Ask Slashdot: What Is Your View On Forced Subscription-Only Software? 660
dryriver writes: All used to be well in the world of Digital Content Creation (DCC) until two very major DCC software makers -- Adobe and Autodesk -- decided to force a monthly subscription model on pretty much every software package they make to please Wall Street investors. Important 2D and 3D DCC software like Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, InDesign, 3DMax, Maya, and Mudbox is now only available to "rent" from these companies. You simply cannot buy a perpetual license or boxed copy for this software at all anymore, and what makes matters worse is that if you stop paying your subscription, the software locks itself down, leaving you unable to open even old files you created with the software for later review. Also annoying is that subscription software constantly performs "license validity" checks over the internet (subscription software cannot be run offline for any great length of time, or on an air-gapped PC) and the software is increasingly tied into various cloud services these companies have set up. The DCC companies want you to save your -- potentially confidential -- project files on their servers, not on your own hard disk.
There are millions of DCC professionals around the world who'd love to be able to buy a normal, perpetual, offline-use capable license for these software tools. That is no longer possible. Adobe and Autodesk no longer provide that. What is your view on this "forced subscription" model? What would happen if all the major commercial software developers forced this model on everyone simultaneously? What if the whole idea of being able to "purchase" a perpetual license for ANY commercial software went away completely, and it was subscription only from that point on?
There are millions of DCC professionals around the world who'd love to be able to buy a normal, perpetual, offline-use capable license for these software tools. That is no longer possible. Adobe and Autodesk no longer provide that. What is your view on this "forced subscription" model? What would happen if all the major commercial software developers forced this model on everyone simultaneously? What if the whole idea of being able to "purchase" a perpetual license for ANY commercial software went away completely, and it was subscription only from that point on?
In Favor (Score:5, Funny)
I can guess how this is going to go ./ Pretty much everyone will be fully supportive.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In Favor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In Favor (Score:4, Interesting)
While this may be true, I have not upgraded any of my adobe creative suite tools past the last perpetual licensed version I own. Ever since then I've been learning the open source replacements for everything I do. Not as easy, or as integrated, but I refuse to be hostage to a sub that prevents me from accessing prior work without current payment.
If they had a "reader" version of all their tools that allowed the basic functionality then *maybe* but as it is now? No.
Re:In Favor (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that nobody wants a stripped-down "Lite" version, or at least nobody who has ever used the real product. There are too many things that don't work... like CMYK.
So if my choices are switching from Photoshop CS6 to Elements or switching to Pixelmator, the latter has more functionality, but not a lot more, so it mostly comes down to a choice between buying yet another product from a company that had now screwed me twice by taking away my ability to upgrade software that I've spent thousands of dollars on over the years or telling them to go f**k themselves and switching to another piece of software from a company that hasn't been abusive.
Needless to say, I own Pixelmator, and do not own any version of Elements. So I will continue to maintain CS6 for working on old projects, and will continue to do so until an OS upgrade breaks it beyond repair, at which point I'll stick it in an OS X v10.6 virtual machine right alongside AppleWorks.
The recent Lightroom announcement was particularly heinous, because they previously promised that they wouldn't be doing that, and I bought LR6 based on the promise that they were eventually going to add full support for the 5D Mark IV's dual-pixel RAW. Now, a year later, they still haven't added that support, and have dropped the standalone product entirely. Had they not deliberately lied to us a year ago, I would have spent time adding that support to DarkTable, and would have saved a lot of money instead of wasting it on a dead-end product that still doesn't fully meet my needs.
After the recent Lightroom announcement, Adobe is officially dead to me. They could literally create technology that would end world hunger, cure all diseases, and store a day worth of video in a single megabyte, and I still wouldn't give them a penny for any of it. They have made my permanent blacklist—one of only two companies ever to earn that honor. Nothing they could possibly do matters at this point. They're simply another technology company on life support. And I sure as h*** won't pay subscription fees to keep them on life support. The company failed in the marketplace. Let it die.
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... And if money becomes tight, I can switch to LibreOffice (whom I regularly donate a small penny to).
If you could use LibreOffice "if money becomes tight", why not use it now?
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That would at least require some workaround for lack of support for macros in third-party XLSM workbooks. For example, Amazon's "Listing Loader", a product offer feed prevalidator provided by Amazon to third-party sellers on its platform, is an Excel workbook with macros. Without the prevalidator, the only way to validate your product offer information against Amazon's schema is to try uploading it, and a failed upload counts against your seller account's upload quota.
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This is something LO simply does not do. I use OO and every time LO issues an upgrade I download it and look for the bugs I hate the most in the both. There are blatant bugs that haven't been fixed since the split. Same bugs in both OO and LO.
Re:In Favor (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who has attempted to use LibreOffice or GIMP for professional work will tell you the same thing: they are not suited for any kind of professional work. Adobe and the rest switched to this business model because they know users will have no choice.
I have used and currently use LibreOffice for professional work and it works just fine. To say that it is "not suited for any kind of professional work" is just plain false. As in not true. As in - a lie. There is lots of professional work LibreOffice is suited just fine for. For sure, there are things it cannot do, or cannot do well. It's not a perfect replacement for Microsoft Office. However, there is a lot of professional work you can do with it.
GIMP I can't comment on, I really haven't used that program much in any capacity (professional or otherwise).
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My personal criticism of GIMP is that even some basic stuff is ever so slightly different than how Photoshop does it. Just different enough to avoid copyright infringement is also different enough that many entry level user tutorials don't work and comparable versions of specialized plugins just don't exist.
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Take a look at Affinity Photo [serif.com]...it is pretty much 99% there with PS and MUCH faster engine too. Reasonably priced and perpetual license.
They've also been going free updates
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Affinity Photo looks pretty nice, and for a great price. I've used Corel PhotoPaint for years, and as far as I can tell, it pretty much has feature parity with Photoshop. It has the benefit of coming with CorelDraw, a vector illustration program, which I find useful for some design work.
It doesn't really matter, though. The artists who have used PS for years will continue to use PS, because that's what they've been using forever. And new artists are trained on PS because "that's what everyone uses". Ho
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Yeah, it is not easy to find, but here are the system requirements [serif.com].
It looks like it will run Win 7 for you.
HTH.
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Impress is so shockingly bad that they should be embarrassed to include it in the package.
I disagree.
When I make PowerPoint presentations, I really go animation-heavy. It's my thing. Recently I imported a bunch of PowerPoint presentations into Impress, edited them, made new slides, made new animations, saved in odp format and did the presentation in front of an audience of 50 people. Everything went fine.
Yes, the slides look a bit outdated when you are editing them inside Impress, but once you go into full-screen presentation mode, there is hardly any difference. I don't think anybody noticed.
On
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LibreOffice is just as good as MS office for virtually any task. The only time issues arise is that it is 99.99% compatible with Word/Excel/etc. However, that 0.01% can mean issues, especially with a complex Excel spreadsheet, a Word document with a ton of formatting, and so on. However, for most tasks, they are pretty much interchangeable.
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No offense, but aren't Excel macros (VBA based, right?) a bit of a problem in Libre Office? IIRC, Libre Office macros are sort of Pythonish -- which is fine with me. But I would think that would be a problem with financial folk who, in my experience, love spreadsheets, and often have huge supply of pet VBA macros that they love more than their own children. The problem here is that in the places I worked, the financial folks were heavily involved in the decision making process and they are unlikely to em
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It's systemd you'd have to subscribe to then.
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With subscription that rate would decrease. Just look at how many SAP customers that now have problems making ends meet due to the horrible rates SAP charges.
The Final Days of Autodesk (Score:3)
I think it sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
SolidWorks is close to that model now as well.
Sage accounting has a perpetual / offline license available, but you can't buy it from them - you have to go through a reseller.
It brings up a question I always ask: Who owns your data?
If you have to keep paying someone in order to access your designs, then you don't really own your data, they do.
Control of YOUR data (Score:5, Insightful)
It brings up a question I always ask: Who owns your data?
THAT is exactly the key question. It's the reason I refuse to use Lightroom to manage my photos. I'm not about to tie myself in perpetuity to another company and effectively hand over control of my data to them. While I'm not saying it's always wrong to make that choice it's a choice one should make with extreme caution. It would be one thing if the software continued to work if you stopped paying the subscription and you just stopped getting upgrades. But to disable the software and effectively deny you access to your data if you stop paying for the subscription is just shady as it gets to my mind.
Hate the Sub Model (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a fan of the sub model; I use several of the Adobe apps, so the $50/month seems like a steal when you consider the Suite used to cost in the thousands of dollars. But I'd still rather pay up once and be able to keep using the software as much as I wanted.
Re:Hate the Sub Model (Score:5, Interesting)
If you could actually do arithmetic, Creative Cloud still didn't work out cost effective at the pricing in a lot of markets, and much less so if you didn't upgrade Creative Suite every time, which many users didn't.
We've run away from both Adobe and Autodesk as a direct result of these decisions. Most of our new graphics and UI work is done with tools like the Affinity suite. For occasional 3D modelling work we keep a pre-subscription licence around for compatibility but we're migrating to open tools like Blender for future-proofing. Only a brave person or fool lets their business depend on this sort of uncertain yet locked in arrangement for anything critical to their business, and whether they are a brave person or a fool is probably only a matter of perspective. There are good, realistic alternatives for most casual to moderately serious users these days.
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For my personal work I also dumped PhotoShop for Affinity Photo. I cold not justify the Adobe cost.
What is missing at the moment (IMHO) is a good Lightroom replacement.
Re:Hate the Sub Model (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a pro photo guy, but I have used darktable [darktable.org] and found it useful. Whether or not it is useful to you is obviously your call. I invested time into learning open source equivalents years ago knowing that software and licenses change to much for the average consumer to find proprietary software financially worthwhile.
Re:Hate the Sub Model (Score:5, Insightful)
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I missed what was uncertain or locked in about this arrangement.
They could remove an essential feature you rely on, or discontinue a whole application, any time they want.
They could increase your subscription fees to arbitrary levels, any time they want.
I haven't read their current terms, but I'd be surprised if they don't set out some situations where they have a right to discontinue service to your business entirely.
If your lease is running out and won't be renewed, you can always move to new premises. It's a hassle, but it's a well understood process and won't kill y
I can see why (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally don't like it but it's one of the more surefire ways of reducing piracy whilst kicking your actual customers in the wallet to make up for any perceived piracy losses.
Not my problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally don't like it but it's one of the more surefire ways of reducing piracy whilst kicking your actual customers in the wallet to make up for any perceived piracy losses.
In my case it reduces piracy by keeping me from using their products at all. I'm not about to hand over control of my data to a company just so they can pad their bottom line to Wall Street. Sadly I'd actually pay for some of their products but they refuse to license them to me under terms I'm willing to accept.
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It isn't just about pricing, but the fact that you no longer have control over your own data.
But by all means, keep sucking that corporate cock.
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It's why I'm dumping Quicken (Score:2)
As soon as they announced the newest release (2018) was subscription based, I went looking for alternatives (OSS and perpetual license). Already thought the last version was slow and full of feature bloat, but the move to require annual payment for said pleasure was the last straw.
Re:It's why I'm dumping Quicken (Score:4, Interesting)
If a user doesn't need to download statements or new features, forced upgrades are no benefit so long as everything is working fine.
I setup a new PC for the gf's family that I got for them, I had to dig up a copy of Quicken 2015 to reinstall since they're poor farmers. Their old PC was a Pentium 4 with Windows XP running Quicken 2011.... They were happy with 2011 and don't need anything new or fancy, unfortunately they lost the CD and it probably wouldn't work on Windows 10 anyways. Forcing them to pay $35-50/yr to be able to manage not going into debt is counter-intuitive. This sounds like it's thick with exaggeration but unfortunately this is the case. People trying to make ends meet responsibly trying to be forced to shell out more out of what they have, Quicken isn't used just by rich people with money burning holes in their pockets.
Mostly immaterial what people think... (Score:5, Insightful)
Adobe has a stranglehold on that market, and they can pretty much do whatever they want. They realized that people weren't bothering to buy new versions, and as such their revenue was threatened, so they changed course to a subscription, to guarantee future revenue, unless a competitor came in. No competitors in sight and given the state of software today, it is highly unlikely that another vendor would choose a non-subscription path. I get everything I want out of GIMP personally, so I'm not too personally invested in that per se, but it does serve as an inspiration to all sorts of software vendors as a 'I can't make customers pay for new function, and I can't branch into new markets competently, so I can make them rent the same old software to get revenue and as a bonus, I don't have to work as hard to innovate'.
Re:Mostly immaterial what people think... (Score:5, Insightful)
The strongest competition for Adobe probably isn't from FOSS like the GIMP and Inkscape these days, but rather from the smaller but commercial outfits making products like Sketch and the Affinity suite. Several companies have already sprung up with products to fill (parts of) the gap left by CS when they went subscription-only, and they seem to be doing pretty well so far.
Quark Who? (Score:2)
The rented software model is why I'm still using Creative Suite CS3. I'll bite the bullet eventually, and maybe this has worked out just fine for Adobe, but it kept me from doing any upgrades so there's at a couple of lost sales. Adobe's position is pretty locked right now with so much infrastructure and workflow built around their products, but had anyone made a serious move into the space, I think they would have been given a hard look as a replacement.
So that's my take. It's easy to build a business usin
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maybe this has worked out just fine for Adobe
It would be fascinating to know whether it really is working now that competition is starting to appear and the ongoing costs are starting to bite. However, if you look at Adobe's official statements, it's remarkably difficult to determine what's really going on. The ones I've seen from time to time lack just enough detail that you can't tell whether, for example, expansion into foreign markets in the first few years of Creative Cloud was compensating for reduced subscriptions in the early markets, or wheth
Vendor lock-in too high a price for usability (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just an extreme case of vendor lock-in, which has been a known risk of using proprietary software for decades. Vendor lock-in was one of the primary motivators for the free software movement.
Frankly, I do think proprietary software such as MS Office, PhotoShop, AutoCAD, etc. often offers a better user experience than free and open-source (FOSS) alternatives. I have been willing to bottle my FOSS sympathies and shell out cash for productivity software for a long time for that reason. When the UX is better, that's worth paying for.
Once the vendor starts blocking me from access to my own intellectual property, that's a deal-breaker. First it's a moral outrage. Second, for people who won't factor morals into their business decisions, it's an extreme and unacceptable business risk. Now that we have a word for "ransomware," we can call this subscription model what it is.
I know people will say "Adobe will never kill PhotoShop." Never is very long time. People used to say General Motors would never go bankrupt, or Lotus would never kill Lotus 1-2-3.
No deal. Even if the subscription were "free." I'm looking at you, Google.
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A free subscription is arguably worse, as you have less legal comeback in the event they choose to discontinue service.
At least in the case of photoshop, you have the option to export your data in open (jpeg, png etc) formats for use in other tools. I'd not subscribe to a service without at least some provision to get the data out in the event of cancellation.
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Good and bad (Score:5, Insightful)
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...and make no bones about it, we HAVE to spend....
No, you don't. You CHOOSE to spend it, which is your prerogative. You CHOOSE to remain in your vendor-owned workflow, probably out of fear, but you're actually in a great position. You have the resources to absorb the additional hit to your business while you play with options for migrating away from it.
Major software vendors are still in the early phases of owning your business, and you still have options. If you stay with them, though, you willingly throw away your options and surrender yourself to t
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No, you don't. You CHOOSE to spend it, which is your prerogative. You CHOOSE to remain in your vendor-owned workflow, probably out of fear, but you're actually in a great position. .
You should stick to discussing industries that you actually know about. I am no architect, but have quite a few friends who are. My understanding is that they're constantly sending these files around to 3rd parties and everyone has to be on the same page. More sophisticated clients sometimes use the same tools for viewing the work you provide, too. Abandoning 3DS Max would likely mean you would be unable to deliver on your existing obligations and would also be unable to acquire new work. End of busine
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There is no realistic alternative to Autodesk when it comes to architecture. Back in ye olden days Versacad and Autocad were fighting it out, but Autocad won that battle.
There are people out there who make software that claims to do architectural design. Their products are not that much better than using MS Paint or Visio to try and design a building.
There really is only one player in this space. And they know it.
Open source options benefit from this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I know that won't cover all aspects but maybe other programs such as FreeCAD will get a boost from these vendor lock in tactics.
If Gimp could speed up their development, people might see a benefit to replace Photoshop in businesses too but I might be asking too much here.
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Personally I've found Blender to be a more than capable 3d graphics sweet if you know how to use it. There are things that are better about 3DS and there are things that Blender can do that 3DS cannot.
FreeCAD is somewhat usable but early enough in it's development that the interface is a total mess. The workbenches seem thrown together and sometimes have identical tools that work just slightly differently. I've successfully used it personally and professionally so I can tell you that it is capable, but I
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FreeCAD is somewhat usable but early enough in it's development that the interface is a total mess. The workbenches seem thrown together and sometimes have identical tools that work just slightly differently. I've successfully used it personally and professionally so I can tell you that it is capable, but I would never recommend it to someone with years of time into Solidworks. (not if they want to retain their hair).
I've barely touched FreeCad and agree with what you are saying as I felt so lost in the interface. What I feel is that with AutoCAD in a subscription model, if FreeCAD was able to speed up their development to the point where more people can make use of it, it could see a rise in investment the same as Blender is seeing at the moment. Remember, Blender may be open source but people can donate to it or use the Blender Cloud service (which is purely optional unlike a subscription model) to fund it and compani
No. (Score:2)
A lot more than that.
Just say no... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of my friends is a top level graphic designer. He has simply stayed with a bought-and-paid-for version of PhotoShop...CS5, I believe. There is literally nothing he can't do with it.
His comment about Adobe's attempt to force him to rent the new version and effectively put his business under their control was simple and direct. He said (and yes, this is a quote), "Adobe can go fuck itself."
I've done photography at the professional level and use Lightroom (mostly) and CS2 (for occasions when I have to do serious retouching). This was never an issue for me, because I don't need the newest bells and whistles for what is now more a hobby than a profession.
I echo my friend's sentiments, though. I will never put myself into a situation where Adobe might be able to forbid me from having access to my own work. I can't imagine what kind of idiot would do so.
That's why I don't use Adobe or Autodesk products (Score:2)
All used to be well in the world of Digital Content Creation (DCC) until two very major DCC software makers -- Adobe and Autodesk -- decided to force a monthly subscription model on pretty much every software package they make to please Wall Street investors
Which is why I don't use any of their software that requires subscriptions for the software to work. I'd like to use Lightroom and Photoshop but there isn't a way in hell I'm paying for a subscription to use them. I have zero interest in software that stops working if I don't pay every month. If it were just a maintenance fee where I get updates but can stop anytime with the software continuing to work that would be different. I'm certainly not going to needlessly tie myself in perpetuity to their reven
This is why many people didn't move beyond CS6 (Score:5, Informative)
When they saw that they were going to be forced into extortionware like this, they essentially told Adobe to fuck the hell off.
Sure, very well-to-do companies can afford perpetual payments.
But smaller creators who still need access scrimp and save and simply buy a copy of CS5 or CS6 when they can find it.
Sure, up front it's more. But ammortize it out over time.
CS6 was released in mid-2011. Coming up on 7 years here.
It was discontinued in late 2013.
Even if it was $1000 (which it wasn't) at inception, that's basically be just under $12/month ownership cost at this point.
Or you could have been spending $20/month for Photoshop CC since mid 2013 (about $1200).
Hell, the bastards don't even cut you any kind of financial break for prepaying for a year!
And god help you if you want to pay month-to-month instead of an annual contract that's paid monthly. Tack an extra $10/month on!
Fuck extortionware.
Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very simple, really. Richard Stallman was right, and saw this coming over 30 years ago. It's better to use inferior Free software than it is to use the world's best non-Free software. In some cases, it's even better to resort to pencil and paper than to rely upon non-Free software. I fought against this notion for years, but it finally clicked for me about 20 years ago when all the proprietary software I relied upon was pulled out from under me.
I could write a very long treatise as to why Free software is always a better choice than non-Free software. One major point is that you will learn how to make Free software work for you, even when it has missing features, and will then be free of the near absolute power wielded against you by large corporate interests which do not dovetail with your own.
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That was the last straw. There is no way I would ever use proprietary software for anything mission critical again.
Just bugs me.. every month (Score:5, Informative)
The thought of it costing money every month just bugs me. And it's easy to calculate exactly how much it will end up costing
Take 25 years of Lightroom and Photoshop as an example.
$10 * 12 months * 25 years = $3000
But Isuspect this works quite well for those who have to use their products.
Avoid (Score:3)
If at all possible, avoid it.
But if as a professional you rely on these tools, well that's just another overhead.
And fair enough, if these companies have run out of good features and now they just want rent.
I suppose they could take it a step further and start demanding a percentage of your profits...
It's a blank cheque (Score:2)
Since there is no real limit on what might be required to get access to your data in the future, you're really writing a blank cheque for the future entrusting your data in such a contract.
It's foolish but so many do it. Try to point it out and you're labelled a conspiracy theorist.
Times may have changed but how short our memories? I remember getting shafted by this so many times in previous decades.
Own your data in a format you have control of or be prepared to lose it.
Things I've lost in the past:
- all my
There's plenty of alternatives so just change (Score:2)
In 2006 I decided I was fed up with the paying upgrades, and decided to move to linux and OS alternatives.
I run a boardgame publishing business, and need software to edit bitmap and vector images, video, and to make 3D modelling for 3D animated videos as well as for parts design. I also need desktop publishing.
Had I continued to use proprietary softwrae, i'd be using photoshop, illustrator, indesign, maya, solidworks and adobe premiere.
Instead I took the time to learn different tools, and use Inkscape, Krit
This calls for legislation. (Score:2)
Software companies should not be allowed to hold your creative work at ransom.
A subscription model in itself is not a problem. But companies that want to use this model should be forced to provide full specifications of their data model, so that you are able to take your business elsewhere whenever you want to.
No product is unassailable (Score:3)
Back in the day Word Perfect* used to be *the* office software. But then another program came along along and supplanted it. The same thing can happen again to things like Photoshop and Autocad. But in fact there are already non-subscription based programs that do the majority of what most users need in a package. I used to have an old copy of Photoshop .. but I couldn't get it running properly on the latest macOS. So instead I switched to Affinity Photo (I prefer it over the Gimp). A lot cheaper than Photoshop and does all that I need plus more.
*I was amazed to see that Word Perfect is still lumbering along. I had no idea. Also Word Perfect supplanted things like Wordstar (of which I also have fond memories of running under CP/M)
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The same thing can happen again to things like Photoshop and Autocad. But in fact there are already non-subscription based programs that do the majority of what most users need in a package.
Can someone here remind this person how long slashdot has been saying GIMP is a suitable replacement for Photoshop, yet it's never happened. Has it already been 20 years? Wow... some things never change.
Re:No product is unassailable (Score:5, Interesting)
*I was amazed to see that Word Perfect is still lumbering along. I had no idea. Also Word Perfect supplanted things like Wordstar (of which I also have fond memories of running under CP/M)
WordPerfect is still in existence because they got bought out a few times and ultimately ended up at Corel, a company I affectionately call "the software retirement home". With titles like WinZip, WinDVD, CorelDraw, Paint Shop Pro, and WordPerfect (which itself contains Paradox), it seems as though the company's plan is to play law-of-large-numbers on acquisitions of software titles which were de facto standards in their day. But I digress.
WordPerfect survives primarily because they have a solid niche in law firms. Legal documents depend heavily on the "Reveal Codes" functionality, which is kinda-sorta like a middle-of-the-road between WYSIWYG editing and LaTeX, which allows for consistent document formatting without either the weirdness of Word rearranging everything when you move an image one pixel to the left, or the learning curve of LaTeX for those who "only know Word". Reveal Codes begat document libraries (keeping in mind that law firms also notoriously keep everything forever), and templates, and plugins, and enough of a cottage industry around a highly profitable sector that has enabled it to avoid utter irrelevance.
All of that being said, I completely agree with your assessment that no program is beyond being dethroned. Oracle used to be the platform for databases (unless you were using IBM or small enough to use Access or Paradox), but newer databases commonly end up being designed in MariaDB or Postgres; even MS SQL Server has more favorable licensing. MS Office is still the standard, but GDocs is making inroads, especially in the education market. Good ol' Internet Explorer was the standard until Firefox chipped away at a solid clip, themselves supplanted by Chrome for many. Adobe themselves supplanted Quark with Indesign, and didn't take long to do so. Software comes and software goes, and while Adobe's decline will be incredibly gradual, it's far from impossible.
It doesn't matter what you want. (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if you wanted a smart TV or not, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted a headphone jack or not, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted to pay a one-time cost, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted a removable battery, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
It doesn't matter if you wanted A la carte, you'll take what maximizes profits and like it.
Bottom line is consumer opinion no longer matters. And don't give me that Vote with your Wallet crap. That's as dead as the concept of competition. The mega-corps could care less about the 5% of you that would actually stand up and "vote". The other 95% of mindless consumers just stand in line and beg for more product regardless of price. And Greed is infectious, which is exactly why we are seeing more SaaS mandates, not less. Shareholders and investors demand it.
And it's been this way for a long time now, so you might as well get used to it. Your entire life will be subscription-based 30 years from now.
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Re:It doesn't matter what you want. (Score:5, Interesting)
Easy (Score:2)
Not renting any software I can possibly help (Score:2)
The Parallels virtualization software for OS X is moving in this direction, though you can buy a perpetual license, at least for now.
There's a reason I still use Photoshop CS 6 Extended: as a hobbyist user, I can't justify $50 a month for software I only use once a month or so.
And no, don't tell me The GIMP is an acceptable substitute. It's just too different to allow my Photoshop knowledge and workflows to transfer.
What are the compelling must-have new features? (Score:2)
In the audio world there are similar examples like what Avid has done with Pro Tools 12. While there are certain features which are really lovely, it doesn't seem to be enough for a lot of people to want to switch over to this new model.
At the very least, and like Steam does
Astrophotography (Score:2)
Corel... (Score:2)
Corel Suite X8 and CorelCAD... Not only do they replace pretty much everything that Autodesk and Adobe make, but they even work together.
CorelCAD is pretty good too. Getting on towards being a Solidworks alternative since the 2018 version.
And both, while they do have license checks and online activation, work quite happily without a connection, and you can even get a license file from Corel for offline activation if you want....
And there's a really cost-effective home/student version available too....
I know
Adobe (Score:2)
My Saga (Score:2)
I'll keep using CS3 until they pull some stunt on an update that disables it. Even then, I
Hacky workarounds (Score:4, Insightful)
The worst part is none of this will stop piracy. The software can be cracked to disable/fool the periodic authentication and proxy servers can be set up to emulate the cloud services for saving files.
Only businesses that need to stay legit will be affected by this. If there is a network outage or bottleneck they will be shut down. If they let their subscription lapse they will be shut down. If they refuse to upgrade for too long, they will eventually lose the ability to collaborate with other groups as new features are added that are not backwards compatible.
It's tantamount to extortion for anyone who wants or needs to stay legit, but really only an annoyance for people who are willing and able to pirate.
=Smidge=
What are you DOING about it? (Score:3)
I think that subscriptions, like micropayments, are evil and ruining the industry by blatant money grabbing and extortion. That said it is easy to see why the companies inflicting this are doing it, it makes them lots of cash.
So my question to all of you who dislike this state of affairs, what are you doing about it? Have you contributed time or money to open source alternatives? Have you purchased a commercial alternative? Are you sitting on your ass bemoaning the state of affairs while enabling it?
-Charlie
More honest. (Score:3)
For decades, software companies have been treating our permanent purchases of software as if they were rentals. The conditions of 'purchase' were frankly more like rentals than anything else.
Which was unfair, as they were priced as purchases.
Now at least, they are being honest about it. They want to rent, then they can't charge a purchase price for it.
Premise is bullshit. (Score:3)
There is no "forced".
Between the Affinity Suite, Corel Draw, FOSS alternatives and roughly 10 bazillion 3D toolkits including Houdini, Lightwave, Cinema and Blender, there is absolutely nothing forcing anyone to use the big crappy two, Adobe and Autodesk.
Don't use Adobe or Autodesk. It's that simple. ... Experts have known this for years.
Glad I could help.
Re:Premise is bullshit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't use Adobe or Autodesk.
Not using AutoDesk is basically impossible if you hope to work with anyone else in the fields of architecture and engineering. Some municipalities even explicitly require AutoCAD/Revit files as part of the deliverables.
But yes, I suppose "Not using AutoDesk" is just as much an option as "Not having a job."
=Smidge=
Pros and Cons (Score:4, Interesting)
Mmmm, subscriptions to software. They're definitely the future. Look for this to become more of a thing as time goes on. I personally don't like it, but I do see the benefits of this model. We have to admit there are some boons to the subscription model we might not readily see.
The biggest one is going to be support. If a company is making you pay every month to use their stuff, they better be supporting it. The entire model sustains a decent support team assuming the company is willing to shovel some of their profits into it. Also, the support part includes continuous updates. See Microsoft Windows 10 for an example of how this looks.
Also updates, yep, you never have to pay a large one-time licensing fee, and your subscription includes updates, for as long as you keep paying. Never have to worry about buying the next version at a large one-time licensing fee.
But then the cons: You're married to this company, dependent on them to make a living. Not sure I'm comfortable with that. Offline usage. I imagine a lot of subscription models are going to have to provide for more security conscious customers, like DoD or three-letter-agencies whom can't have stuff always connected. So there will definitely be stipulations for that, but it's still annoying. Hopefully they'll give a fairly decent amount of 'offline usage' before the license gets angry with you. Access to your files after subscription ends.. yeah, that's not good, companies definitely need to provide a read-only mode of their software so you can still get at your stuff, just can't modify it anymore until you resubscribe.
Final thoughts: It definitely has a place. It's not all evil. It's not ideal for all situations and I do wish companies would offer both options. If I want to buy a perpetual today's latest and greatest version of doffusofficecadauto, I should be able to do that, and never get updates ever, until I buy a new version or subscribe. For some situations it's really ideal and actually a boon. It does sort of force companies to stand behind their product for as long as you're subscribed to it.
Long term I worry, computer companies of all shapes, sizes and flavors come and go at a breakneck speed. I do worry about people losing work trapped in defunct subscription software. At the end of the day, you have to decide which works for you. For those of us who are bitching we can't get perpetual licenses anymore.. well, there's a market opening for someone ambitious. Fill that niche?
Anyone who rails against subscription software ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the reason FOSS was invented. (Score:3)
I'm a little surprised this is even an article on /.
It was exactly this kind of scenario and thought processed that caused the creation of the GNU foundation and FOSS licensing model. Doesn't most everyone here know that?
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manife... [gnu.org]
Greed over Product Satisfaction (Score:3)
1. When companies make a good, useful product, customers will buy it.
2. When investors dictate that they must have a particular financial product, quality and features go to hell.
3. I weaned myself off Adobe several years ago, when it was clear they were MORE interested in income than in CUSTOMER satisfaction. When they stopped providing any meaningful "Customer Service."
4. I have, so far, been steadfast in my decision to only buy from companies who are focused on CUSTOMER satisfaction, rather than short-term greed.
Adobe is dead to me. Ghostscript has so many useful front-ends that make it viable in many environments (e.g., producing a PDF from a webpage, which most products do by making "snapshots" of the text). Tools like Bullzip (the browser add-in relying on Ghostscript) produces near-perfect PDF files that can be imported into good text editors for annotation, amendment and incremental improvement.
Autodesk Eagle (Score:3)
Same problem with Autodesk's acquisition of the PCB tool Eagle. I'm remaining on an older version because I use the software irregularly and am not willing to lose access to all my past projects just because I missed a license payment. Subscription tools are fine for at the office (within reason), not so much for personal use.
SaaS Haiku (Score:5, Funny)
If a had a nose,
Iâ(TM)d gladly pay through it, twice.
But my nose expired.
Re:LOVE IT! (Score:5, Informative)
I love photoshop, lightroom and other Adobe products. However, at this point, I stopped at CS6 for the Adobe suite of tools.
I have LR5, and may try to go to LR6 while I believe I still can to get that last perpetual license, but that's it.
While Adobe has put out "some" upgrades and new features over these past few years of Creative Cloud, I frankly haven't found anything there to be groundbreaking, that I cannot work without. IMHO, the adage that if they don't have incentive to innovate (due to steady income stream no matter what) they won't. And I don't see that they have really.
ON the other hand, it may be that things like Photoshop and Designer, AI, etc...have pretty much for the most part hit the wall on what you can do....and there isn't much room left for improvement for completely NEW features.
If that's the case, then if nothing else, Adobe should try going in and rewriting the engines behind the scenes, but you don't see that either.
One nice thing about the Adobe CC rental thing is, it has spurred on other companies to try to fill that void, and there are a number of them that are.
So far as a PS replacement, I'm enjoying Affinity Photo [serif.com] . It is damned fast, their engine work blows Adobe away. And for functionality, well, I'd say it is about 98-99% there. My only gripe is they need to emulate PS in that when you have the brush tool, you need to have the keyboard command to allow quick sampling of colors with the brush on the image. Other than that, the healing, cloning and content aware tools are JUST as good as Adobes from what I've seen so far. And I think with some extra time, it may equal or surpass PS. It is reasonably priced for a perpetual license, and they've been doing a LOT of updates for free since I bought it a couple years ago.
Affinity has a designer app [serif.com] and I belive a Publisher app coming out....windows and mac.
For a lightroom replacement, I'm playing with On1 RAW [on1.com] ...it is very good so far, I do miss some of the LR cataloging, but On1 appears to be adding those options. I like that it has in the RAW development area, simple and luminosity masking...something you have to drop out of raw imaging processing from LR and got to PS for on the Adobe side.. And again...very quick and responsive engine.
And for video...well, the free version of Black magic's Davinci Resolve [blackmagicdesign.com] ....well known and respected for its color grading capabilities, now has a very respectable e NLE inside, and they're adding some impressing sound tools too. Premier? Well....it has competition. I also like FCPX too, but since it is so different and Mac only, I won't put that one up there right now.
Adobe After Effects? Well, now I love me some AE. I also have some 3rd party filters for AE from Red Giant and Video Copilot I enjoy using....so far, that one is the hardest to find a replacement for, but it appears that Blackmagic Fusion [blackmagicdesign.com] may be a real contender there.
So, there are alternatives....may take a little retraining, but then again, not that much. The PS alternatives often have pretty much the same layout of tools and keyboard shortcuts. A NLE for the most part is a NLE with some minor differences...
So, if nothing else, with Adobe going rental, it has put forth incentive for other companies to come along and truly compete.
So far, I'm voting with my wallet....I encourage anyone that can to also do so.
And I do this through a business....so, those that think the rental model is great for a business write off......I'd rather write off purchases of something the company owns, and doesn't go vapor when you stop rent payment.
Re:LOVE IT! (Score:5, Interesting)
cayenne8 revealed:
So far, I'm voting with my wallet....I encourage anyone that can to also do so.
Avid Corporation's Pro Tools [wikipedia.org] is the standard DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) in the recording industry. Every professional recording studio uses it, because their customers demand that they do so.
Avid decided more than a decade ago that renting, rather than selling, recording software would be their model - and, like the Adobe examples listed in TFS - they've stuck with it ever since. And their license fees are not cheap. Like, at all. To frost the feces cake, most major makers of audio processing plug-ins have adopted the same strategy. All of which, naturally, makes running a commercial recording studio a hideously expensive business, given how much it costs to design and build one, and how much the necessary hardware (professional-quality microphones, for instance, start at around $1,200 and go way up from there) adds to the start-up expense.
That's why, for my home studio, I chose to go with Reaper [reaper.fm], instead. Justin Frankel [wikipedia.org], the lead developer of the seminal WinAmp music player founded the company that makes it after AOL bought (and promptly forgot about) WinAmp from him for gazillions of dollars. He's publicly stated that the price of Reaper ($60 for private use) is purposely set low to make it affordable for everyone, since he's already rich enough to afford not to gouge his customers - so the cost is just high enough to pay the development team to keep working on the product.
Reaper kicks ass. It's just as capable a product as Pro Tools - and, once you buy it, it's yours. You get no-cost upgrades through the entire major version you bought. And the next one, as well. It's compatible with all the major plug-in formats, and it comes bundled with a whole bunch of them (including VSTi's) at no additional charge. It's WAY more configurable than Pro Tools, it uses very little RAM, comparatively speaking, and it's scriptable up the wazoo.
Oh, and there's a Linux version, as well.
I didn't mean this post to be a Slashvertisment, but I guess it turned into one. Sorry about that. See, my point is that there's a pro-quality alternative to what is practically a software monopoly in the audio recording world, too. And it doesn't require you to compromise on functionality or power.
Fuck rent-seeking. And fuck rent-seekers ...
(Posted as AC only to keep from undoing prior upmods in this thread.)
--
Check out my novel [amazon.com] ...
Re: (Score:3)
I feel fortunate that two software productsI rely on (first for my own projects, now professionally), Corel Suite (Draw, Paint) and Cakewalk Sonar are still available as regular purchased projects. They pretty much both have feature parity with the "big" tools, and really only suffer from not being "the standard that everyone uses." If you're able and willing to move away from that standard, there ARE good choices available.
For some commercial entities, I understand that's not a realistic option. When yo
Re: (Score:3)
I'm slumming it with CS2 for the same reason. I literally used Illustrator for the first time in 3 years this past week, and it will likely be another 3 years before I need it again. I don't use it for professional work, just personal projects, so the subscription model is a massive waste of money for me, and frankly it's easier to not have to learn all the new features and changes every time I want to do some tiny little illustration. I really wish they had a hobbyist version that was super cheap and on
I just quit giving Adobe my money (Score:5, Informative)
I just quit giving Adobe my money. I own the most recent non-sub version of Photoshop, and that'll do fine for whatever I need to use Photoshop for in the future, and to work with what I have already used Photoshop for.
My position - both as a user and a developer - is that I am quite happy to buy software, including buying upgrades; I absolutely refuse to steal software; and under no circumstances will I rent software: I think the entire rent/subscribe model is profoundly toxic to the end user.
The general class of problem is that if I produce a document (such as a .psd) with software X, and then X stops working because [I can't afford to continue to pay || the company is out of business || the company is no longer supporting it || any other non-remediable reason] then my document may become frozen and/or impossible to access, depending on just how the version of the software I finally ended up with handles such things, something you can't really predict because these companies change their policies from time to time.
I can't, in good conscience, support the model / mindset that embodies the potential for such problems. I certainly won't create software that imposes such a thing on my end users.
You want to sell me software, fine, let's do that. You want to rent/subscribe it to me, you can toddle right the hell off without my money.
Re: (Score:3)
I own the most recent non-sub version of Photoshop, and that'll do fine for whatever I need to use Photoshop for in the future
Yep I thought that too until I bought a new camera which then produced files which couldn't be opened by it. We're not all playing with TIFFs and JPEGs here.
But seriously fuck them. I would have happily paid for an upgrade. I sure as heck am not paying for some cloud garbage I don't need attached to some perpetual license I don't want just to get a single feature that several years ago barely qualified for more than installing a simple plugin.
Needlessly I found something similar to the plugin on the pirate
New Cameras, image formats, and the like (Score:3)
I deal with RAW files too. But not in Photoshop. That's the least reasonable tool for me to use for my photos. Lightroom (again, the most recent non-sub version) is presently the way to go there, and if that stops working, I'm already well on the way [ourtimelines.com] into developing a replacement.
What if - good question (Score:3)
The answer to that, at least so far, is "run it in a VM."
I have all my Windows stuff running fine in a VM right now. In OSX, no less. The Windows is prevented from getting to the network, so MS can't screw it up and my stuff should continue to work well into the future.
Same thing for Apple: They're actively planning on screwing
Re: LOVE IT! (Score:4, Interesting)
" That's odd. My pirated copies work just fine. No problems here. "
I just can't bring myself to trust pirated software anymore. I got burned too many times during my Amiga days with all sorts of evil shit that came hidden / bundled with the Yarr Matey versions.
I don't really care for the subscription model, but I use Adobe's software too much to avoid it.
I greatly dislike the fact that Adobe keeps open / talking connections back to their servers at all times. Even more annoying that it's encrypted so I can't see what is going out. I let it talk initially, then a script kills the active processes for the remainder of the session.
I have experimented with Photoshop alternatives, but I find their performance is seriously lacking ( Wacom Mobile Studio Pro platform ) in comparison.
Capture One Pro ( v11 is latest ) works very well for a Lightroom replacement though I don't typically shoot 5k shots that I then have to sort through.
Now, Autodesk can just kiss my ass on their Maya / Max subscription systems. ( I like how they bought and then discontinued Softimage just so they could remove any potential competitors )
Last I checked, they were around the $1500 / year mark ( for a subscription ) and that price is why I got serious about Blender.
Re: (Score:3)
These days your coffee pot uses OpenSSL. Your dildo probably uses OpenSSL. My lightbulbs just updated their firmware again. Every dumb widget is now "smart" and they all rely on OSS software that they never wrote and don't care how it works.
That may all be true, but I think it reflects more the insanity of connecting everything and depending on so many things by default than any inherent need to be constantly updating software. Obviously anything that actually needs connectivity will also have security and privacy implications to consider, but with many of these things "Well don't make it connected, then!" is a perfectly sensible response.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is that if you are doing commercial software as a newcomer, you'll *also* want to go subscription. Subscription is more viable and it means that you have increased likelihood of future revenue even if you sit on your ass and do nothing.
It's consumer-hostile, but those that engage in it are going to out-resource those that do the right thing by the customer in the long run. In some circles, the community doing open source can overturn it, but I wouldn't expect professional competition to provide th
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think the subscription model has to be consumer-hostile. It's keeping the storage formats as trade secrets that's the problem. If you respect the consumer's right to migrate their data, for example by providing a gratis migration tool or, better yet, making your file format open to begin with, I don't see the problem.
Why would someone keep paying for your software if you weren't holding their data hostage? The same reasons they chose to adopt it in the first place! Functionality, usability, performa
Re: (Score:2)
The Affinity range includes Photo and Designer, with Publisher due later this year.
Affinity web site [serif.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Look how rich it made Ross Perot.
Re: (Score:3)
I can see this moving from annual subscriptions, to monthly, to daily, to hourly.
That's true already. We have hourly rates at work for eg. Arcgis and Mapinfo. They something like €1.5 per hour.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
That might work for Adobe. But people who use Autodesk products are pretty much screwed. Particularly if they have to submit datasets for permitting processes. Most building departments don't know how to handle anything else. And local building departments don't want to handle local storage for construction documents. Hence 'The Cloud'. And if you need to electronically sign your submitted drawings, that will be done through AutoCAD's built-in function which is undoubtedly tied to your serial number or soft
Re:Problem is... (MS, Intel, etc) and File Formats (Score:3)
Forgot to add the third factor: File formats. If the hardware and OS/API changes won't get you, the file format changes will. Most people have to SHARE files with the rest of the world. The shift from .DOC and .XLS to .DOCX and .XLSX forced a lot of MS Office upgrades on people even if they were perfectly happy with older copies of Office. As long as the file formats are also controlled by these same entities that want constant upgrades, most of the market will be forced to upgrades anyways. Hence the impor