you cover about 98-99% of your users platforms, I think you're cross platform.

Otherwise, we could define a cross-platform slippery slope such that no software has ever achieved it. There's always another platform you didn't support.

Then "cross-platform" now means "Windows and MacOS" and Linux stops making the "platform" list?

I always thought cross-platform meant "more than one platform", but I guess I don't really know if that's how it's typically used.

I almost exclusively use Linux, and I would call any Windows + Mac app cross-platform.

Does it run on more than one platform? If yes, it's cross platform.

Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Linux? BSD? Haiku? Minix?

If it doesn't run on BeOS, it's not cross platform!

I mean, yes. Functional cross-platform doesn't mean "every single platform ever", and hitting 98% is a fantastic target.

Listen, I love linux, and it's not MY fault that the year of the Linux Desktop never came and that its marketshare has continued to fall against its competitors.

In the commercial desktop software realm, that's what cross-platform has always meant.

These arguments really needs to be in the context of the real world. No one values an academic/technical point.

The intersection of artists, who are heavy users of the Adobe suite of products, and linux aficionados is essentially zero.

You do realize this, do you not?

It is cross platform if they run aCross multiple platforms. Be that 2 or 3 or 15.