Petition calls on Adobe to open-source Fireworks

You may not have heard of Fireworks, Adobe's 'other' image editing program, but it has a small but passionate (and vocal) following, particularly among web designers, who find it especially useful for wireframing and UI design.

Sadly for that community, though, Fireworks has been the loser in a day of new Adobe announcements. While its closest equivalents, Photoshop and Illustrator, have both got new versions with exciting new features, Fireworks is no longer going to be developed. So although Adobe promises to provide support and bug fixes, Fireworks looks like becoming a footnote in design history.

Web designers are never ones to hide their views, though, and so a petition has been created calling for Adobe to open-source Fireworks so that volunteer programmers can continue to develop and enhance it. As John Olson of Las Vegas says on the site: "Fireworks is still better for doing a lot of things that Photoshop and Illustrator can't do yet. It's not a perfect tool, but its extremely valuable. Give it over to someone to cares about it."

Adobe hasn't responded to the petition yet. However, intriguingly, the official Fireworks Facebook page has posted a link to Project FW, an "openSource alternative of Fireworks for Windows, OSX and Linux".

What do you think of Fireworks? Does it need saving? Share your views in the comments below...