Re: Vengeance Against Adobe
At 1:58 AM -0700 7/24/01, Petro wrote:
At 11:47 PM -0500 7/23/01, measl@mfn.org wrote:
On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Tim May wrote:
Adobe will be suffering for a long time to come.
While it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, I predict that the "backlash" will be gone in a mere matter of weeks, if not days. Let's face it: the people most likely to be Adobe *customers* are anything but hungry. A fat customer is an apathetic customer...
Let us also be honest and admit that the very people Adobe products target are also the least likely to understand this whole thing, and often even less likely to care--or if they do, they might even agree with Adobe.
Let me be clear about something: I wasn't predicting a significant "boycott" against Adobe products. Most corporate purchasers pick their tools based on what they need, not based on ideology. If they need InDesign or Photoshop, that's what they'll buy.
My comments were about Adobe's _recruiting_ efforts. I expect lingering effects of this episode to affect their ability to recruit.
I stand by that prediction.
--Tim May
A very sound prediction about the behavior of a subset of potential employees. I would bet that 40-50% of SW people haven't even heard of the DMCA and Sklyarov or don't see it as a problem. While I'd like to think Adobe's behavior will limit their access to people who fall on the high side of the curve, I've met plenty of bright people who just don't care about certain issues. Another counter-factor for your prediction would be continued economic decline and a scarcity of jobs which while not a certainty is certainly a possibility. The all-consuming Bay Area monkey-on-the-back mortgage might tend to eclipse the politics for all but the most stallwart technology freedom fighter. Mortgage low, politics intact, Mike PS - I can't fault Adobe for wanting to protect their business but the DMCA has got to go. It's the tech version of the war on drugs ain't it? An excuse to storm and destroy without even trespass to justify it. Pure evil.
At 11:16 AM -0700 7/24/01, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
A very sound prediction about the behavior of a subset of potential employees. I would bet that 40-50% of SW people haven't even heard of the DMCA and Sklyarov or don't see it as a problem.
While I'd like to think Adobe's behavior will limit their access to people who fall on the high side of the curve, I've met plenty of bright people who just don't care about certain issues.
Another counter-factor for your prediction would be continued economic decline and a scarcity of jobs which while not a certainty is certainly a possibility. The all-consuming Bay Area monkey-on-the-back mortgage might tend to eclipse the politics for all but the most stallwart technology freedom fighter.
I know of people who refuse to buy Intel-based machines "on principle." Some are Sun users, some are Mac users, some think they are bypassing Intel by using AMD Athlons. And the anti-Microsoft efforts are legendary. Alternative OSes, Star Office, etc. If some people will go to these lengths to avoid MS products, imagine the programmers they are missing out on. (I understand that there are still tens of thousands who work for MS. The interesting regime is at the margins, in the five sigmas zone.) Likewise, I know of even some Cypherpunks who have left their employers for ideological reasons. And if some have _left_ jobs, the effects are likely greater on the _recruiting_ side (where the costs of a decision are much less). No wonder Adobe is back-pedalling so furiously. (This, and fears that Adobe salesmen and engineers may be arrested for violating _Russian_ laws, e.g., the European laws (I have read about) that make it a crime to sell a software product which cannot be backed-up. And if not this law, they may find something else to arrest and Adobe person for. Trading cards. Adobe escalated the war. Now Adobe realizes what can of worms they have opened.) --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
I know of people who refuse to buy Intel-based machines "on principle." Some are Sun users, some are Mac users, some think they are bypassing Intel by using AMD Athlons.
Yes, I'm one. AMD all the way. Anyway, it's cheaper and has better performance.
And the anti-Microsoft efforts are legendary. Alternative OSes, Star Office, etc. If some people will go to these lengths to avoid MS products, imagine the programmers they are missing out on. (I understand that there are still tens of thousands who work for MS. The interesting regime is at the margins, in the five sigmas zone.)
Yes, I'm one. Linux or *BSD. It's cheaper and better than Windows. I admit that MS Office is the best office suite around, but I'm doing ok with Star Office and Koffice. Konqueror is a better browser than IE, too. Adobe products are much more replacable than MS products. Acroread? We have xpdf and some others. PS interpreter? We have gs. Photoshop? We have the gimp. Illustrator? We have Kontour. These products are all as good as or better than the competing Adobe products, and they're all free. They can all be modified in any way I need. xpdf and gs can be patched to ignore encryption (although I guess that's a felony now). Now, lets see, what did we need Adobe for again? I can't think of anything!
(This, and fears that Adobe salesmen and engineers may be arrested for violating _Russian_ laws, e.g., the European laws (I have read about) that make it a crime to sell a software product which cannot be backed-up. And if not this law, they may find something else to arrest and Adobe person for. Trading cards. Adobe escalated the war. Now Adobe realizes what can of worms they have opened.)
I would imagine that Dmitri has the "typical" geeky programmer personality (ok, making very broad stereotypes here), which tends more towards playful than vicious... but what if he doesn't? What if he is vicious, vengeful and irrational? Russia is quite a violent place. Adobe's people in Russia could be in a lot of danger from this. I hope not, because violence is bad and the people to blame are probably a few lawyers and executives and some FBI agents and a lot of legislators, none of whom are in Russia, but people act irrationally sometimes.
At 10:21 PM +0000 7/24/01, Dr. Evil wrote:
Photoshop? We have the gimp. Illustrator? We have Kontour. These products are all as good as or better than the competing Adobe products, and they're all free.
I won't argue about Kontour, since I haven't used it yet, but xpdf still doesn't render was well as Acrobat, and there is no *WAY* the Gimp, as good as it is, can compete in Photoshops markets. It may be nice for dinking around with web pages, but when it comes to pantone color and process color work, well, last time I checked, it didn't do 4-color at all, much less "High Color" (6 color process).
participants (4)
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Dr. Evil -
mmotyka＠lsil.com -
Petro -
Tim May