Slashdot Mirror
Adobe Makes Products Harder to Use, More Expensive
An anonymous reader writes "This is a follow-up to an earlier story on slashdot about Adobe releasing their Creative Suite package. It seems that Adobe has decided to go they way of Intuit's TurboTax last year and add activation to their products. Legitimate users are up in arms. For Adobe, they follow the steps of other companies, macromedia, quark (who coincidentally shipped their entire engineering offshore) in the graphics biz. Now since in theory they'll be making more money, I hope at least the price goes down (oops, it did not, looks like the upgrade price even increased)."
Perhaps if we don't update there get the hint
The EDU Price for the Suite is $399 (where I am, anyway)....so its a steal over the retail....activation or not.
all the other products requiring "activation", someone will release a hack and there unbeatable, perfect scheme to get people to stop piracy will fail.
There is only 1 way to stop piracy.....
DROP THE HIGH PRICES ON SOFTWARE!
Simple enough.
It's widely warez'd, and I think that's part of the reason it's the industry standard. So many people get their start using photoshop on a pirated copy. If that weren't the case, I don't think Adobe would have the market share that they have now.
Being bastards like this will probably do them more harm than good.
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
I use quark and various adobe products for DP work and I have to meet deadlines. When it's 8 pm and I have to ship files by 8:45, I can't spend time troubleshooting an installation of a product that just went haywire. I don't have time to spend 2 hours on the phone with customer support figuring out how to RE-activate. (the activiation codes in quark are roughly 40 numbers long. 40 numbers!!!. Try communicating that over the phone line with a guy in india.
My old solution: I have another computer with the same software installed. When one goes down, I drop it like and empty bic lighter and fire up the other one. No problem.
With software activation, I can't set up this failsafe without blowing my department's budget.
softare activation wankers
tcd004
I have a problem with product activation because it puts too much control into the software publisher's hands over how I use the software I've paid for. There are a lot of legitimate reasons to need to reactivate. I want to plan my software and hardware upgrades according to *my* schedule, not some vendor's. Fortunately, some companies are already learning hard lessons about product activation. Check out this story on Intuit: http://money.cnn.com/2003/05/19/technology/techinv estor/hellweg/
The company I work for bought a program called Stream Anywhere from Sonic Foundry a while back. It's great. We use it on every streaming media production that comes out of our video edit suite. But Sonic Foundry doesn't sell it anymore and they were just bought by Sony. Will Sony issue me a new activation code in the future if/when I move to a new computer? Will they even keep the key-generator around for an end-of-life product? What if I upgrade my computer in two years and I need to reactivate but they can't or won't give me a code?
We also spent $6,000 on a product to let us sync PowerPoint slides to live streaming video. When you install it and run it for the first time, it wants to connect over the internet to register. When we installed it on a different machine that we bought just for this purpose, I had to call them and talk them into letting me activate it again. This isn't an activation code -- it actually talks to their servers to activate.
What do I do if this small vendor goes out of business and I have to reinstall Windows for whatever reason? Am I just SOL? I wouldn't be able to reactivate even on the same machine because of the method they use. This isn't as much an issue with someone big like Microsoft or Adobe, but smaller companies usually follow ideas of the larger companies. I could see in a few years where everything from big commercial apps down to small shareware programs require activation.
Even with a big vendor, what's going to happen when they end-of-life the product? Will I still be able to reactivate PhotoShop CS or Windows XP several years down the road when there's a newer verison out? Or will they refuse to reactivate it and tell me I have to purchase a copy of whatever newer program they are currently selling? I wouldn't be surprised if it was the later. They have everything to gain yet the customer stands only to lose.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I'm writing to Abode to let them know I don't like it and won't purchase any of their products that use product activation. Most importantly, I'm going to vote with my wallet (and my company's wallet where applicable).
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I recently felt really good about deploying Acrobat 5.0 with a customer for in-house forms work. Basically, they had 45 people. 2 stations had Acrobat so they could make forms, everyone had the free reader, and the 10 few who needed to save or sign forms had the $50 Acrobat Approval. This worked wonderful, was affordable, and I could feel good about PDF as an "open" format.
So what happened? Acrobat 6.0 came out. Sure enough, they left out Approval. Their customer service tells me to either get Adobe Acrobat Elements (1000 licenses or more only!) or "upgrade" to Acrobat 6.0 (mind you, they have a Standard or Professional version now). So I just went from:
2x$250 + 10x$50 = $1000
to
12x$250 = $3000
That was not cool and makes me look like a dork for recommending Adobe as being somehow "more open" than, say, MS Word. To this day, they won't even say that there will be no Approval version. All I want is for them to say "we don't plan on it" so that I can just tell my customers to abandon it--they won't even do that. They just say "stay tuned to the website for the next exciting release".
This mentality makes me wonder when PDF will become a closed format.
Adobe is plummeting rapidly on my list.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Product activation in my experience too often gets in the way of non-infringing use. When I buy a new computer, or a just new hard disk, I want to reformat my old hard disk and reinstall all of my software on the new one.
Most pirates won't dare use pirated software for commercial purposes. They can lose it all if caught. And most non-commercial users aren't planning to buy photoshop in the first place. In this rare case, software piracy BENEFITS THE SOFTWARE COMPANY. The result is more people know how to use photoshop when entering a commercial environment, which is when they are most likely to make a purchase. Otherwise, there are many alternative products that amatuer users can get their hands on without a high initial investment, like Paint Shop Pro eval and the Gimp, and they will prefer those alternative products in the workplace.
Existing versions are pretty good. I see no need to upgrade unless they add some great new feature that turns the entire industry upside down.
The GIMP is an alternative to Photoshop.
No it's not. GIMP for Windows (and possibly for all platforms?) can't (won't) save as GIFs. That's a pretty big gap for a product that professes to be an alternative for Photoshop!
It is free.
Do you think the people who sell multi-thousand dollar ads using Photoshop give a crap about the $900 sticker price?
The bus is cheaper than my car, but you don't see me on the bus, do you? I could wipe my ass with last week's newspaper, but I'll spring for the toilet paper instead, thanks. "Free" doesn't automatically mean "better." I could eat dirt for free, or chicken for a couple of bucks. Hmm...
With that unbeatable price, you even get the source code !
Do you think the people who buy Photoshop give a shit about the source code? Do you think they even know what "source code" is?
If there's a bug, you can do the debugging yourself.
I've been using Photoshop for several years now, and haven't found a single bug. The few days I spent fighting with the GIMP, on the other hand, it crashed several times. But hey! I've go the source code, and it was free! I can spend days and days fixing it myself, instead of earning the tousands of dollars I would otherwise have earned from the graphics I could have been designing! Surely that's worth the $900 I saved, right? Not!
Plus, if you think you wanna tweak the code to your own liking, you can do it.
Photoshop already has more features than I know how to use. I'd rather use the software as it is to create products I can sell, rather than donating my time improving a sub-standard product for free.
With photoshop, you don't get the source code.
Yah, that's a big deal. I think that's what's hindered Windows from gaining widespread adoption. The lack of source code. That must be it. Windows could've been huge, if they'd only included the source code.
Plus, if you want a legal copy, be prepared to fork over your hard earned money.
Do taxi drivers bitch about spending money on the car they use to earn their living? Do airlines consider stealing the airplanes to use to earn their revenue? Do mechanics bemoan the few hundred bucks they spend on their tools, so they can charge you $80 an hour to change your oil?
Here's a clue: when you use something that costs $n to perform services that can bring you $(n*100) per day, you don't bitch about the $n. Saving the $n isn't even a factor. The only thing that matters is how easily and quickly it allows you to perform theh tasks that earn you the dough.
You definitely don't spend your valuable time fixing bugs and making the "free", sub-standard product functional, while your customers wait patiently for you to take their orders.
Also, if you find a bug, you can't do anything about it, because you are at the mercy of Adobe.
We're up to version 7, pal. All major bugs are fixed. All minor bugs are fixed. We're in the "continuous improvement" phase now.
So why are you using Photoshop ?
Because it's stable, works, is affordable, generates money for me, has a wealth of published materials documenting it, is supported, mature, reliable, and well-known.
Download GIMP now !
Uh, no thanks. You have fun with your buggy little "free" toy. While you're busy implementing features that should already have been there and fixing bugs that never should have made it into the "stable" tree, I'll be taking care of your customers.
You won't regret it.
Spring for the professional software that lets you forget about all the meaningless things like tweaking the hundred-thousand line source code and focus on delivering what your customers want.
You won't regret it.
Stay in school, kid.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Others have mentioned Gimp as a potential alternative to Photoshop. Sodipodi is considered to be a potential alternative to Illustrator. Sodipodi also strives to be the best SVG editor around, free or commercial.
However, anyone who has used either knows that they need more work to get them up to the level of quality artists need. These projects need your help. Instead of forking out more C notes to Adobe or wasting time warezing, do something constructive.
You can make a significant contribution for as little as a few afternoon's of your time. Write a tutorial or a chapter for the GIMP Users Manual (GUM) or the Sodipodi User's Manual (SUM). Publish an article about the apps for a suitable online or print magazine. Or just teach it to some friends. If you can code, pick a bug or feature request and contribute a patch to address it. If you don't code but want to, take it as an opportunity to learn how and to be a part of the Open Source community's successes.
*groans*
I, for one, would welcome new jokes.
To get it off everybody's chest, whether trying to be funny or otherwise:
"All your foreign software are belong to us."
"In Soviet Russia, program activates you!"
"Paying for Photoshop: Priceless.
Paying for an upgrade: More."
"Photoshop? Nice. But does it run the GIMP?"
"<Beowulf - nuff said>"
"1. Sell product for too much.
2. Sell upgrade for more.
3. Profit.
4. ??????
5. Activation!"
And last but not least, one that seems to be gaining popularity:
"Why is this news?"
So I'm Joe Average user and I get home from work on a Friday to find out I've been hit by this nasty new virus. I spend a while trying to fix it, but can't. I call up my friendly neighbourhood computer shop who tells me he wants 3 figues to fix it and he tells me it may end in a format.
I decide that I can backup my stuff myself and as I have disks for all my software, this isn't too big of an issue. So I format, install windows and with a new sound card find myself on the phone dealing with product activation. That's frustrating as it's past midnight and the phone lines aren't staffed as well as they could be.
This by itself is frustrating......but imagine this is the norm....imagine I have graphical software, tax software, a few games and several apps...all paid for and all requiring activation. How happy do you think I'd be?
As long as activation isn't the norm it's not too big of an issue...more of an inconvenience....but it has the potential of being much more of a problem in the not to distant future.
While we're at it let's just toss those letters of objection about European software patents and wait until we actually have software patents that are causing problems. No need to chase non-existant "what if" scenarios.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
There is no "open source alternative" for Photoshop, After Effects, or most of the other high end Adobe products.
Not yet, but I think many people underestimate the open source movement. As Taco Cowboy pointed out, proprietary software is continually distancing itself from the end users. More and more people are turning to Open Source, and it's not going to stop because it is FREE!
There will eventually be alternatives for the products you mentioned as well as others. Eventually people are going to be sick of shelling out money for things that they can do for free.
Have you tried Linux yet?
Just checked on my linux box, it saves them just fine. Don't know about Windows though, don't have one. Can't see why it won't on some platforms and will on others. Perhaps it has been enabled after the GIF patent expired.
Do you think the people who sell multi-thousand dollar ads using Photoshop give a crap about the $900 sticker price?
That's true. However there is a large audience to whom $900 matters a lot. eg:
1. Students
2. Companies that want to purchase several licenses
3. Most of the third world
The few days I spent fighting with the GIMP, on the other hand, it crashed several times.
Never crashed on me. Maybe you used a development version? (odd minor version number ==> development version)
Normally, dongles are used with a very low volume, specialty software. Crackers are not interested in such software; imagine, for example, a package to control a sophisticated CNC or some industrial robot. A cracker won't ever get his hands on the set of software and hardware necessary to run the thing. Here the dongle serves as a barrier against owner of a herd of CNCs, so that he should buy a license for every machine he controls, instead of getting one and helping himself with the rest. A machine shop owner is not a cracker, and he won't even know how to contact one.
So dongles are a social solution to a social problem. They can not be applied mindlessly.
I've been scanning, then saving several >150mb (uncompressed) images as JPEGs using v7 of Photoshop. Every 15t or so image gets corrupted. When I try to open it, Photoshop complains about an invalid JPEG header. No other programs are able to open the file.
Man, if it was me, and I was in a business situation with a very very close and important deadline, and this junk pops up? I'd have that key piece of software cracked so fast it wouldn't know what hit it. The software is meant to serve ME, not the other way around. If I've got a license sitting RIGHT THERE, and I CAN'T USE IT? Crack it, not worth the time to play their silly games.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
If you're good with Photoshop it's difficult to not make more money than you spent on it in a year. Even a beginning designer could make enough to buy the whole suite in under a week. Plus it's deductible.
Now there's a lot of people recommending thg Gimp in this thread and if you use it and enjoy it that's fine. But feature and usability-wise there is absolutely no comparison. Yes, OSS is wonderful but the fact remains that for someone who is trying to make money using a bitmap-editing program Photoshop offers a better value propisition than the Gimp does, even though you have to pay for it. Adobe doesn't take the money they make from Photoshop and use it to pay for a factory that converts orphans and kittens and orphaed kittens into fuel oil, they improve their products continuously. There's a reason that a real alternative to Photoshop doesn't exist and it's not because Adobe is anticompetitve or anything, it's because it's really hard and really expensive to make software as good Photoshop unless you're just ripping off thier feature list as quickly as you can. One of the reasons that I don't like The Gimp is that except for Script-fu and a mess of a user interface the developers brought nothing original to the bitmap editing table and are instead content to just poorly ape the work of others. Now that's innovation, eh?
As far as activation goes, it's not that big of a deal either. Adobe is only using it on Photoshop for Windows. It's pretty obvious that it'll get cracked. They're probably just doing it to please their dumb shareholders who think that all those copies of Photoshop being used to ham-fistedly combine Domo-kun, Admiral Akbar and the Eiffel Tower at Fark will somehow magically become sales.