[altivec]

In reply to:

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It seems a lot of people in this discussion are talking out of both sides of their mouths. They say activation will be EASY to hack. On the other hand they say that activation will be HARD on the "honest" user? Why don't the "honest" users stop complaining about the activation and download the patches/hacks to remove the activation? If it's so "easy," then stop complaining!

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Now we are getting somewhere. Activation causes the dishonest to stay dishonest and the honest to become dishonest. Guess what, I don't want to be dishonest but I also don't want to spend a month of my time de-authorizing/authorizing software because of a hardware failure. If the time ever comes that I must purchase software with activation, I will have to learn to become the criminal they are fighting and implying that I am. The only difference is, with the exception of activating, I will continue to use it honestly. I would like to see a judge convict me for using software that I bought just because I did not activate. At this point CS works perfectly fine for me, so I won't bother dealing with it.
Some might think I'm this big Adobe hater, but the opposite is true. If I didn't care, I would do like you said, download the hack and keep my mouth shut. I want Adobe to thrive so that better software can be produced. I see activation leading them in the opposite direction, just like it did for Macromedia and Quark. Bottom line is, its bad for the honest user, Bad for Adobe, and the dishonest user really could care less. I don't see anybody winning in this. Time will tell, but my guess is that it won't be pretty.

[ajonesman]

You hit the nail on the head! I have CS on my computer and I use it occasionally from time to time. It is not a legal copy (please don't hurt me), however I now I'm out of school I planned to buy it and be good to the company that has produce such great products. Lets face it CS is expensive (let alone $650 for photoshop) and I'm glad I was able to learn it. I do feel I should pay for the license.
However this new authentication process is nuts. Why do I want to de-authorize my own computer if I just want to erase the HD? And then to do that for 15 programs? I've already had major trouble with itunes (not exactly productivity app!). This being the sole reason I researched ways to convert my .m4p files with DRM to .m4a without DRM. What is the value of DRM to me... its not! Is a pain in the a when you move things from one computer (I own) to another (I own). And now I enjoy my itunes collection more because I can do with it and treat my computer the way I want. And Im not giving my music collection away to the world.
With that thought in mind Adobe is actually encouraging piracy. Find a copy of the program that has the patch and you no longer have to worry about these hassles when you reformat your drive. For example one might have a pirated copy of MX 2004 (incidentally I just bought the legal version of Dreamweaver, I dont use the rest of MX.) There there is no issues reinstalling the pirated copy because it has the patch pop in the disk you burned and your ready to go, where as the legal copy is a pain to deal with the authentication issues. I can see the case were one might purchase the legal copy and find a pirated copy (or even work to develop the patch them-self!!) just so they dont have to deal with the reinstalling the legal copy.
Oh and you think that there is no Photoshop killer app? Take a closer look at iphoto 5. No... its not photoshop. But think of the user base that is this program will serves! There are many people that just want some basic color management tools, the ablility to striation a photo, and make things more sharp. iPhoto takes a big market share out of the picture, and whats the cost... free on every mac or $70 with all the rest of ilife suite. There are lots of people to use photoshop for just doing really simple things. Photoshop is bloated, expensive and out of date. If they made it cheaper... say $250 ~ $350 they could convince many more of the novices to buy. Look at Dreamweaver - $400 - sill pricey but within a psychological barrier of a hobbiest or beginner. And Dreamweaver has easy many features for someone just starting out and many pro features to boot! good deal. Now, Photoshop $650.. ouch! And I would would not call it beginner friendly. iPhoto will meet the needs more most people doing basic photography and exporting for web needs, and its a killer organizer... in-fact the best one Ive seen so far.
My point is its not going to be a huge one Photoshop killer, but smaller, more usable apps that work well and has most of the feature you need. Thats the beauty of Pages - small simple, it does what you need it to no more, no less. When is the last time you used all the features of Microsoft Word in a document. Most of the time they get in the way of what you are working on.
As for me I dont know anymore if Ill be purchasing the new CS 2....

[moose_n_squirrel]

In reply to:

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Oh and you think that there is no Photoshop killer app? Take a closer look at iphoto 5. No... its not photoshop. But think of the user base that is this program will serves! There are many people that just want some basic color management tools, the ablility to striation a photo, and make things more sharp. iPhoto takes a big market share out of the picture, and whats the cost... free on every mac or $70 with all the rest of ilife suite. There are lots of people to use photoshop for just doing really simple things. Photoshop is bloated, expensive and out of date.

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<Bzzzzt> Sorry...thanks for playing! What is the point of comparing Photoshop to iPhoto? iPhoto competes with Photoshop Elements: Under $100, no activation, all the tools 95% of people need. Sounds perfect, why do so many go to such great lengths to ignore it?
Ah, but Photoshop (the expensive one) is a "big name," so many people who do not need it "think" they do, then complain about the price. (I am making no comments about the activation here, just the price.) And for some weird reason compare the greatest photo editor on earth to $70 programs.
The only people who should be using and desiring Photoshop are the ones who need the pro features. Those "just doing really simple things" have no need to throw more than $90 at Elements, or even less for iPhoto or Graphic Converter or GIMP; certainly have no justification to demand a $650 app. A casual user "needing" full Photoshop is like a tourist buying a $5000 Nikon D2X for their 4x6 trip snapshots. Total, unnecessary, pretentious, status-oriented overkill. Not to put down Photoshop or the camera; they are brilliant and pay for themselves...when used by those have an actual need for the power.

[Nobody]

In reply to:

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Why don't the "honest" users stop complaining about the activation and download the patches/hacks to remove the activation?

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Ummmm, because we're honest?

In reply to:

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If it's so "easy," then stop complaining!

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it's easy for the dishonest user. But it's not easy to be a legal user, and avoid the hassles of activation, or avoid being treated like criminals by the software companies and BSA.

[Escamillo]

In reply to:

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mdawson posted:
What Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft and all other companies are doing with this activation scheme goes beyond being unethical. When I buy food I do not have to call General Mills to get permission to eat it. When I buy a car, I do not have to call Saturn to get permission to drive it. When I buy a television, I do not have to call Sony to get permission to watch it. When I buy clothes, I do not have to call Eddie Bauer to get permission to where them. Once something is purchased, the manufacturer is out of the loop excepting customer support issues. This tactic is wrong no matter how you try to look at it.

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You can't be this dumb. There is no "casual copying" problem in the food, car, TV, or clothing businesses. Nor are there EULAs in those businesses.

[Nobody]

Well to summarise the rules have changed, time to change with them.
My mother used to run a fast food outlet with a best friend. When it came to put in the tax, the Tax Office presumed they were taking 15% of the merchandise home for personal use. They weren't because they were honest and neither of them was into junk food anyway. As the Tax wouldn't listen to their appeals they had to include home groceries in their purchases just to avoid going broke.
The Tax Office had made 2 dishonest people out of 2 honest women.
Whither Adobe?

[jamesbond007]

So software activation comes to the Mac for an important application.
I recently joined the Mac community with the purchase of a Mac mini after years as a Windows user. I am not a user of Adobe Photoshop, though I have used Dreamweaver since version 3 and now I use Dreamweaver MX (but not MX 2004 because of the activation). I have purposedly avoided using software products on my Windows PC that used software activation, except Windows XP and Office XP. I will admit, though, that while I have purchased legitimate versions of Windows and Office (partly as a requirement of work), I have found ways to avoid the activation altogether in order to avoid the activation hassle. Frankly, if I have a valid choice then I probably won't have to buy them at all. I am going to evaluate whether Next Office can replace Office XP in my work soon.
The main reason why I have tried my best to avoid using products with activation (or finding ways to avoid them when I must use them) is because my PC has an unusual setup. I run a multi-boot utility, System Commander, to allow myself to choose between MS-DOS, Windows 98 and English and Traditional Chinese versions of Windows XP at startup.
Now, I remember someone mentioned before (not on this forum) that both Macromedia and Adobe use activation software from Macrovision, which writes activation data to Track 0 of the hard drive of the computer (which is probably why Adobe and Macromedia said even if you formatted your hard disk you still should be able to use the software once you got it reinstalled, since the activation data is not overwritten). System Commander, meanwhile, also uses this area to store the boot data. Therefore, if I were to get MX 2004 from Macromedia or Photoshop CS from Adobe (for Windows, which has activation) and then activate them, it is possible that the activation data will overwrite the boot data written by System Commander and cripple my system. If I then attempted to reenable System Commander, the boot data may overwrite the activation data and the software may demand to be reactivated the next time........
See my problem?
What I am wondering for other people who must use these software is: If these activation schemes become the norm, will these schemes from different software interfere with each other, and with other programs and hardware? I believe this is a very legitimate concern about software activation. And now that it comes to the Mac the Mac community should be worried as well. I fully understand the concerns expressed by other people here about the potential activation problems here, and I will do my best to avoid software with activation, both on my PC and my new Mac mini.

[mcd007]

I agree with those who have said that activation won't convert those who have gotten illegal copies of Adobe products into paying Adobe customers. Even if Adobe (or any company for that matter) came up with an unhackable licensing system, they probably wouldn't see much of an increase in sales. As mentioned, most people that don't pay for their Adobe products probably still wouldn't buy them even if they had no way of getting them for free. They'd just stick with what they already have or look for another option.
On the other hand, I can't say that I blame Adobe and others for trying. We all know that illegal copies of software do not translate to an equal number of lost sales. But the losses are still staggering, and I'm sure that there are plenty of people at Adobe getting chewed out on a weekly basis about illegal software. Regardless of what effect (if any) activation will have on sales, I'm sure that these software companies are feeling the pressure from within to do something about it anyway.