Adobe is Screwed. So is every other software company

[FantasyForge]

If you have gripes with GIMP, AI rewriting it in Rust won't do shit. It needs to be polished and well maintained, otherwise you're not getting anything useful out of it.
[...]

And the GIMP guys are already talking that the next version will be a major rewrite, [...]

Dude, fixing bugs is easy with big Code models, you tell it the bug, and voila: it's fixed. Even in Daz I had a character model whose teeth were transparent in Texture View. After a chat with Claude code, and a bit of diagnostics, this glitch was found and fixed. (The fix: Teeth surface, Glossy Weight set to 0.)
When it comes to fixing bugs in Java, Claude Code does that like men breathe. The REAL problem for open source is, morons bombing projects with AI slop.

So, the GIMP guys are finally waking up to what I told them years ago, then. That they should throw their technical debt spaghetti code in the bin, and start from scratch, with a solid design. I just can't stop winning.

 

[TailsWin]

Dude, fixing bugs is easy with big Code models, you tell it the bug, and voila: it's fixed.

That they should throw their technical debt spaghetti code in the bin, and start from scratch, with a solid design.

We're talking about very different things. Fixing a bug or starting a new project from scratch (or cloning one) is a totally different problem than long-term maintenance.

If you think that just dumping 20 years worth of codebase to Claude and translating it into Rust will magically fix everything, well I'm sorry, but that's not the case.

Plus both of you guys keep talking about taking existing projects and cloning or restarting them instead of creating new, innovative cool shit. I want new UI paradigms, new workflows, not just constantly rehashing the same old stuff. Instead, we get instant vibecoded clones with an absolutely uncertain plan, that people dump tens of thousands of $ into, and this is supposed to be the future of software? Sheesh.

 

[FantasyForge]

Instead, we get instant vibecoded clones with an absolutely uncertain plan, that people dump tens of thousands of $ into, and this is supposed to be the future of software? Sheesh.

Remove the word "vibecoded", and that same sentence can be equally applied to open source in general over the last 30 years. For example, over a thousand Linux distros have been created. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. So, yes, it IS the future, that's how open source works.

 

[TailsWin]

For example, over a thousand Linux distros have been created. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. So, yes, it IS the future, that's how open source works.

Distros and forks are created because people want something new and different from what already exists, not "the exact same thing". It's the exact opposite of creating a Photoshop clone.

Those projects that do nothing but mimic something existing, like those distros that copy the Win/Mac UI or whatever, are on the level of joke reskins like Hannah Montana Linux, and nobody is pretending they're gonna revolutionise the entire industry. But also reskins don't require much maintenance, which is what I keep harping about.

Why would Otto and other people be complaining that switching to FOSS tools is difficult? Why did Gimp and Blender have a bad rep for weird UI? Because they're different enough, and that wouldn't be the case if people just kept cloning existing stuff. Why would anyone be cloning closed source when they're not getting paid? When you code your own projects, you make them according to what you want to do, not what some corporate overlord tasked you with. That's how open source works.

 

[FantasyForge]

Distros and forks are created because people want something new and different from what already exists, not "the exact same thing".

Linux cloning UNIX, Clonezilla cloning Norton Ghost, ReactOS cloning Windows NT, OpenOffice / LibreOffice cloning Microsoft Office, GNU Octave cloning MATLAB, Mattermost cloning Slack, and, ironically, GIMP cloning Adobe Photoshop in the 90s. etc.
Many projects start out as clones, then drift.
Just give us a Linux Daz Studio!!
Blender is another ironic example, because they (finally) recently changed the UI to be much more consistent with Industry de facto standards. Rightly so, in my book.

 

[TailsWin]

Linux cloning UNIX,

Linux is a kernel for GNU, which is a collection of apps that go back to the 50's, and most were open source (at least in practice) from the start. Over time some got reimplemented to preserve system compatibility, because of idiotic software patents and copyrights. That's why you can today use the same POSIX standard on Android, MacOS, Windows, your router or the university supercomputer. Compatibility isn't the same as cloning, unless your definition is very different from mine.

And if you saw how much Linux has diverged from the original Unix kernel philosophy (just look at the shitstorm surrounding systemd), you'd never call it a clone.

Clonezilla cloning Norton Ghost

Why Norton Ghost specifically? Hard drives have allowed partitioning back to at least the beginning of the FAT format, and copying your data from one location to another is one of the most basic operations you think of. Maybe it's not a bad idea to have tools to work with those open standards like FAT or BTRFS, which is why such tools go back decades.

Oh hey, maybe with a system tool like that, the important part is the stability and reliability which come from... Long term maintenance.

ReactOS cloning Windows NT

1) Again this is about reimplementation of system interfaces to make them compatible, not cloning
2) Yea do we want to break those closed source de facto standards like Windows and Adobe, or not? This is how you do it. Reimplement system calls, make software compatible. Wine is the same idea. This isn't cloning, by any definition. This is making a different kind of hammer for the same nails.

OpenOffice / LibreOffice cloning Microsoft Office

LibreOffice started way back as Star Office, which launched in 1985. That's years before MS Office.

Btw every major MS Office program was either acquired from somewhere else, or cloned. Go to Wikipedia and just read how Word, Excel, Powerpoint or Outlook started. Or DOS or Internet Explorer. Microsoft has always been about theft and intimidation. To point out that anything was cloned *from* them is hilarious, because you can be sure they stole it first.

GNU Octave cloning MATLAB, Mattermost cloning Slack

Ok I don't know much about these. But MATLAB is a bit of an anomaly. Most people that use programs/languages like these already make their own tools, which is why pretty much everything math- or science-oriented is open source and has started at some university or other. Then stuff gets shared and developed further. It's not surprising that people make tools compatible with some closed source outliers. Yea, again, that's how open source works.

GIMP cloning Adobe Photoshop in the 90s. etc.

Have you seen early GIMP? How can you say with a straight face that it's a Photoshop clone? People were bitching about the UI for like 15 years until they introduced the single-window UI.

And why take Photoshop as a benchmark? GIMP started in 1999, when there were still a million different competing graphics editors, because they had all started from the same painting programs on graphical workstations or home computers like the Amiga. These programs come and go. Adobe got into the monopolistic position in the same way as MS: by acquiring competing programs and either killing them, or merging them into their own suite.

Many projects start out as clones, then drift.
(...)
Blender is another ironic example, because they (finally) recently changed the UI to be much more consistent with Industry de facto standards. Rightly so, in my book.

Blender? An even worse example than Gimp. While most software of the same type have a lot of commonalities, Blender was like something made for aliens. How is this a clone?

And so which is it? Do open source programs *start* as clones and then drift, or do they start as something completely different and eventually maybe adopt UI similar to others? Those are very different claims.

The truth is, open source very rarely starts as a clone, because most projects start as little hobby projects that serve some particular need, or just because the programmer is learning, and eventually the project grows. That's exactly the opposite of cloning.

It's the software corporations that do the copying, because they can pay people to do the boring 1:1 cloning work which most programmers otherwise don't want to do, and maybe even more importantly, can pay the lawyers. Only very large, popular FOSS projects eventually get around to do some "cloning" like in terms of UI, when there's enough contributors so that some want to do such work, or if some organisation pays for it.

Otherwise, FOSS projects tend to resist consolidation the most. Look at the different desktop environments like Gnome/Unity, KDE, XFCE, that still keep their respective philosophies after 20+ years even if they occasionally stumble or reinvent themselves. Because FOSS has much less need for chasing trends, or for selling you the new shiny trinket.

 

[Otto Von Herunterhängen]

And why take Photoshop as a benchmark? GIMP started in 1999, when there were still a million different competing graphics editors, because they had all started from the same painting programs on graphical workstations or home computers like the Amiga. These programs come and go. Adobe got into the monopolistic position in the same way as MS: by acquiring competing programs and either killing them, or merging them into their own suite.

Because of muscle memory. It takes a lot of time to learn a new system at a professional level, and there were people using Photoshop in ways that exceeded what AI can do with generative AI long before AI existed. See Worth1000 those are all done in Photoshop before AI.

And that type of person would love a free Photoshop like program with all the same features, tools, and shortcuts, without the generative AI.

As I said earlier, you are VASTLY underestimating the amount of time it takes to learn a new system at a professional level, no matter how much you might disagree with the statement.

On the way Adobe gets it's programs, you are half right, it does acquire them, it didn't develop any itself. The difference is Adobe didn't bully anybody into selling or destroy companies to get the technology cheap. Microsoft of course was famous for it.

And that's about the only good thing you will hear me say about Adobe. After they buy things of course they raise the roof on the pricing. They acquired Topaz Labs and immediately turned them into a subscription service, with the subscriptions costing more a year than you could buy the programs outright for.

 

[TailsWin]

As I said earlier, you are VASTLY underestimating the amount of time it takes to learn a new system at a professional level, no matter how much you might disagree with the statement.

And I've told you that I've been there myself. I used to do photography, both for myself and for clients, plus teaching and editing. Often I'd just have to do with whatever equipment I was given, sometimes the software I was using changed licence (like Adobe moving to subscriptions) or just ceased to exist, sometimes it stopped supporting what I needed (like older camera RAW formats) or the engine changed so much that it made more sense to switch to something else, or other times I just wanted to try something different to see if it works better for me. And it's like that with a bunch of apps or OSs. No, I'm actually not a notorious switcher, I'm just not afraid to ditch something that pissed me off. It's something more people should learn instead of just whining.

Like I said, people vastly OVERestimate how difficult it is to switch to a similar program. No, if you know how things work, you're not gonna have to re-learn everything just because icon looks a bit different or a dialog window opens on the left instead of on the right. It's still the same core features, still the same layer logic, still the same masks and curves and paths or whatever. Or do you need to re-learn to drive from zero when you get in a new car? No, you check where the new elements are and soon you'll get used the new quirks.

Unless you're a tech illiterate grandma that has to call her boy when IE changes its icon or when it gets moved 5 pixels to the side, you'll be fine. I've been there. People have brains that are so adaptable, yet are afraid to use them.

And I keep harping about this - if the provider changes the UI, or if your employer/client switches, people do adapt. So why the fuck is it suddenly so difficult to adapt to something else if it's not a forced change? It's just the difference between choosing yourself and a choice being made for you.

 

[Otto Von Herunterhängen]

And I've told you that I've been there myself. I used to do photography, both for myself and for clients, plus teaching and editing. Often I'd just have to do with whatever equipment I was given, sometimes the software I was using changed license (like Adobe moving to subscriptions) or just ceased to exist, sometimes it stopped supporting what I needed (like older camera RAW formats) or the engine changed so much that it made more sense to switch to something else, or other times I just wanted to try something different to see if it works better for me. And it's like that with a bunch of apps or OSs. No, I'm actually not a notorious switcher, I'm just not afraid to ditch something that pissed me off. It's something more people should learn instead of just whining.

Like I said, people vastly OVER estimate how difficult it is to switch to a similar program. No, if you know how things work, you're not gonna have to re-learn everything just because icon looks a bit different or a dialog window opens on the left instead of on the right. It's still the same core features, still the same layer logic, still the same masks and curves and paths or whatever. Or do you need to re-learn to drive from zero when you get in a new car? No, you check where the new elements are and soon you'll get used the new quirks.

Unless you're a tech illiterate grandma that has to call her boy when IE changes its icon or when it gets moved 5 pixels to the side, you'll be fine. I've been there. People have brains that are so adaptable, yet are afraid to use them.

And I keep harping about this - if the provider changes the UI, or if your employer/client switches, people do adapt. So why the fuck is it suddenly so difficult to adapt to something else if it's not a forced change? It's just the difference between choosing yourself and a choice being made for you.

But people don't switch. A lot of them. There may be institutional reasons, if your work is standardized on MS Office or Photoshop and you want to continue working there, that's what you use. But interest in ArtCraft isn't coming from that group for obvious reasons.

So exactly what group is blowing this up, and why haven't they moved to alternatives? Or if they did try the alternatives, like me, and found them lacking, is that slothfulness on their part, or maybe you just have a different set of standards from them? Or a shorter learning curve for new software.

Libra office was an easy transition. But I don't use that or Word on a professional basis, if I need to do something like a mail merge on occasion I can look it up and spend the time without a boss worrying about how long I am taking. Same thing with Excel, I know about pivot tables, reference tables, etc, and I can look up the specifics. Can I do them on a strict time schedule? Not a chance. Do I know or use over 20% of the available Excel macro's. No. Do I even know what they are? Vaguely. Do I call myself a professional user? No. Libra office is fine on adding up columns and giving me totals.

Up until DeckCraft I don't know of any program that is half as useful as Powerpoint, it's one of the few programs Microsoft has that has the right balance between complexity and usability, and that one I do consider myself a professional in. I'm keeping an eye on DeckCraft, like the rest of them it's not close to out of Alpha yet. Is Libra Office Impress a suitable replacement for Powerpoint? No, absolutely not. Would it be if I was just creating simple presentation slides? Sure.

So what is it, is the average person just stupid or lazy? Or do you have an easier time learning new things than other people? Or are we talking about two different things, casual use of the main features of a program, or really using the whole feature set?

 

[FantasyForge]

subscriptions

Yesss! A huge incentive to clone software! Like computer games that are so DRMed that they are pay-to-play.
Those mofos deserved to get reverse engineered and cloned.

Pondering this, it's like a return to the 1980s and 90s, where we used to share freely. And the world was a better place for it. Now, with AI Coding, this sharing can happen once again. No evil subscription-only services and DRM can protect proprietary software from someone cloning your works, assuming no trade-mark and copyright violations take place.

Another reason to be happy is, the software industry consolidated itself, with corporations buying competitors: destroying free market capitalism, and making defacto monopolies: Adobe being an example, and also, Microsoft buying and destroying rival games studios, just as it destroyed tens of thousands of other software houses, for operating systems, office systems, you name it.
Once AI ports Windows software (clones) to Linux, Microsoft could lose a profit centre.

 

[TailsWin]

So what is it, is the average person just stupid or lazy? Or do you have an easier time learning new things than other people? Or are we talking about two different things, casual use of the main features of a program, or really using the whole feature set?

We as a society and individuals have become very complacent. We've let corpos like MS, Adobe, Google etc. etc. acquire an immense amount of power. 50 years ago, they would never be allowed to become such monopolies by buying off the competition. Corpos then see they can get away with anything, and the cancer spread further. So practices like subscriptions, microtransactions, forced online logins or whatever just become the new standard, and shit just keeps getting worse.

Software professionals are such a weird bunch, that they tend to be so loyal to a single product. It's always been kinda bad in industries like CAD or desktop publishing, and sorta in 3D modelling too, but it's become normalised to just be a trained monkey and know only one suite instead of having general knowledge and be able to figure shit out and deliver even with other tools.

Imagine if other industries worked like that. If builders could only work with "their" brand of power tools because the handles are shaped a bit different, or if surgeons could only work with one kind of scalpel. It would be ridiculous. So yes, it's complacency, it's excuses, and it just keeps getting worse, with the pros willing to accept more and more lock-in. Adobe never would get away with their subscription bullshit if the pros migrated to ANYTHING else en masse. But they weren't willing to change anything, and so here we are.

And the common users, what I said. They'll rather have pirated Photoshop for cropping their pics, because they think it's more valuable and the "industry standard". Isn't it wild how many super-basic graphics tutorials (like for adding text to memes) are for friggin' Photoshop? How does that make sense? It's just power of branding, of the default choice. Grab a user once and they'll be loyal forever just because they recognise the brand, never look at anything else and even badmouth any alternatives.

Yea I guess I'm a weirdo that I like learning new things. Most people are fine with being complacent and making all kinds of rationalisations for why things have to stay the way they are. Not that users don't complain, they do, but they bitch the same whether the app changed the logo to a different shade of purple, or when extreme draconian measures get introduced. They bitch and moan, create petitions, call for boycotts, and eventually they shut up and adapt instead of taking a minor hit and look at alternatives. So how can we expect things to change then?

Look, maybe this ArtCraft thing will work out, idk. Like I said, I don't have any reason to have faith in it long-term, but the bigger problem is that this is just kicking the can down the road. First, if we have to clone an existing app, that just reinforces the notion that that app is the default. If ArtCraft does not work out, people have an easy way back - in fact, they still won't have any alternative, because they refuse to use anything else.

And second, are we cheering for replacing the current Big Tech with Big Tech AI? Do we want all software to be made and managed by Open AI and Anthropic from now on? Well what an upgrade. That's like hiding form rain and drowning in the fucking drain. And of course these two will become the defaults, because switching to some other AI provider is too difficult, I guess. What are you gonna do once all software made by Big Tech AI will require subscription for usage too?

 

[FantasyForge]

We as a society and individuals have become very complacent.

Societies and individuals have always been complacent since the history of time. What changes is technology, so, complacency that led to World Wars is now curtailed by Nukes. AI itself has ended a ton of complacency, mind you, so what you've said is LESS true, today, than but a couple of years ago.

However, this thread is about Adobe, not AI in general, and AI is ending their complacency, too. It's not the end of Adobe, though, as AI will open up new business models for it, if not already. And, it will allow them to fire a ton of staff. They've literally automated software development over the last few months, it's insane. Adobe can fire its devs, and various of other jobs, for the most part, and save some cash.

For maybe most people who make a living without manual labour it's grim. And, factory jobs continue to be automated, of course.