Adobe's Strange Software Giveaway: Goof, Or Clever Marketing?

dryriver writes "Yesterday, Adobe put up a mysterious webpage from which its now seven-year-old CS2 line of products (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Premiere and others) could be freely downloaded by anyone. The page even included valid serial numbers that will unlock the CS2 apps for anyone who wants to. This strange 'giveaways' page at Adobe.com quickly went viral on the internet after a few tech bloggers reported on it. An Adobe spokesman said initially that the CS2 downloads are for existing owners of Adobe CS2 software only, who may not be able to activate their software anymore, due to the CS2 activation servers having been shut down by Adobe. But the internet at large took this webpage as meaning 'Free Adobe CS2 Software for Everyone,' which was probably not what Adobe had in mind. It seems that at this point, hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded their 'free' CS2 products and installed them, and started using them. So Adobe is in a bit of a PR pinch now because of this — Do you tell all the thousands of people who have downloaded CS2 products in the last 48 hours that 'you cannot use these products without paying us'? Or do you accept that hundreds of thousands of people now have free access to seven year old Adobe CS2 products, and try to encourage some of them to 'upgrade to the new CS6 products'?"

Comments

Goof.

[Bieeanda]

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4974662#4974662

It's 'free' for people with currently active subscriptions to the product, not every Tom, Dale, and Hates the Gimp, alas.

Re:Goof.

[omnichad]

From the EULA:
"2. Software License. If you obtained the Software from Adobe or one of its authorized licensees and as long as you comply with the terms of this agreement, Adobe grants you a non-exclusive license to use the Software in the manner and for the purposes described in the Documentation, as further set forth below."

There was an official Adobe download page that also lists all the serial numbers, and makes no mention of any other terms on that page. I'd say that satisfies the above term.

And now, you don't even need an Adobe ID to download - they've since removed even that restriction.

Re:Uhhhh....

[thirdender]

+1 VMs. Also, Wine has pretty decent support for Photoshop CS2.

Re:If they are smart...

[denis-The-menace]

Activation servers only come into play with CS4 and above.

Re:How will this affect the industry?

[UnknownSoldier]

> The most recent GIMP release lacks important high-end photography features that even ancient CS2 has:

I concur 100%! I have a .PSD file I created back in ~2006 and sadly GIMP 2.8 _still_ can't open it properly. Every year it gets a little closer though!

GIMP 2.8 is still incomplete / broken WRT:

* nested layer groups is partially broken - doesn't show Layer Effects as sub-groups
* no native Layer Styles (FX Blend Modes) - they still don't properly work when loading a .PSD file that uses them
    see: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-789ba.html
* no native option to set the default hotkeys to Photoshop
* stupid English name

Note: While GIMP has a layer blend modes that PS lacks, namely: Subtraction, Grain Merge, Grain Extract, Value) that is not the same as the Layer Styles.

Basically this page lists all the ways that GIMP functionality is lacking compared to PS.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/03/8-handy-tweaks-to-make-gimp-replace-photoshop/

The fact that you GIMP doesn't work out-of-the-box the same way PS does and you need half a dozen plugins to get the equivalent functionality already built into PS CS2 tells me that GIMP is still immature.

Hoping one day GIMP will become a viable PS replacement.

References:
Blending Modes supported in PS and GIMP
* http://emptyeasel.com/2008/10/31/explaining-blending-modes-in-photoshop-and-gimp-multiply-divide-overlay-screen/