Adobe bashes open-source alternatives
August 20, 2007 5:39 PM PDT
Adobe bashes open-source alternatives
Posted by Stephen Shankland
Adobe Systems has embraced open-source software for some products, but its core Creative Suite line looks like it'll remain proprietary.
In a blog posting Sunday, Adobe's top creative products executive, John Loiacono, made unflattering remarks about open-source alternatives whose free cost is offset by the time that creative pros have to spend fiddling. "Time is money," he opines, not without merit, and links to a blog posting by Eric Vreeland, who observed, "Debugging recent installs of certain open-source software has wasted immense amounts of my spare time; charged at my hourly rate these hours represent a pile of cash bigger than that which full list price versions of comparable commercial software would require for purchase." Vreeland opted for the $2,500 Creative Suite Master Collection, which bundles 12 Adobe products, such as Photoshop, Premiere and Illustrator.
Loiacono legitimately points to his open-source credentials as the top Sun Microsystems software executive who oversaw much of that company's work releasing its Solaris operating system as open-source software. But his logic is a little wonky in this case.
"Obviously, I have thought about whether open source has a place in Adobe's creative products strategy. But what designers need is tightly-integrated workflows and high reliability right out of the box, so the really important question to ask is what's the impact to the user," he said, then concludes, "Open-source software can be a perfect solution. It's just not right for everything. Or for everyone--like many creative professionals who are on deadline and prefer to innovate vs. integrate."
It's well and good to look at things from the user's perspective, but in this case it leads to a false dichotomy. Loiacono appears to be considering only outside open-source alternatives such as Inkscape or the Gimp.
There's nothing technological stopping Adobe from releasing software that's both open-source as well as integrated and easy to use. But it's misleading to point to the shortcomings of others' open-source software as a reason why Adobe shouldn't open-source its own.
Of course, Adobe would face no shortage of business and legal obstacles--free Photoshop no doubt would appeal to a lot of people who today pay hundreds of dollars for it--and that would be an issue I'd like on which I'd like to hear Johnny L's thoughts.
Topics:Open source
Tags:Adobe, open-source software, Gimp, Inkscape
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From CNET news
Adobe顶级创意产品主管：创意人士不会想用开源
Adobe顶级创意产品主管：创意人士不会想用开源
CNET科技资讯网 【转载】 作者：CNET科技资讯网 责任编辑：徐文广 07年08月23日
CNET科技资讯网8月22日国际报道 Adobe在部分产品有使用开放源代码，但核心的Creative Suite系列看来还会继续维持专属程序。
在周日贴出的一篇blog中，Adobe顶级创意产品主管John Loiacono对开放源代码有着“毫无保留”的看法，他认为推出开源码产品虽然会让用户省点钱，但却浪费了更多时间。
“时间就是金钱”，他这么写到，他同时还引用Eric Vreeland文章里的话说，“以我最近安装了一版开放源代码软件为例，光是为了除错就花了许多时间，若以我每小时收费来计算，这些钱拿去买对手的商用版本都绰绰有余了。”
Vreeland最后还是花了2500美元买了Creative Suite Master Collection，其它包含12套Adobe产品，诸如Photoshop、Premiere与Illustrator。
Loiacono先前曾Sun软件部门主管，Sun的Solaris操作系统就是在他手上变成开放源代码，因此他对开放源代码有一定的了解，但本案他的逻辑似乎有点不通。
“我之前也不断在思考Adobe创业产业策略里是否摆得下开放原始码，但我发现，设计师真正需要的一套整合严密的工作流程，且能在开箱后马上就获得高稳定性，因此问题的重点在于这对用户会有什么影响？”他自问自答地说，“开放源代码软件可以是一个完美的解决方案，但不见得什么都能适用，或人人都适用，比如创意工作者常有时间压力，他们需要做的是创新，而不在整合。”
从用户的角度来看事情当然很不错，但这样的推论却有些武断，Loiacono仅从其它开放源代码产品的角度来看，比如Inkscape或Gimp。 事实上，Adobe还是照样可推出开放源代码版本产品，且能兼顾整合度与轻松上手的层级。其它开源码有的缺点并不能拿来当作自己不想推这种产品的借口。 当然啦，推出免费版的Photoshop势必连带影响许多Adobe的生意，这点Loiacono似乎就避而不谈了。
From ZOL news
http://news.zol.com.cn/63/634064.html