[HN Gopher] Adobe Lightroom v6 is Falling Apart
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Adobe Lightroom v6 is Falling Apart
Author : kawera
Score : 59 points
Date : 2020-12-24 21:44 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| alkonaut wrote:
| I'm happy with my perpetual LR (4.X) license. Obviously I don't
| use anything that would need internet access such as a third
| party API and I understand that anything that relies on a third
| party API is never really perpetual. I'd be annoyed if a library
| "expired" crippling my software though.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _Adobe's earnings have been shattering expectations in recent
| years, sending the company's stock soaring over 700% over the
| past half-decade, so the Creative Cloud subscription model has
| definitely been a savvy switch._
|
| While like many here I prefer other solutions, the marketplace is
| validating Adobe's approach.
| adrianb wrote:
| The old software development model where users are buying the
| license for a specific version of a program and then use it and
| only come back to spend more when they need an upgrade is
| pretty much dead now. Most software moved to either free
| downloads with paid support (even Windows these days?) or to
| membership-based model (Adobe, Office365).
|
| The reason is that as you add features and fix bugs in a
| software, fewer users need the upgrade (why spend another 150$
| on this year's release for some features I never use?). But the
| development team still needs to be paid and the advanced
| features they add each year tend to be harder to implement, so
| over time the costs are increasing while sales go down.
|
| Adobe might be successful with this business model because they
| have a strong market in professionals but they definitely lost
| the amateurs and hobbyists.
| charrondev wrote:
| > While many (or even most) photographers have embraced the
| switch to paying a subscription in exchange for having always-up-
| to-date apps, some photographers have still been holding out and
| riding their perpetual versions for as long as possible.
|
| While I feel for the people in the former camp, it's an
| interesting conundrum.
|
| Should a company be forced to pay a license for external IP in
| perpetuity because they once sold licenses the way Adobe did?
|
| If so that will likely only force more businesses down the rabbit
| hole of subscription services.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| _> Should a company be forced to pay a license for external IP
| in perpetuity because they once sold licenses the way Adobe
| did?_
|
| This shouldn't require a perpetual license. Adobe should have
| been able to license the software for as long as they were
| selling Lightroom 6, with the license expiring when they ceased
| sales.
|
| This, of course, assumes a sane license. Something is
| profoundly wrong with your licensing terms if they require the
| addition of a timed killswitch hidden in software installed on
| customers' devices.
| worik wrote:
| "with the license expiring when they ceased sales."
|
| So the customer, who bought the thing - a binary code that
| runs on a computer - has to stop using it when the vendor
| decides?
|
| This is why I am a Free Software advocate, one reason among
| many
| wmf wrote:
| If you're selling a perpetual license obviously you need
| perpetual licenses for all your dependencies.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Licensing and support seem reasonable to separate out.
|
| Something like this sounds totally reasonable to me (I've
| just written this for the sake of discussion):
|
| _This product utilizes services that may cease to function
| in the future; if they cease to function prior to X we will
| repair them._
|
| It would end up being a bad thing for everybody if it isn't
| possible to limit future support (as part of the initial
| transaction).
| wmf wrote:
| The face recognition sounds like it isn't a service, just a
| library that was only licensed for five years.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Right, so just put software and services in the
| paragraph. I doubt this is the license in question, but
| the warranty terms here
| https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/eula/lightroom.html
| are _Adobe warrants to the individual or entity that
| first purchases a license for the Software for use
| pursuant to the terms of this agreement that the Software
| will perform substantially in accordance with the
| Documentation for the ninety (90) day period following
| receipt of the Software when used on the recommended
| operating system and hardware configuration._
|
| Which isn't a whole lot better than "good luck".
| hobby-coder-guy wrote:
| What do you mean by your question?
| MAGZine wrote:
| They shouldn't be including expiring software in something that
| they sold as perpetual.
|
| This sounds like a class-action waiting to happen. Your users
| bought your software with a specific usecase and premise, and
| it stopped working.
| [deleted]
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| Completely agree. They essentially sold something they didn't
| have the rights to.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I read it as "should business be responsible for decisions it
| makes" or "should a business satisfy its contractual
| obligations". I feel it simplifies the matter greatly.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Should a company be forced to pay a license for external IP
| in perpetuity because they once sold licenses the way Adobe
| did?_
|
| Companies shoud mark it with huge red warning letters when they
| have a time-limited licensed tech in a product they sell you a
| "perpetual" license for.
| Groxx wrote:
| Huh. Did the ToS / other sale media mention that this was a time-
| limited feature?
|
| I _have_ seen things like google maps integrations listed with
| expiration dates on non-subscription software. It 's unfortunate
| for users, but I do think it's reasonable for some of these
| "depends on a third party" features to expire (or when they
| change APIs), as otherwise it's implying perpetual upkeep, which
| will absolutely not happen. It just needs to be communicated...
| and crashing the program when that occurs is just plain
| inexcusably bad.
| ksec wrote:
| - Off Topic :
|
| Why Apple kept Final Cut Pro and killed Aperture is beyond me.
|
| Still no news from Affinity LR replacement.
| pmlnr wrote:
| Leave it. Rawtherapee, darktable, digikam are all excellent, open
| source raw (and sometimes more) editors.
|
| Hugin ( http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ ) can create brilliant
| panoramas, even from a bad batch.
|
| Note: there is still no alternative to PS, given it's both a
| raster and a vector editor.
| sneak wrote:
| Darktable is anything but "excellent", and has been, in my
| view, unusable for close to ten years.
|
| One tiny example: https://github.com/darktable-
| org/darktable/issues/7332
| nbzso wrote:
| "Note: there is still no alternative to PS, given it's both a
| raster and a vector editor." Actually this is the core idea
| behind Affinity Designer and I use it in my design workflow
| exclusively. Using Photoshop or Illustrator at this point in
| time is simply the power of habit. There are specific
| functionalities that are better, but in general are non
| business critical at all.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPXGLr95nN8
| ognarb wrote:
| I hope one day Krita developers could improve their vector
| layers. Krita is already great for raster graphics, but the
| vector layers is not polished at the same level. But I
| understand that Krita small workforce can't focus on
| everything, so the only solution is to either contributewith
| code or with money to the project.
| pizza234 wrote:
| A few years ago I've tried a couple of alternatives, and
| Lightroom was by far the easiest to use.
|
| If the audience is casual editing (ie. a short time to improve
| a photo, and little user skills), I think Lightroom is
| significantly ahead of the competition - in particular, UX has
| never been a strong point of open source software.
|
| I don't know if the latest years changed the landscape, but I
| suppose not - Adobe kept enhancing Lightroom.
|
| License wise... that's definitely another story (I personally
| preferred when a license was valid for a single major version).
| Jnr wrote:
| Sadly those mentioned open source products are still light
| years away from what Lightroom can offer.
|
| It is like comparing Gimp to Photoshop. Yes, they can do some
| of it, but they can't do it better or even close to that if
| you are serious at what you do.
|
| I am a developer, I have been Linux user for years and
| photography is my hobby. I periodically try some Lightroom
| "alternatives" in hopes of finding something good, but they
| are still nowhere near of replacing it. And with the limited
| budget they will probably never be as good.
|
| I know only one great open source software example in the
| arts field, and that software is Blender. Blender can
| probably do it because they have been receiving millions in
| donations from major game development companies in the recent
| years. Unless something similar happens in the field of
| photography, I don't think we'll be able to get away from
| proprietary software soon.
| nbzso wrote:
| You are right for this use case. If you are willing to
| remove this pain, there is different approach for
| photography in general. The Old School idea of "all must be
| done in camera". When you use this methodology there are
| two problems that really have consequence: 1. RAW/
| Demosaicing and Metadata/File organisation. And for this
| alternatives are sufficient.
| dmcy22 wrote:
| I recently upgraded to an M1 Mac after my 2016 MacBook Pro died.
| It's an awesome machine; however, when I tried to install
| Lightroom 6, I wasn't able to because the installer isn't 64 bit.
| As a hobbyist who edits photos only a handful of times a year -
| usually after trips or photoshoots - moving to a subscription
| model is really costly. What's silly is that I was able to use
| Lightroom 6 on my 2016 MBP, even after upgrading to Big Sur. I
| don't blame Adobe for not supporting a product that came out 5
| years ago but how nice would it be if they did.
| errantspark wrote:
| Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I absolutely hate the SaaS
| model, the incentives are never in your favor as a customer.
|
| In case anyone is looking to ditch Lightroom I can't recommend
| the FOSS alternative RawTherapee strongly enough. It's got a
| number of features I now find indispensable. I particularly find
| it easy to use to get that nice rounded off highlight quality
| film has using RT. I made the swap years ago and have never
| missed LR.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Does it have a good catalog module? I use LR 99% for
| organization and only do basic touch up. My requirements for a
| replacement would be an excellent import/export/organizer and a
| decent raw converter.
| nbzso wrote:
| My view as a serious hobby photographer is simple. No Adobe
| products in my life. Period. There are things that are logical
| with subscription plan, servers, cloud, collaboration
| functionality. Designing creative software with dark UX is Adobe
| business model. In the past their software was highly overpriced
| but you can have a lifespan of 3-4-5 years with updates. The
| reason that people are falling in Adobe Subscriptions trap was
| the notion that there is no alternative. But there is, Affinity,
| Capture One, Darktable - free, Raw Therapy- free, and more. I
| have invested in platform independent metadata workflow since
| Apple killed Aperture and left photographers in Adobe hell. Side
| note: One of the reasons people to shoot film is focus on
| creative process without complicated software relationships. Can
| you imagine if you are an artist and your brush must have
| subscription license and to crash without internet connection?
| This is the future according to software companies. Services,
| services, services:)
| rgbrenner wrote:
| Sold for $150, released in April 2015. End of life was Dec 2017.
| 3 years after that it breaks. Eh.. 5.5 years is a good run. Do
| people really expect software to work forever after it's reached
| end of life? Even with Windows updates? And hardware changes?
| What does "end of life" mean to people if it doesn't mean what
| the words say?
| gruez wrote:
| >Do people really expect software to work forever after it's
| reached end of life?
|
| Yes, actually. Office 97 still works on windows 10[1].
|
| >Even with Windows updates? And hardware changes?
|
| But neither of them occurred. The software simply stopped
| working after a certain timespan has passed. If it broke
| because a because of a OS update that's understandable, but
| because an arbitrary date has passed, that's less
| understandable.
|
| [1]
| https://old.reddit.com/r/abandonware/comments/9tfgtb/office_...
| ratww wrote:
| After OS Updates and Hardware updates? Not really. That's why I
| use VMs and emulators.
|
| After the clock changing? Of course.
| wnoise wrote:
| Yes. Bits don't wear out.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Uhh, yes. I don't expect any product I buy to suddenly stop
| working, unless it is defective or a wear-and-tear item that is
| expected to wear out. Software has no moving parts and
| therefore should not wear out, so it should work until I no
| longer need it.
|
| Imagine if a hammer had a time bomb that destroyed itself after
| the manufacturer's arbitrary "end of life" date. That would be
| totally unacceptable.
| Closi wrote:
| I think people buying a "perpetual" licence might not expect it
| to work forever, but at the same time could rightly expect that
| it was licenced indefinitely.
|
| If you buy software you expect all the dependencies to be
| licensed with the same timespan as the product. The issue here
| is that the dependencies weren't perpetually licenced, but the
| software was, which is pretty bullshitty.
| therouwboat wrote:
| Yeah, I expect software to work for longer than 5 years. MS
| works hard to keep software running and I may still have same
| computer that I had 5 years ago, so why wouldn't it work?
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