Adobe jump in the cloud

[Acrobat]

Not only this, I have a very slow connection, sometime I remain without internet for a week or more due bad weather. A tragedy...

Agree the price is not bad, at all (but I'm not excluding Adobe will increase asap when cloud will accepted like usually) and you must be sticky for life to that or other software, in perpetual rent... really don't like the idea beyond actual software license, this new evolution seems very worse. Wait tomorrow, is not impossible I'll like it (if I understood correctly you workstation performance will override by cloud server machine)

Sooner or later all that will collapse as you can't keep growing all the time in limited world

first or late...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth

Krita is nice, I think Krita and Gimp can fit my need if in a future OS incarnation my PS CS3 cannot run correctly.

For 3d is more complex, but blender seems doing big steps forward.

[Letterbox]

A problem that no-one seems to see or realize is that the 'pirates' are not going to pack up and go home. The alternative is they'll hack the cloud. (and that's been done with various cloud based email's of many politicians - phones too.) But interestingly people seem to not equate them, as maybe until they do, the realization is that when they do hack the cloud, they now have your data too.

Nor has only said anything about the legality of exactly where the data is stored, your country or another? Does that also imply when signing up for the cloud, you have to give up any sovereign data protection laws?

Nor as has happened with many companies, the largest being netflix, what do they say to you when the cloud don't work? "Sorry...We're working on restoring it."

On a positive note, and I like the way people are for the first time looking at alternatives, it might mean a return to the golden days of software engineering, were developers listen, act and develop what a "cross-section" of customers want.

Two good examples of that would be Fabric-Engine, letting customers on open(ish) beta's, in turn aiding and guiding the development, a real and tangible partnership to develop a superior product.

The other was Exocortex Momentum beta where we with others helped Helge, find bugs, suggested ideas, workflows, were asked what features we wanted and if was the way we wanted it, helped with documentation, and got the development-debug-release cycle turnaround to a speed large corps. have long since forgotten.

I could site many more such examples...


So yes, there are benefits for Adobe moving to the cloud. Some of those benefits might not exact be what they were hoping for.

[Pancho]

Yes, it takes away choice. You are forced to keep on subscribing to their software. You get forced to do this. And that's definitely more than rude ...

Funny thing with Adobe is that its software gets even less love than the Autodesk one. Minimal updates and features for a high price. Actually they are selling the same stuff over and over again to you. From a business point of view that seems like the best thing you can do. Unfortunately people in this business don't have any decency, integrity and manners. Otherwise they would be ashamed by themselves in the way they are treating their customers.

No love in this business. Not even respect....

[mihaiNL]

On a positive note, and I like the way people are for the first time looking at alternatives, it might mean a return to the golden days of software engineering, were developers listen, act and develop what a "cross-section" of customers want.

Two good examples of that would be Fabric-Engine, letting customers on open(ish) beta's, in turn aiding and guiding the development, a real and tangible partnership to develop a superior product.

I think many people make this mistake to assume this kind of software development can continue beyond the initial "discovery" phase which is enthusiastic, very flexible and open. Imagine that later, if that software is even somewhat successful, you suddenly don't have just yourself to be responsible for, working in your living room but you have maybe 10 or so people to be responsible for. They want to get paid on a fixed date. Then the users start demanding more and more features, complexity increases and with that, the nr of bugs - initial discovery phase and customer enthusiasm is replaced by customers who think they have every right on their side. Then maybe also you get competition, you can't talk about or announce ideas you may implement. You can't fly by the seat of your pants anymore, you need structure and goals and fixed development plans. Then someone comes in and says they miss those "golden days" and now it's gotten much less personal and the passion is gone. Things are usually more nuanced and complex than that, and I think this sort of nostalgia does no good for either the developers or customers well being.

[Memag]

Things to keep looking in meantime:

http://krita.org/

Krita has great potential. But, it was a bit buggy and unstable for me.
I would recommend Clip Studio Paint (aka Manga Studio 5) , from Celsys, for those who draw, ink and paint.
Tools are great and easy to work with. There is English translation for Japanese product (MS5 doesn't get updated frequently or at all).
CSP pro is just $50. Amazing price for great piece of software.

http://www.clipstudio.net/

translation files:
http://sai.detstwo.com/forum/index.php?topic=2001.0

[azurecgi]

Anyone know of a viable alternative to After Effects?

[Pancho]

Nuke? : )

I wonder whether Mari is a full alternative for Photoshop?

But I doubt that the business plans at the Foundry will be an alternative to those of Adobe in the long run.

[Nizar]

Krita for windows is unstable (the port from linux is recently, developers work on it), linux version is more reliable.

some alternative to photoshop:

http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4220093&cid=catalog20038&segid=4300004&storeKey=us&languageCode=en

also artrage (only 20€) an mypaint (open) are nice for digital paint (and don't forget Corel Painter)

for compositing blender has a nice compositing inside (blender is a full suite), lack all the nice plugin AE has, but all in all is good and blender foundation is constantly on work upon it. To day released 2.67 with very nice news.

on 3d side existing only blender, seems a 3d software is too complex task for an open source team.

[Bellsey]

there's an unofficial FAQ here:

http://scottkelby.com/2013/my-take-on-a ... onference/

[Pancho]

Thanks for the link, but what is said is so plain naive that it hurts. This guy lives by the ads Adobe puts into his magazine, so he is hardly in the position to judge anything than that his pockets get filled (also with the seminars).

Point is that these companies start to get control beyond the limits that they should be able to. EVen if financially it'll be about the same, the loss of control and the ability to get kept from using software is undoubtely more than negative.

[Letterbox]

On a positive note, and I like the way people are for the first time looking at alternatives, it might mean a return to the golden days of software engineering, were developers listen, act and develop what a "cross-section" of customers want.

Two good examples of that would be Fabric-Engine, letting customers on open(ish) beta's, in turn aiding and guiding the development, a real and tangible partnership to develop a superior product.

I think many people make this mistake to assume this kind of software development can continue beyond the initial "discovery" phase which is enthusiastic, very flexible and open. Imagine that later, if that software is even somewhat successful, you suddenly don't have just yourself to be responsible for, working in your living room but you have maybe 10 or so people to be responsible for. They want to get paid on a fixed date. Then the users start demanding more and more features, complexity increases and with that, the nr of bugs - initial discovery phase and customer enthusiasm is replaced by customers who think they have every right on their side. Then maybe also you get competition, you can't talk about or announce ideas you may implement. You can't fly by the seat of your pants anymore, you need structure and goals and fixed development plans. Then someone comes in and says they miss those "golden days" and now it's gotten much less personal and the passion is gone. Things are usually more nuanced and complex than that, and I think this sort of nostalgia does no good for either the developers or customers well being.

I wonder just how many software development companies you've worked for? You talk about this like you've read it in a book, and you, like most, make assumptions that don't necessarily need to be true. Not every companies goal is to be a multinational. Not every company has to be at the behest of Wall St. Not every company wants to milk it's users, Pixologic's Zbrush being one good example. There are many more out there, all you need to do is just look.

And what you conveniently seem to forget about is products like Legoa and Sparta, and those are 'golden'. And how, one which is control of a 'corp' has had little or no improvements.

Maybe you just dont get that with every choice a company like Adobe makes, there are equally as many opportunities to be had. As for nostalgia does no good for either the developers or customers, your wrong again, what it does need is seasoned professionals, who know how to develop software and can aid by experience, so no longer do you get an endless list of 'regression' items keep re-appearing, or bugs never being fixed. Who can drive and expand a product into new unexplored territories and that IS good for the customers.

[FabricPaul]

+1 - I had written a long response but it was a bit aggressive. I didn't appreciate being patted on the head "one day you'll grow up and become a faceless corporation too". We started Fabric specifically because we wanted to work in a way we know can work - even at scale.

[Hirazi Blue]

Well, this whole new scheme by Adobe will no doubt pave the way for each and every possible software company to start implementing the same policy, disregarding the wants and needs of their customers completely. I am somewhat surprised Adobe beat Autodesk to it. And once Autodesk catches up, as they are bound to, sooner rather later, I will have to find myself a new hobby. I hear stamp collecting is very nice...

As for Photoshop alternatives: I currently use a combination of Photoline and the GIMP. Photoline mainly for its ability to handle more than 8 bit images, but apparently the GIMP has an upcoming update planned enabling it to handle 16 bit images. So Photoline might eventually become obsolete in my workflow (although its a nice enough, good value for money kind of software).

[Falam]

I will continue to use my present version of photoshop for as long as possible, I'm very confident with Photoshop, I won't abandon it anytime soon, although I won't upgrade anymore.

This news has spread like a wildfire across the internet, I don't agree with it. As someone who follows trends and financing as much as my time allows, this is the consequence of the 'cloud' that most were obvious too, I swear some thought the 'cloud' was only going to be for storing our files online, jokes on you.

[ActionArt]

Adobe really hasn't done anything innovative for years so I doubt they'll do anything to justify subscribing.

This is a great model for Adobe because everybody has to keep paying, even if they do pretty much nothing which is what we can expect from them. Not such a great model for users I suspect...

It's really just a even worse version of AD's subscription system.

I'll stick with the version I have, I don't need a video editor in Photoshop

[McNistor]

Well, this whole new scheme by Adobe will no doubt pave the way for each and every possible software company to start implementing the same policy, disregarding the wants and needs of their customers completely.

I must disagree a bit with this statement, more precise with the point about disregarding the wants and needs of their customers. If people indeed want something else they (Adobe in this case) will change, revert back to the way things were or implementing something else, because that would translate into less $. If they won't change it then it means they're happy with how much they sell and that implies people are happy.
The "no choice" argument doesn't do it for me. If you say you have no choice because you're not prepared to give up on your life style, possibly lowering your standard of life if you wouldn't use their product, then you already have made a choice. No s/w company knocks at your door with the shotgun barrel.

Edit: My point is, people complain and they still buy their stuff and I'm not talking about Adobe only. This to me seems like a psychotic behavior of today's consumer.