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Gersen: Well it's a nearly eight years old software, they are not yet giving away CS6. Here it's kind of like if Ms was offering Office 2003 for free.
According to them they're not giving it away at all. Apart from the fact that they are. But that's Adobe for you. Their warped little way is to encourage piracy rather than give something away.

Whatever gets them off, I suppose.

Office 2003 is still quite usable and in a strange way, it would dent sales of more recent editions. Strange, because a combination of Thunderbird and LibreOffice would make for a much better option than 2003.
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Wishbone: I've never understood their pricing policy. Most other "productive" software has exorbitant prices for business licenses and reasonable prices for private non-commercial licenses. That's the only way to get a decent slice of the private market anyway, but Photoshop has always cost an arm and a leg. I suspect that, as a direct result of this, it must be one of the most pirated pieces of software in history.
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TheCowSaysMoo: Tell me about it. My girlfriend had to buy one for school ... I don't see how a "poor" student can afford that. We're talking about 300 euros here. Also, when we tried to have her validated as a student, it said it might take up to a month. To check a document. The fuck.

Good thing I sent an angry tweet to the support account, and it was prioritized, but still ...

If you compare that to the dreamspark program by Microsoft ... Free visual studio (professional!) for students, and she was downloading the program about an hour after registration.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Finale is another one with stupid pricing: $600 for a license, $350 for a student license. Dreamspark is pretty great, though.
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amok: Adobe is giving away CS2 for free.... or not really?
It's free - as in you don't have to pay, but they do want you to sign up to adobe. They're probably regretting it as it nearly crashed the site.
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amok: Adobe is giving away CS2 for free.... or not really?
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Sachys: It's free - as in you don't have to pay, but they do want you to sign up to adobe. They're probably regretting it as it nearly crashed the site.
Nope, apparently they put that up only for existing CS2 customers so they could get a serial-only (non-activation) version. If you didn't have it before you're really not entitled to get it now.

Whatever.

Actually, I wish MS would do this with XP, never mind Office.
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amok: Adobe is giving away CS2 for free.... or not really?
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Sachys: It's free - as in you don't have to pay, but they do want you to sign up to adobe. They're probably regretting it as it nearly crashed the site.
I actually just went through a link in the Register's article Thunderstone linked to, which took me directly to the download page without having to do anything but hit the Photoshop link (I have no use for the other programs).

I don't give a fig whether this was a legal action on my part or not.
Post edited January 08, 2013 by mistermumbles
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Miaghstir: See, now this is what companies SHOULD do when they shut down servers their DRM depend on (not necessarily release the thing in such a way that the whole world can get it off the official site, but at least so that licensees can still install and use the software).
Indeed. Props to them for doing this.
So, if they wanted to make sure only people that owned CS2 could get this, why did they put a serial on that page? If they wanted to restrict it they could make people use their own serials when installing the product. Or is it a master key that unlocks the program without activation?
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Fictionvision: Or is it a master key that unlocks the program without activation?
Likely something like that.
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Fictionvision: Or is it a master key that unlocks the program without activation?
I've got a boxed copy of Photoshop CS2. I couldn't remember if there was any activation or not so I've just tried it and there's no activation of any kind. It's just like the download version. There is some DRM in the form of Adobe License Manager. I don't know if the download has that or not, but it doesn't do much of anything, really.
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Fictionvision: Or is it a master key that unlocks the program without activation?
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Navagon: I've got a boxed copy of Photoshop CS2. I couldn't remember if there was any activation or not so I've just tried it and there's no activation of any kind. It's just like the download version. There is some DRM in the form of Adobe License Manager. I don't know if the download has that or not, but it doesn't do much of anything, really.
thats because they got rid of the activation ages ago. you still need an account for the online components of service i believe
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BoxOfSnoo: Actually, I wish MS would do this with XP, never mind Office.
I think many people would immediately install XP over windows vista/8, so there is little chance that they would offer XP for free.
If Adobe just wanted to allow owners of CS2 products to be able to activate their software, then why couldn't they have made some sort of patch that removed the activation from their CS2 software rather than have the entire collection available for download along with activation keys.
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Gersen: Well it's a nearly eight years old software, they are not yet giving away CS6. Here it's kind of like if Ms was offering Office 2003 for free.
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Navagon: According to them they're not giving it away at all. Apart from the fact that they are. But that's Adobe for you. Their warped little way is to encourage piracy rather than give something away.

Whatever gets them off, I suppose.

Office 2003 is still quite usable and in a strange way, it would dent sales of more recent editions. Strange, because a combination of Thunderbird and LibreOffice would make for a much better option than 2003.
Well I thing 2003 is still the best MS office. I don't know of anything the new versions have in advantage and LibreOffice can't replace MS office in an working environment where you have to send the files in their editable form. While the writer is pretty compatible to Word the same can't be said for Impress and Powerpoint. Also from what I have heard calc isn't as good as Excel but I don't use it enough to verify that. The other problem is that Thunderbird doesn't work as a client for Exchange servers like Outlook and there is no equivalent to Access in Libre office.
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Navagon: According to them they're not giving it away at all. Apart from the fact that they are. But that's Adobe for you. Their warped little way is to encourage piracy rather than give something away.

Whatever gets them off, I suppose.

Office 2003 is still quite usable and in a strange way, it would dent sales of more recent editions. Strange, because a combination of Thunderbird and LibreOffice would make for a much better option than 2003.
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Darkcloud: Well I thing 2003 is still the best MS office. I don't know of anything the new versions have in advantage and LibreOffice can't replace MS office in an working environment where you have to send the files in their editable form. While the writer is pretty compatible to Word the same can't be said for Impress and Powerpoint. Also from what I have heard calc isn't as good as Excel but I don't use it enough to verify that. The other problem is that Thunderbird doesn't work as a client for Exchange servers like Outlook and there is no equivalent to Access in Libre office.
And Word has had a great outline mode since... forever? LibreOffice has nothing even remotely close.
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TheCowSaysMoo: Tell me about it. My girlfriend had to buy one for school ... I don't see how a "poor" student can afford that. We're talking about 300 euros here. Also, when we tried to have her validated as a student, it said it might take up to a month. To check a document. The fuck.

Good thing I sent an angry tweet to the support account, and it was prioritized, but still ...

If you compare that to the dreamspark program by Microsoft ... Free visual studio (professional!) for students, and she was downloading the program about an hour after registration.
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Gazoinks: Yeah, it's ridiculous. Finale is another one with stupid pricing: $600 for a license, $350 for a student license. Dreamspark is pretty great, though.
Ugh, yes. Finale.

Unfortunately, any serious composer/arranger is basically required to own that own that or Sibelius.