molly.com
Friday 28 May 2004
adobe upgrade policy unacceptable
In yet another licensing drama it appears that Adobe is refusing to honor registered licenses on non-current product versions. This, despite the fact that it appears as though nothing exists in those end-user licenses that states the license becomes void upon release of a new version.
So if you’ve purchased an Adobe product version via download from Adobe’s site, and a new version has been out for a certain time, and you have a problem with that product, Adobe will not honor your license. You will instead have to upgrade to the newer product version, for a typically healthy upgrade fee.
I purchased Adobe Acrobat 5.0 for its full price of $249.00 U.S. about a year or so ago. I opted for the download rather than add on the more expensive media version which cost 20 bucks more. Today, I had a need to reinstall my product. I went into my account, and found that I was expected to upgrade to the next version if I wanted to continue using the software. For Acrobat, that will cost me an additional $99.99 U.S.
I called and spoke with a courteous and helpful party at Adobe who promised to bring my questions to corporate eyes. She took time with me to answer what questions she could, and even looked with me through the licensing. It will be interesting to hear what, if anything, Adobe corporate has to say in response to this matter.
As I see it, there are several critical problems with any kind of forced upgrade, for any software product:
- A licensed, registered product should be available to the licensee. If I have to reinstall that product, and I have a currently legal license for that product, the company has an obligation to support my license.
- A product version can be incredibly important in some cases. Often, people prefer a specific version for a given reason. From an educator’s standpoint, if I’m writing a book or tutorial on a product, I may want to include version differences for readers. Without a specific version of something, I’m at a loss to do that if I can’t access earlier versions.
- Forced upgrades place hardship on low-income individuals and organizations. Think about libraries, non-profit charitable agencies, low-income schools and underfunded social agencies around the world. Many such agencies have valid reasons to be using version-specific software, such as hardware limitations.
One reason that Adobe claims to pull downloads of past products off of their site has to do with memory. But c’mon! Storage is pretty damned cheap these days.
Maybe Macromedia gets better mileage out of their storage media? It does strike me as curious that Macromedia makes downloads available on all purchased products via their online store. Right now I can download any version of any product I have ever purchased from Macromedia’s store directly from their store.
Commercial entities such as Adobe have a responsibility to honor their clients. Considering that there are more than a few ways to get to products less honorably than handing out thousands of dollars of my hard-earned money, it seems to me that if I act honorably, so should the company with which I’m dealing.
Of course, we do live in a world shaped by Microsoft whose only honor these days seems to come in the form of a robed figure from the U.S. Department of Justice. Maybe I’m just being idealistic and self-righteous. I know, I know, that’s very difficult to imagine.
Should I just shut up, pay my $99.00 for the upgrade, and be done with it?
Too bad there’s no GIMP equivalent for Acrobat.
Filed under: software
Posted by: site admin | 06:38 | Comments (21)
Actually, there is – sorta. Open Office supports writing to PDF. Although it’s not as flexible as being able to print from any application, it’ll work in a pinch.
In the meantime, I’ll also be interested to see how Adobe handles existing licensed customers.
First of all, using a PC is only downgrading yourself as a human being – switch to a Mac. Secondly, who really cares about licensing when you can have any software you want (even for Macs) simply by launching Limewire or whatever flavor P2P you care for. Last, but not least, if the companies were truly concerned with licensing, they wouldn’t make it so damned easy to get a serial # from anywhere that works.
Adobe pricing is probably the worst in the industry, most of their products are above 500 dollars US.
For example its quite clear that Photoshop’s dominance in the end user market allows them to charge those prices version after version.
No, don’t pay. Get what you paid for ( and part of what you paid for is the right to use your product, unless that right expires at some point )or a new product. The final line on changing agreements to suit one or another party after that agreement has been entered into in good faith falls to the almighty American consumer.
In the end , if people pay for it, people will sell it.
Unfortunately there are not that much alternatives to Acrobat which indeed is a pretty nifty package. I personally like to be able to create PDFs within the Mac OS X system, but even there, for further editing, the Acrobat Professional from Adobe is a good investment. If I were you, I’d hold on the upgrade until I get a reasonable response from them.
And then, you should always keep backup copies of your online ESD purchases. I had the same problem with Aladdin Stuffit Deluxe, the no. 1 archiving engine for the Mac. They offer just one download after which you have to pay the price again if you want one more download. So backup.
There is absolutely no reason why you should have to pay for the same product twice. They can’t just change the rules halfway through the game on you.
I think the law is in your favour.
Actually there is a nice free PDF maker out there. it’s called PDF995 http://www.pdf995.com/. well, actually the free version has some sponser links, but you can purchase the sponser-free version for under $20.
it does everything i’ve ever needed Acrobat for, and it’s just as easy to use.
completely off topic (not unusual for me), but as you’re talking about adobe: i was particularly annoyed about them dropping livemotion. i absolutely despise the user interface of macromedia flash (now also adopted for dreamweaver mx 2004…only of the reasons why i’m sticking with mx in classic view at the moment), and – having worked with aftereffects for the past 4 years – the whole workflow of livemotion seemed a lot more intuitive to me. heck, i got the program, paid good money for it, and within minutes i had my first few flash movies going. version 2 had its flaws, but i was hanging in there, waiting to upgrade to the next version…but that never came. adobe just threw the towel and gave in.
very annoying. for better or worse, i’m now stuck with using macromedia’s tool of the devil, and hating every mind-numbing UI decision along the way…
No Molly. On principal you should not. If these people are so greedy and short sighted that they stiff one so well known and influential, just think how they treat people without your stature on the net. If they have any marketing savvy at all, they’ll probably rush you that new version.
Think Open Source. You said it yourself. Too many are circumscribed by the gang at Redmond and their lackies. Put you talent and considerable rep behind the growing number who continue to make Open Source an ever more viable alternative. Besides, I’m surprised that you don’t create the source file in XML; then filter it into .pdf or .htm or .tex or …
That is interesting about Macromedia. I was unable to download my licensed product again after the great crash of ‘04. Now I feel more stupid.
Oh well. Atleast I had backed it up. Sigh.
Another feature-rich PDF creation software is pdfFactory. And it is only 2Mb. Price is $50 though.
I don’t know what you use Acrobat for but I went through the same grief after the theft of a laptop. Basically, they told me that since I had already been ripped off, anything they could do was only incremental.
I now use a product called PDF Producer from Data Becker. It allows for passwords, watermarks, and embedding fonts.
Oh, yeah. It cost about $10.00 at Office Depot.
Upgrade Policies
Sometimes I miss the old days… the days when a new version of a software product didn’t come out for several years. My wallet and I could keep up. It’s…
The FOSS version of Acrobat is called Ghostscript. All the other cheap and gratis products are based on it. There is a reason for that: Ghostscript is powerful, but can be daunting to a first-time or non-technical user.
I can recommend PDF Creator
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/
Very effective and with very small filesizes compared to other free pdf engines, nearly comparable to Adobe distiller 5-6. Many functions though its free and without ad’s!
This article is very interesting and written by some clever guy.:) Thank you!
I too ave been burned my Adobe. I’m a graphic artist and I’ve purchased the CS2 package which was something in the ballpark of $1000. I need to put a copy on my PC and one on my new Mac. I’m supposed to have a license for 2 computers. They refuse to send me the disc for the mac, stating that they no longer carried that original cross platform dics and that all they had at the time was another “full set” that would give me an additional license for 2 Macs. They wanted an additional $200 for this inconvience on their part. It took a year for me to save up for that disc set and now they’re telling me I need to upgrade to CS3 first. For an additional $400. I was given the run around and they were supposed to have a “level 2 manager” communicate with the “level 3 manager” I requested to speak to and someone would get back to me in 24-48 hours. Its been 48 hours, and go figure…. no call. I’m currently looking for the corporate phone numbers to try to bypass customer (lack of) service.