Adobe and Autodesk will claim that rampant piracy partially drove this, and it probably did. But having everyone locked into a nice rental model is nice nice nice too. It's the same issue as MS Office on Windows - no matter how good any FOSS alternatives are there is a huge critical mass of users there that makes 100% interoperability in terms of file formats a necessity, and that is very far off.
And it's not like there are any nefarious methods to stop the software phoning the mothership, and you would be a BAD PERSON to seek them out.
Slashdot Mirror
Adobe and Autodesk will claim that rampant piracy partially drove this, and it probably did. But having everyone locked into a nice rental model is nice nice nice too. It's the same issue as MS Office on Windows - no matter how good any FOSS alternatives are there is a huge critical mass of users there that makes 100% interoperability in terms of file formats a necessity, and that is very far off. And it's not like there are any nefarious methods to stop the software phoning the mothership, and you would be a BAD PERSON to seek them out.