Google has revealed that they are funding Codeweavers, a company whose open-source Wine software lets Windows apps run on Linux, to make Photoshop and other Creative Suite software run better on Linux.

Why Photoshop? Well, it is perhaps the single top non-Linux application that Linux users would like to have and probably the reason stopping many from swapping to the open source OS. Google’s funding already has got Photoshop CS and CS2 working nicely under the latest Wine builds, though the latest version, CS3, isn’t yet fully supported.

Google has always encouraged cross-platform compatibility and already uses Wine for the Linux version of its Picasa software for editing, tagging, and uploading photos. But to actually shell out cold hard cash to indirectly encourage Linux adoption seems more like an attempt to undermine Microsoft’s dominance on the desktop in any way possible.