I don't put any faith in the conspirowackos, doubt that many of them have much ability to think.  I don't remember which politician it was, but all up in arms that you can buy for less than forty bucks, a remotely controlled helicopter completel with camera.

The screaming and hollering, that one is first of all, limited in flight time, less than eight minutes, noisy, obvious with brilliant LED lights flashing.  But the true stupidity, first, it's not radio controlled, it's infra red controlled, which anyone that can reason can figure out, you ain't gonna overpower the sun.  Tha big yellow ball up there puts out more infra red than anything we could make here.  Infra red helicopters, flown outdoors, as soon as the sun hits them, go into complete shutdown. Same if they go behind a wall, they have to see the emitter on the control or they shut down.  NO, they don't restart until you pick them up, turn them off and back on.  They're also slow, some not good maneuverability, some basically too unstable for any recon work.

The "robotic bee", onithopter, which all have one basic problem that would interfere greatly with any photography, they vibrate badly  If blurry pictures are what's needed, maybe fine then.  If detail is wanted, that ain't the way to  go. 

The only conspiracy I see in the cloud is those that want to build it, and make fortunes ripping everyone else off.  THere's more to worry about from hackers than from our "ebil gubment".  As far as the "ebil gubment" tracking the net and our email, I send everything to the trash as soon as I've read or answered it, and regularly empty the trash.  Rotsa ruck finding anything there, if there ever was.  We now have senators seeing conspiracy everywhere in the government.  Surprise, senator.  That's you.  COnspiracy?  Go look in a mirror.

Disgusted Doric.

There was some worry expressed awhile back that Studio was indeed getting ready to go off into the cloud, around the time their new Content Management System/Installer program was announced if I remember correctly. Of course this was dismissed as being "not something in Daz's plans" or words to that effect, but that was then. Now, who knows? If Adobe somehow manages not to completely BLEEP! off the majority of their customer base over this "cloud" service replacing software as we know it, other companies including Daz and SM may very well reconsider their future strategy. :shudders at the thought:

I think most hobbyists are not too different from me,that being, we want copies of our softwares etc. so we can install, remove, reinstall if we decide to, and have it fully functional no matter if we have to build a new box or not.  Install it, enter the necessary to get it to work, and we're happy.  If the new versions are dogs, remove it and put the last one that worked well back in.  If there's an update that fixes the dog, reinstall, without having to go through a bunch of hoops to do it.  In the cloud, my guess would be as soon as there was a new release, the old would be among the unavailable, and we wouldn't have to look for updates or fixes, they wouldn't be there, just a new version, with an increased fee.  Companies exist only to make money, and how they do it is now becoming much less of a concern to them.

Quote - The open source thing would be a heavy lift. The pieces may be there kinda sorta but even if you got them working smoothly together, Adobe is about more than just the software. It’s about the ecosystem, the accumulated DNA, the investment people have made. Sure some would jump but I don’t see Microsoft running a loss on Office yet because of the rivals...

They lost me ages ago, and I do a good bit of IT work for individuals. I've had one person install Word rather than keep using OpenOffice, or now, LibreOffice.

Most people just want the unility and don't know there is an alternative.

I've had about 5 people ask me to make the DVD's full of stuff for friends.

Quote - ....and Windows is being eroded more by the move to mobile than by desktop Linux.

That's a very different situation. There is an entrenched market for odd little apps that Linux just cannot compete with.

Quote - Any free alternative is going to have to flawlessly run virtually all of Photoshop’s filters and actions and have an interface that id similar enough for people that have spent decades with PS and aren’t going to be eager to learn something else while doing a job.

Up until Adobe is hit with DOS attack by some one like Anonymous and all of a sudden no one can run Photoshop until they figure out how to block it.

Quote - Some would, but how many.. After using PhotoPaint for years, even on a very occasional basis, I’m still wired enough into it that I find PS annoying. I can imagine a years long heavy PS user trying to convert and GIMPShop probably won’t cut it. Create anything too compatible and Adobe’s law dogs will have you in court for generations. I’m not saying it couldn’t succeed, just pack a lunch.

They won’t take on a FOSS alternative for the same reason M$ has never challenged OpenOffice. To acknowledge them would be to advertise them.

Quote - Good analogy here perhaps. If Poser went subscription only, how many people would rebel and go to DAZ Studio or say, let’s just take MakeHuman/Blender and build our own?

See... like a survival nut, I’ve already BEEN migrating. I use GIMP 80% of the time now. Inkscape about 75%, and Blender has become my tool of choice to the point where I don’t even have my other 3D apps loaded at the moment.

I realize I’m the exception, but at some point there will be enough of us to gain momentum. Old people retire and go blind. LOL.

Quote -
See... like a survival nut, I’ve already BEEN migrating. I use GIMP 80% of the time now. Inkscape about 75%, and Blender has become my tool of choice to the point where I don’t even have my other 3D apps loaded at the moment.

I don't use Blender because it's free, I use it because it is a kick-ass tool!! An upgrade cycle to dream for, huge support, feature rich, stable and, at long, last a GUI that doesn't drive you insane and IS user friendly.

Quote - I don't use Blender because it's free, I use it because it is a kick-ass tool!! An upgrade cycle to dream for, huge support, feature rich, stable and, at long, last a GUI that doesn't drive you insane and IS user friendly.

Remind me to pick your brain for quick info. I'm going to take on Blender for another round....lol.

Laurie

Quote - > Quote -

See... like a survival nut, I’ve already BEEN migrating. I use GIMP 80% of the time now. Inkscape about 75%, and Blender has become my tool of choice to the point where I don’t even have my other 3D apps loaded at the moment.

I don't use Blender because it's free, I use it because it is a kick-ass tool!! An upgrade cycle to dream for, huge support, feature rich, stable and, at long, last a GUI that doesn't drive you insane and IS user friendly.

GUI is still driving me a bit crazy. LOL! But that's just because I'm SOOOOoooo used to Lightwave.

Geeze!!! It's 20 Years this year!!! I first used it on my Amiga 500 with a 68020 and FPU, running Lightrave to run Lightwave 3.5!

That's a lot to unlearn. But I'm getting there.

I remember when Blender was in .9 releases. The interface has improved greatly, and the power under the hood has become staggering.

What really sold me was when I was killing my self to learn Z-Brush and found out that Blender had it built in... with a more sensible UI!!!!

I've been using Photoshop for over 20 years now (version 2.5). I'll still use what I've got - it's old (PS7...and runs fine on Win7 x64), but it gets the job done. Don't plan on getting Windows 8 EVER. Therefore I may get another 8 years or so out of it. LOL.

Laurie

As far as the "ebil gubment" tracking the net and our email, I send everything to the trash as soon as I've read or answered it, and regularly empty the trash.

*If you follow the news you should know that every message electronically sent is stored by the NSA. Every phone call, every e-mal, every text. The cloud will be a happy hunting grounds for those who seek to monitor everything.

Yeah, for every one of trash, fifty thousand of garbage.  140 million people, how many of them on line I don't know, but the problems are it would take half the population of the country to watch all the rubbish.  Common sense says there's something wrong with that scenario.

And nobody has given a reason why they would that didn't come out of some whacked out site run by "Whine la Paranoid."

Yeah, for every one of trash, fifty thousand of garbage.  140 million people, how many of them on line I don't know, but the problems are it would take half the population of the country to watch all the rubbish.  Common sense says there's something wrong with that scenario.

Computer algorithms scan this stuff for key words. Also, if you should every become a person of interest or annoyance to the crypto state, they can manually check everything you've ever did to see if there's a way to get at you. 

People who call this stuff a conspiracy are arguing from a position of ignorance, but at least they feel secure and superior.

I guess there are pros and cons.

e.g. it can make the software more affordable on one level... whilst at the same time, more expensive... certainly if you're not an end-user who consistently upgrades to the latest version.

I do suspect one of the pros will be that there will be more support, from some factions of the current user base, for alternative, open source projects...

Don't have a problem with the cloud concept, use Steam for games and it works fine (it needs fast broadband though).  The $30 a month headline looks high but thats $1 a day, if Adobe allowed me to rent the application by the day I would be very happy!

There was a mobile service provider (Europe) who, last year decided to offer points to is Pay As You Talk customers for every top up.  A lot of users did not know how to collect the points which required a text to be sent to particular number.  If this was not bad enough, to spend the points you had to register 'on-line' and needed an email account.  The customer service staff in the shops then spent a lot of time setting up email accounts just so people could spend the points.  Even the local librarys got fed up with the numbers they had to try an help.

My guess is the whole idea was thought up by a wizz kid who never imagined that so many people were not on line.  Company line was that they were doing it to encourage people to get connected.  If they thought it worked they want to look at the numbers of people who came back the next time they wanted to spend points.  Most could not even remeber their email address, or their password, even though it was wriitten down by the staff at the time.  The reality was they did not need to be connected and never used it until they wanted to spent points, about twice a year.

OK I know that very few of these, if any use Photoshop, but it is very easy for the techies in large companies to forget many people do not use the Internet or have such a slow connection that using the Internet is very limited for them.  I know I am old fashioned but such people should have a choice.

Quote - I like the the subscription model Adobe are offering. It makes an expensive software affordable to many who couldn't afford it before...for many like myself (still using CS4), I found it overpriced in general and begrugged having to buy it, but looking at the prices with the subscription model...it's tempting. I'm not sure this model will work for all software, but it makes expensive software usage easier to swallow.

For new users, yes. But for those with existing licenses, short of the Master collection, no - upgrading CS5.5 Design Premium to CS6 Design Premium cost me £375, I think, or roughly £30 per month assuming annual updates; that's less than the current monthly fee for the cloud service once the introductory discount goes. For a user of the Standard Suite it would be even worse. > Quote - Right. I wanted to make a point before.... You know, Adobe didn't even notice the MILLIONS of people hitting the servers for their "free" copy of CS2 for more than a day...that doesn't really instiill my faith that they'll be very careful with my content :P. I feel that as soon as my money is in their hands they're pretty much ok with whatever happens after. LOL. With buying a full version disk, they at least have to worry about getting me back to buy the next version ;).

Your content won't be on Adobe's servers, nor will your applications. "Cloud" is just a bit of trendy marketing speak - it's a subscription model for licensing your local software, which needs a connection once a month (but wil apparently keep working for about six months if it can't get through). A lot of people seem to be forgetting that, or taking the discussion to the cloud in general, I used your quote as I wanted to address its other half anyway rather than to single you out. > Quote - I won't even install Daz's content manager for that very reason. I bought the stuff...they know I bought it and I don't like another piece of crap program running in the damn background in the "hopes" that I might use it soon. They can shove it. LOL. Want my money? Make it easier for ME, not you. :P Laurie

The Install Manager doesn't run in the background, and doesn't monitor installed files. It runs when you run it and then uses the zip, if you've kept it in the download folder, or a manifest file, if you installed the content with the Install Manager rather than just using it as a download manager, to check to see if the version on the DAZ servers is different (and presumably updated). By all means decide not to use it - the zips will be available for direct download - but it isn't what you appear to fear.

Quote - As far as the "ebil gubment" tracking the net and our email, I send everything to the trash as soon as I've read or answered it, and regularly empty the trash.

*If you follow the news you should know that every message electronically sent is stored by the NSA. Every phone call, every e-mal, every text. The cloud will be a happy hunting grounds for those who seek to monitor everything.

In all honesty that is scare mongery tainted with conspiracy theory...you shouldn't believe everything you see on the news. The news media will pick up on the smallest thing and blow it up to make headlines.

Besides, I take a different view: if you're doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.

Of course, you may want to live in a world with no terrorism, child molestation, religous fundementalism etc, but we don't. I don't think you realise just how many lives have been saved from authorities checking and intercepting data exchanges through the internet, mobile devices etc, that have halted terrosim attacks.

You must remember, people can not be trusted with absolute freedom to do what they want. You want the freedom to say what you want in every phone call, text or e-mail, without it being checked? Well it's that kind of freedom with US gun laws that allows it to arm totally unstable people, so that they can go on shooting rampages.

Freedom to do what ever you want, isn't the Utopia many people think it is.

Quote - > Quote - As far as the "ebil gubment" tracking the net and our email, I send everything to the trash as soon as I've read or answered it, and regularly empty the trash.

*If you follow the news you should know that every message electronically sent is stored by the NSA. Every phone call, every e-mal, every text. The cloud will be a happy hunting grounds for those who seek to monitor everything.

In all honesty that is scare mongery tainted with conspiracy theory...you shouldn't believe everything you see on the news. The news media will pick up on the smallest thing and blow it up to make headlines.

Besides, I take a different view: if you're doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.

 

Very close to my thoughts.  And if the find something interesting or subversive about my sister ragging me to go see a doctor, and I'm answering I haven't done that in over eighteen years, I wish they'd let me know.

I do follow the news, and it's usually not the mainstream that starts the BS going, that can be narrowed to just a few very loud, very ignorant places.  But, we have "societies" that go off on the dangers of floride in water, because according to them, "When the ebil gubment wants to introduce mnd controls into the water, it will be without opposition", and the "chemtrail" lunatics that can't understand vapor trails from jets are exactly that, water vapor.  We used to have people in this area pointing at the yellowish band of haze streaming north along Lake Michigan, which when you remember Gary Indiana is somewhat to the south isn't too hard to understand.  Steel mills do kinda  tend to toss some soot and other things into the atmosphere. 

It's when the lunatic fringe media picks up on this crap and refuses to accept logical and soundly based explanations that these cracked conpirowacko's get going.  It's a  crime that there are people ready, willing and eager to buy into them without bothering to think and use reason.  Life itself is a conspiracy, there's no way to get out alive.

Doric.

OH, yeah.  Forgot.  If the "ebil gubment" is tracking and storing everything, I WANT ONE OF THOSE HARD DRIVES!

Doric

This is getting a bit far afield...

Can we return to the OP's subject and leave govt consipracies alone? (After all... Big Brother is watching THIS conversation, and we are all being added to the subversives list for participating in it!)

A couple of info bits on surveillance - and keep in mind this was 2006 era technology.

And forget what the war on terror has spawned, now the IRS claims it has the authority to read your emails without a warrant (though they won't use it of course :-) Does the bit about consolidating data from social networks, shopping etc. make snyone a teensie bit unsettled? The fact is that today, the avg. person is being recorded, by cameras, GPS in cell phones and cars, credit card transactions, web activity etc. ad nauseum. Isolated bits would be troublesome enough but aggregated, it's the ball game. Now if you believe that anyone can be trusted not to abuse that kind of power, rest easy, it's all paranoia. If you believe that no one will ever be interested in you because you're an honest citizen, sleep tight. It's all a fantasy that even nuns get on the list for supporting some peace and justice cause that rankles the administration du jour. The safety in numbers thing went out with databases and supercomputers. And that's without the 'well-meaning' idiots like the ones on reddit who tabbed some poor innocent schmuck as the Boston bomber - or your spouse's divorce lawyer et al because surely they would never get access to that data. Nah, must be just crazy lefties who probably want the terrorists to win - like these guys:

"Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it." - Thomas Paine

"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus

OK, Paine probably was a terrorist according to his majesty, and Camus sounds suspiciously French.

"My guess is the whole idea was thought up by a wizz kid who never imagined that so many people were not on line."

In a way, I think this is part of the trend away from privacy. Someone who's never seen a telephone booth probably has trouble imagining that people once valued private conversations, rather than walking around blabbing to the world about who they're f*****g etc. :-)

Quote -
You must remember, people can not be trusted with absolute freedom to do what they want. You want the freedom to say what you want in every phone call, text or e-mail, without it being checked? Well it's that kind of freedom with US gun laws that allows it to arm totally unstable people, so that they can go on shooting rampages.

Freedom to do what ever you want, isn't the Utopia many people think it is.

 

And this level of brainwashing and indoctrination is exactly why we have the problems we have today, and why they will only get worse. 

There are no US gun laws that "allow" unstable people to legally obtain a gun. That is nothing but propaganda. 

Cities that have the most lenient gun laws across the country have the LOWEST rate of gun crimes in the country. The UK however, with some of the strictest gun laws in the world also has some of the highest rates of murder per capita in the world, far exceeding anywhere in the US.

No law in the world will ever prevent crazy people from getting guns, or perverts from molesting kids, or religious fundamentalists from preaching, or any of the other atrocities you want to blame freedom for creating. 

Several images in your gallery would be considered offensive to a lot of people, especially the most recent "Patriot Girl", not only because she's portrayed in such a way that objectifies women - which is offensive not only to women but also those of religions who believe it is a sin for women to be seen in any manner of undress. The flag she's holding also offends those of other nationalities who see that flag in a much different light. In many countries posting an image like that would get you arrested, possibly even executed. Freedom of speech in the US protects you from that. Granted, it doesn't protect you from being offended by something you read or hear or watch on TV, but it does give you the right to ignore it and look the other way, or even speak out against it. Without freedom of speech and the first amendment we'd have no gay rights, no women's rights, no minority rights of any kind. Freedom of speech is the ONLY reason those rights exist today. So yes, anyone should have the right to say whatever they want in every phone call, text, e-mail, image, publication, T-shirt, bilboard or any other means they choose, without fear of government persecution or prosecution, because that is our right, as defined by our constitution and is the foundation of any free society. 

Precision - government data mining is not a conspiracy. The world's largest, most advanced data mining center being built in Utah is not a conspiracy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership and what it does to individual privacy and copyright laws internationally is not a conspiracy. But as long as you continue to believe these things are conspiracies, then they don't really exist.

I predict this thread will be locked soon so I'm bowing out. 

~Shane

Quote - Precision - government data mining is not a conspiracy. The world's largest, most advanced data mining center being built in Utah is not a conspiracy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership and what it does to individual privacy and copyright laws internationally is not a conspiracy. But as long as you continue to believe these things are conspiracies, then they don't really exist.

I predict this thread will be locked soon so I'm bowing out. 

 

~Shane

If you read what I'm saying, that's exactly what I said.  The only conspiracy in the cloud is for the people that will create and profit from it at the expense of everyone else.  And if the "ebil gubment" wants to collect and store gigabytes of useless data every second, would they kindly explain why fifty recipes for teraki steak are related to national security.

The cloud is profit motivated, nothing else, and as profit is the motive, privacy and security of the data contained in the could are going to be sacrificed.  Adding another level between supplier and consumer, that level has to be paid, which goes on a one eighty to increasing the value.  Or, you pays more, you gets less.

Doric.

Quote - I predict this thread will be locked soon so I'm bowing out.   

Politics is one of the surest ways to kill a thread.

It will only get locked if people don't observe a simple, polite request:

"Get back to Photoshop in the Cloud" (second request)

Quote - Hard drives are faulty and outdated. They have always been the weakest link in any computer due to their very design, and are responsible for most crashes and data loss. With cloud computing you are 99.9% guranteed no loss of data unless there is a deliberate system-wide server wipe.

~Shane

So, what is the data in 'the cloud' being stored on? If it's not the faulty and outdated hard drive, then what is it? Solid State drives? They can be just as faulty.

I could be wrong, but it's my understanding that these 'clouds' are just rooms full of servers packed with hard drives generating tons of heat while chugging along storing all of our precious data. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

The 'cloud' isn't some all-knowing, all-seeing mega storage place, it's lots of little places, start ups and established companies, that run these servers and collect our data as well as whatever monthly fee they decided to charge. If the company you use goes belly up or they have a power outage or whatever, then what?

As I said, I could be wrong, but this is how I understand the 'cloud'. I'd much rather trust to my own external hard drives and backups than to a 'cloud'.

I am open to correction.

Cloud servers are usually servers in multiple locations with multiple levels of redundancy. If the power goes down on one location, or there is hardware failure, fire, etc then a back up will kick in at a different location...it could be a different building miles away or the other side of the world.

I see people say that they would  rather trust themselves with their own data, and rightly so, but how many of those same people make regular backups of their data and store it in a totally seperate location. God forbid, but if your house went up in flames, or your computer stolen, would your data be safe? For many, I bet not.

I remember years ago when there was uproar, when it seemed Poser was going the "phone-home" route for licensing, at a time when Poser was being hit heavily by the warez trade. At the time I found it ironic, that the very same people who jumped on Curious Labs about "phoning home" and protecting their assets, also were in uproar when a site was found using their art work without permission and all matter of discussion about how to protect their artwork ensued. As I say, the irony of it!

If Adobe have found a system that protects their assets better than the current one, and gives the user good value for money at the same time, then good for them!! I can understand if it's a system you can't agree with, but I also understand a company wanting to protect their product.

BTW, I'm no Adobe fanboi, I actually despise companies that have a monoply on our trade, but unlike Autodesk, who have just bought out all competition over the years (grrrrrr!), Adobe's dominance is caused by the fact that nobody has come up with something better....ok they bought out Macromedia and a few other small companies, but as far as Photoshop etc...Gimp? Really?...and anything from Coral...hmmmm, not the best company I have had the pleasure to deal with in the past.

As noted already, the Adobe Cloud, at least as far as licensing and using the Adobe Creative Suite software is concerned is not actually cloud computing... either in terms of application process hosting, or file storage.

The software is still downloaded, installed and run on your local computer. All your files are still stored on your local computer... in fact the software works exactly the same as previously, more or less.

The difference is simply in terms of how Adobe are charging for the software, i.e. a monthly subscription... and in terms of how the licensing is administrated, i.e. via a "cloud" hosted license validation service.

Quote - Besides, I take a different view: if you're doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.

Perhaps one day, I should tell you about what happened to me.  You'd not be singing that song any more.  

"If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next", is the famous phrase that I suspect is just as relevant to new software licensing schemes, as it ever was... ;)

In general I take some, cold comfort from the fact that the powers that be are still, seemingly, pretty unsavvy, when it comes to technology... well, in certain, of the more public echelons at least...

...anyone in the UK catch the Queen's speech earlier today. Her Maj talking about IP addressing was an interesting one...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08/queen_speech_government_plans_proposals_for_problem_of_internet_protocol_addresses/

..although the establishment is starting to catch up.

In other news:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08/microsoft_subscriptions_in_10_years/

Its all about establishing a new virtual feudality, one might argue...

...or you could just say it's all about keeping the shareholders happier and making the old company coffers fill up in a more predictable fashion... and possibly a bit fuller. As everyone knows it's easier to charge more when you charge in smaller monthly payments, don't they?

It could start to get a bit like Brighthouse, as portrayed in the following linked article, for software...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/nov/23/brighthouse-heavy-price-paying-by-week

I think the fact that the term "The Cloud" is banded as around so freely is part of the problem, yes you can use the cloud for data storage, cloud computing (where I understand the software is remote but your data is held locally, although this may vary).  Neither of which Adobe is promoting at the moment.

There have already been some problems with certain compananies going bust which means that the subscribers have lost access to thier data.  I am not saying there are not good companies out there but they all claim to store your data at a secure, secret location, which you have to take on trust, otherwise it would not be secret.

I do not store my data in the cloud, I do keep regular backups and at two locations which I trust more than any large faceless company.  If people want to use the cloud, fine, and they should have that choice, but it is not for everyone and I feel those who have problems with it should have the choice also.

As for the idea it will stop illegal use well, any security made by man can be broken by man.  The justification for it is simple, it makes money in a way easier than it has in the past and that is the only benefit the bean counters want.

I would highly recommend these, over any cloud storage solution, for your gigabytes, nae terrabytes, of Poser runtime content:

http://iosafe.com/products-n2-overview

http://iosafe.com/products-soloPRO-overview

Not so cheap?

But the cost gets waaaaay more attractive if you add up what it would cost you to store the same amount of data in the cloud, even for just a few months...

...I'm just waiting for them to bring out the earthquake / shock proof (mass extinction event proof?) model... and I'll be confident my data will out-survive me!

Multiple geographic storage locations, multiple copy backups / replicas, over a reasonably long cyclical time frame, and disk redundancy, are of course also an important part of any good data retention strategy ;)

Sure a good cloud solution can give you all that... but cheaper than you can host on your own premises?

I see people say that they would  rather trust themselves with their own data, and rightly so, but how many of those same people make regular backups of their data and store it in a totally seperate location. God forbid, but if your house went up in flames, or your computer stolen, would your data be safe? For many, I bet not. The concern is touching, but I'm not charmed by this trend to force people into the cloud, even if it's "for their own good."

Quote - I see people say that they would  rather trust themselves with their own data, and rightly so, but how many of those same people make regular backups of their data and store it in a totally seperate location. God forbid, but if your house went up in flames, or your computer stolen, would your data be safe? For many, I bet not. The concern is touching, but I'm not charmed by this trend to force people into the cloud, even if it's "for their own good."

Do you or your family use Facebook? Facebook and  Facebook's use of personal data offends me more than any government agency, or Adobe's new licensing system. How many times has the horse bolted on Facebook's use of data, before the gate has begrudgingly (sp) been closed! Yet, I'm astounded at the amount of info, personal info, people are willing to give to Facebook and the world in general. Facebook must be one of the worlds largest clouds of personal info, ever....even bigger than that government HDD collecting all that Text, e-mail and phone call data :P
Yet people will carry on using it (Facebook) giving all kinds of info, without batting an eyelid, but kick up a stink at a new licensing system.

People need to realise "cloud" is a buzz word - in Adobe's case its a licensing server (nothing new there, license servers have been around for decades). When I re-download a purchase from Apple, they are telling me I'm downloading from the "Cloud"...no I'm effing not! It's the same storage server I've been downloading from for the past decade ffs!

(Scenario) Hey, SM could say you have to download the new Poser from their Cloud of data. That "Cloud" of data will hold all your purchase history and a record of all the data you have downloaded from them from SM and  CP. "OMG! SM are using my data IN...A......CLOUD!! How dare they!!!" Ermm, what I just described is exactly what SM do now via their web server...

Clouds have been around, nearly as long as the internet...they just wasn't called "clouds". "Clouds" aren't a new invention, it's just a buzz word to encompass different kinds of storage.

Do you or your family use Facebook?

Of course not. I'm the guy who is informed, remember?

Facebook must be one of the worlds largest clouds of personal info, ever....even bigger than that government HDD collecting all that Text, e-mail and phone call data :P

I doubt it. The NSA's data storage facility in Utah is rather more impressive, and that's just one of the hubs, but relax, it's just for foriegners and persons of interest (in the millions.) They wouldn't lie about this stuff again, would they? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/ 

Clouds have been around, nearly as long as the internet...they just wasn't called "clouds". "Clouds" aren't a new invention, it's just a buzz word to encompass different kinds of storage.

If you need to maintain an internet connection, or log in to their "cloud" server time and time again to use the rentware, I'll just go on using the old stuff, thanks. Let's face it, Adobe PhotoShop has had the basics figured out for quite a while now.

If Adobe wants to bring flexibility then they can use the rent-to-own model. Pay the monthly and when you've paid the full price, it's yours, fully activated forever. People who want to stay on the subscription treadmill can do so.

People are going to disagree on security, privacy etc. Some of it may be generstional, some may conceivably be the way our brains are wired. Read up on the latest research on authoritarian personalities, relative size of the amygdala, vs. the anterior cingulate etc. It may be that certain people are more inclined by their neuro-anatomy to be more fearful or more open to novel situations etc. It's early days yet but it would explain the huge and persistent disagreements in society. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest it explaind why some people embrace the cloud concept although it is a form of centralized control. Certainly would explain differing views on security vs. individual liberty/privacy etc. I think.  

Since it's arguably the most pirated productivity software ever, it makes sense for Adobe to go this way.  Until some bright spark finds a way to circumvent it.  And that may already be the case.  :)

I used The Cloud 30+ years ago; it was called a mainframe back then...

In the quantum energy flux that comprises our existence, there is always another way round or through any locked door ;)

At a conceptual, high level, this is why trying to tie IP addresses, mac addresses, individual data packets, to a certified individual cannot ever be 100% reliable... just as it is impossible, as Sam says, to prevent any license protection system from eventually being cracked or circumvented.

Perhaps in a police state, a government sponsored corporation, or a corporately sponsored government, could exert the necessary control over every single internet access point, needed to make identification over the internet watertight?

But perhaps the irony there is that, in a police state, circumstantial evidence, propaganda and heresay, is usually good enough?

Whether you try and lock things down at a microcosmic, or a macrocosmic level, it seems there will always be a hole, a gap, a missing chunk... then you've got a leak, a flaw in your cosmic containment system, that you've so carefully modelled... and entropy kicks back in :)

Balancing on probabilities is perhaps the only reasonable / practical way to proceed...

So what happens after your subscription runs out? Can you not use the product you're subscribed to anymore?

At any rate.... I'm not using any software that use subscription payments, I want to use it whenever I like, now, next month, in 5 years, without someone interfering or making me pay to keep on using something... or forcing me to upgrade if I don't want to. As soon as I hear software and cloud in one sentence it's time to look for valid less money hungry, less piracy obsessed alternatives. If I pay for something it's mine, otherwise I don't buy it.

So.... bye, bye, Adobe! I'm only hoping that Poser will wise up and stop being adobe flash/air dependant, so I can finally get rid of those adobe pests. I'm fine with software that checks online if I do have a legal version when installing it or running the first time, but after that there's no need to do so anymore.... software that constantly wants to connect to the internet with no valid reason is not my piece of cake.

Does anyone know if this can be used as a pay as you go type of deal. Obviously by the month, but if you don't use it often can you say, pay for March and use it in March and then let the subscription run out and not pay anything until October when you need it again? This does of course mean not using it April to September. If you don't need to get things done by a deadline you could set up your photoshop work in the inbetween months and then then do a bunch once a quarter.

I believe it's a per-year subscription, payable monthly, rather than something you can dip in and out of.

This sort of thing troubles me.  Say you're a graphics artist and you lose your source of regular income and need to rely on freelancing using your home software.  A monthly fee in such a situation could lead to deactivation of the software you need, in order to make money, because you don't have enough money at the moment.  You already need to maintain a (perhaps over-priced) connection to the internet, in such a case.  What if you rely on other software suites beyond Adobe, too, and they go to they same model?  Doesn't seem like a good situation.  The tools you need could become unreliable or unavailable just when you need them most.  :unsure:

But personally I still use a cheap copy of PSP 7 from 2000.  :lol:  I have Photoshop and Illustrator, never used them, didn't even bother to load them onto this most recent computer.  As long as Poser doesn't start charging monthly rent, I'll be happy enough.  I've gone through periods where I couldn't even afford an internet connection but was still able to turn to the software on my computer to help me cope with a bad time.  To have everything stop working would be just rotten.  I'd have to fire up that old Toshiba laptop and use outdated software.  :scared:  Or, you know, just go read a book, or something.  :unsure:  :lol:

Quote - Does anyone know if this can be used as a pay as you go type of deal.

I doubt it, that would generate much less income for Adobe. I reckon a big reason for the whole shift to subscription is that when times are hard a lot of people just stop buying upgrades, the old version still does the job even if it doesn't have the new bells and whistles.

The trouble is that there's a disincentive to upgrade after that, once you've missed one upgrade, you have to buy a full new licence, a significant outlay. So users like me just keep going with software several versions old (I'm still using CS3). Consequently Adobe hasn't seen a cent of my money since about 2006. I'm sure they want to change that with the subscription system.

Quote - This sort of thing troubles me.  Say you're a graphics artist and you lose your source of regular income and need to rely on freelancing using your home software.  A monthly fee in such a situation could lead to deactivation of the software you need, in order to make money, because you don't have enough money at the moment.  You already need to maintain a (perhaps over-priced) connection to the internet, in such a case.  What if you rely on other software suites beyond Adobe, too, and they go to they same model?  Doesn't seem like a good situation.  The tools you need could become unreliable or unavailable just when you need them most.  :unsure:

.....

Sounds like you will have a lot of time then to learn a different software.

At the risk of derailing the thread, I quit on Photoshop 10 years ago when I discovered Gimp. I'm completely oblivious to what Photoshop can do at this point. All I know is Gimp does what I need done.

You can't beat free for a price.

$.02

Gimp is good.  I picked up Paint Shop Pro X4 for a song a couple of Black Fridays ago and it is good too....

Right now Adobe is a true monopoly. For at least the past 2 decades they have bought absorbed and dismantled every other package they could.

The only real weeds growing in the vacuum are FOSS.

Anyone who is fine with new policy great. If you're not... the only thing you can REALLY do about it get involved in fixing it.

http://www.blender.org/
Total 3D package that rivals Maya, 3DS, Lightwave, C4D, or anything else you can mention including Zbrush. It is also a powerful video editor to rival Premier, and has advanced motion graphics tools the rival After Effects.

http://www.gimp.org/

2D Paint and Image processing program that offers a good deal functionality from Photoshop.

http://inkscape.org/

A vector art App that offers functionality similar to Illustrator.

http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus

Page layout software to compare to InDesign.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

An audio processing program that offers most of the features available in Audition.

Adobe is phasing out Flash which is a mixed blessing.

Adobe took an awesome little animation program and crow bared their Macromedia Director Presentation Software into it to form a complex monster that only programmers loved.

The closest project in the FOSS environment is:

http://www.synfig.org/cms/

Development has been V E R Y S L O W, and I haven't tried it in a while.

Dreamweaver and Muse currently have no real rivals. So if your main interest is Web Design you're kind of stuck with Adobe.

But if you do want to leave the art world and “code your own”... here's some options.

http://www.bluegriffon.org/

http://quanta.sourceforge.net/release2.php

http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit

http://getfirebug.com/

http://www.w3.org/Amaya/Overview.html

Competition is the key to true capitalism. The failure of the capitalism that eventually someone wins, or a group of competitors come to an arrangement as outlined by game theory. You get a Monopoly or an Oligopoly. That is when you need an organized response to limit the power of that group. A Government,

Adobe doesn't have any true competition any more. There is no need to appeal to the consumers desires because they are pretty much the only game in town.

This hodge podge of hobby applications is all we are going to get because there is no government intervention allowed in the “free” world.

Adobe didn't strong-arm anyone into selling. They're not a monopoly because they aren't preventing anyone from building their own software package and putting it up for sale as a true competitor to Adobe's line of software. The companies who sold out to Adobe are just as responsible for putting Adobe in the position of power that Adobe is currently in. 

If they were a true monopoly then Gimp would not exist, Paint Shop Pro would not exist, and anything any other software company tried producing that was similar to Adobe's software would not exist. 

Try learning what a real monopoly is before you go throwing the term around. 

There is no need for government intervention. That only leads to tyrany. Anyone is free to design whatever software they want, they just need the right team with the know-how to build a package that is viable enough to rival Adobe and make Adobe's customers move to them. That is the nature of the free market and capitalism. So far no one has bothered to put the resources into doing so. That's not Adobe's fault. 

~Shane

Quote - Try learning what a real monopoly is before you go throwing the term around.

Ughhh... Libertarian/Objectivist nonsense.

It's amazing how you psuedo-anarchist, free market types LOVE to make rules when it comes to "throwing terms"  you don't like around.

You are all FREE to look up the definition of "Monolopy" for yourselves and decide if Adobe fits the bill.

I'll let mr "free market" link you to the biased Neo-Con acceptable one.

I, in general, prefer a "tyrany" that I have a chance to vote out occasionally, as opposed to one that only answers to "stock holders" or "private owners" who profit from their domination, and have no obligation to respond the needs of those who don't.

You're trying to invent your own definition for a term you clearly know nothing about.

Here's your dictionary reference to help you understand what a monopoly is:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/monopoly

mo·nop·o·ly   [muh-nop-uh-lee]  Show IPA

noun, plural mo·nop·o·lies.1.exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possiblethe manipulation of prices. Compare duopoly, oligopoly.

2.an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.

3.the exclusive possession or control of something.

4.something that is the subject of such control, as a commodity or service.

5.a company or group that has such control.

Adobe fits none of those definitions. They are a company that designs software and buys out other software when its failing, or when its owners want to sell. There is nothing illegal or wrong about doing that in a free market. 

Adobe does not prevent anyone else from developing their own software. If they did, as I stated before, then there would be no other options BUT Adobe software. 

If you don't like their business practices you're free to not use them, find someone else's software to use. If they were a monopoly then you wouldn't have that freedom. You'd either use their software or none at all. Their customers and clients are the reason they currently dominate the market. Dominating the market is not being a monopoly, it's just being a business that has made the right decisions to get them where they're currently at. 

~Shane