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Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

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Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#131
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you then end up with two entirely divergent software ecosystems. As it stands two people, one of whom uses Linux/LibreOffice/GIMP and another who uses Windows/MS Office/Photoshop are able (bar some possible formatting issues) to share data and collaborate together because they can share files via dropbox or USB dongles. Once Photoshop and Office move entirely to the cloud there will no longer necessarily be…

Web intents would allow new competitors to open existing docs.

In a way controlled by yet someone else.

Contrast with files, which I own, can open in anything I want and that I can reverse-engineer in order to write a custom app for them.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#132

And this is the logical conclusion of the death of the 56K baud modem. There was a prophetic (if early) contest at Sun to 'imagine the future' and the winner got a SPARCStation. As a networking guy I tried to imagine what was going to change when the 'big yellow hose' (which is what 10MB Ethernet looked like at the time) came right into your living room. And one of the things that changed was that you could work at '…

This optimistic outlook ignores the pesky reality of latency. Using VNC, X11, or an equivalent protocol over a connectiion to a data center hundreds or thousands of miles away isn't the same as an X terminal connected to a server in the same office buildinig.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power/electricity analogy here is what's really key - there will come a time when the ubiquity of being "online" will be the same as the ubiquity of "the power is on." It's so prevalent in modern society we really don't think about it. It took me a while to realize that this is where Google is headed with ChromeOS/Chromebooks. Ultimately, "applications/apps" will not exist, there will just be the web and all pers…

It's not awesome at all. It's the death of personal computing. What to use Photoshop? Pay a perpetual monthly fee forever, with no control over which version of the software you are using. Adobe jacked up the price this year for the new version despite a lack of new features? Tough, nothing you can do about it. It's either pay up or lose access. The new version is buggy? Tough luck. Want to modify any of the software…

Why do you feel entitled to use proprietary software with no restrictions?

Yes, Adobe and Microsoft are going to charge you rent. So what? Just use free (as in freedom) software instead. Adobe and Microsoft were never your friends, and if you feel bad about this recent development I don't know why you were using their software in the first place. They were always looking for a way to do this to you, all that's changed is that they've figured out how.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#134
post #21

I am little bit concerned about the way technology trends these days. It feels like sooner or later, big companies will have all the hardware and software hosted on their side and people will only get access to play it according to companies rules. This is actually a concern to my freedom as well. I want to own my hardware and software power. I want to run everything offline if i want to. I don't want to click "I agr…

Except you don't own most software you have on your machine locally. You agree to a license to use it.

It's a theoretical/legal thing. In practice, you own software by having executables on your drive. You don't have to ask anyone whether you're allowed to run it or not. If authors have the audacity to enforce some checks on you, you can go ahead and crack the app. It's still code saved and running on your local machine.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#135

And this is the logical conclusion of the death of the 56K baud modem. There was a prophetic (if early) contest at Sun to 'imagine the future' and the winner got a SPARCStation. As a networking guy I tried to imagine what was going to change when the 'big yellow hose' (which is what 10MB Ethernet looked like at the time) came right into your living room. And one of the things that changed was that you could work at '…

This optimistic outlook ignores the pesky reality of latency. Using VNC, X11, or an equivalent protocol over a connectiion to a data center hundreds or thousands of miles away isn't the same as an X terminal connected to a server in the same office buildinig.

While I entirely agree and preach latency often, there are two major points I would like to make:

1) Remote computing doesn't have to use X11. The local machine can do some of the lifting. Wolfram Alpha on mobile phones is a good example of this- a server does the crunching, but neither is the client side a dumb terminal.

2) I cross my fingers that one day latency will be prioritized more... IMO the majority of latency problems are not caused by the limits of physics, but rather the simple fact that not many people care about it.

The theoretical peak ping speed across the USA & back is something like 20ms, an entirely reasonable figure for remote computing- if only it was ever anywhere close to realized.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno... all of this sounds like fearmongering and some of these things are perfectly analogous to the way stuff already works. For example: "Want to continue using SuperAwesomeApp? Too bad..." Want to continue using TwitPic? Too bad. Obsolescence happens, companies shut down, products go off the market and cease to be supported every day. This isn't new. If there's enough demand for an alternative, it will happen.…

> Photoshop used to be a product, now its a service. This isn't an "injustice" it's normal business. Well, it isn't injustice. But it doesn't change the fact that this sucks, very badly. The thing about personal computing was that when a company goes out of business, the software they made still remains on machines. It can be 3rd-party-patched. File formats can be reverse-engineered, so that you can use your data wit…

A small silver lining may exist in a combination of open isolation platforms like Qubes OS / Genode and "cloudlets", http://elijah.cs.cmu.edu, http://qubes-os.org, http://genode.org

Latency / Speed of light is still a major factor in human-quality UX, even with GPU virtualization. Qubes/Genode can isolate "DRM zones" from "freedom zones" on the personal computer. DRM zones can run Adobe / Microsoft / Google / Netflix cloudlets and algos, with local caches that are DRM protected. User benefits from improved UX.

Freedom zones can run open software that secures user data and requires the cloudlets to use network-isolated sandboxes when they need access to user data. If the user wants to sell/lease their data to a cloudlet, then an audited copy is allowed to leave the local PC, moving to the public cloud.

Many permutations are possible in a multi-tenant client architecture. The key is to support the coexistence of open and closed enclaves on the same local device (a home server/bridge), isolated by hardware-assisted security that has an _open_ architecture TCB and root of trust.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#138
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web intents would allow new competitors to open existing docs.

In a way controlled by yet someone else. Contrast with files, which I own, can open in anything I want and that I can reverse-engineer in order to write a custom app for them.

I realize that I'm going to be a bit pedantic here, and it is not an argument I would support, but your statement *"Contrast with files, which I own ..." which is only true in a limited sense. If you have a book, in a file, which is stored on your device for your Kindle app, Amazon will tell you that you don't own it, what you "own" is a right to view it in the Kindle app for as long as your maintain your side of the agreement and Amazon doesn't feel like using one of their escape clauses.

Now I completely get how crazy that makes people, who argue "I paid money, I got this thing, I own it." but the only reason that it is in a "file" today is because Amazon hasn't figured out how to give you access to it without giving you a file. Nothing in the Adobe announcement changes anything, except that it provides for them, what they consider to be a better implementation of their rights management paradigm. Again, I don't condone or support it, but it's important to note that their thinking hasn't changed, only their implementation has. This also helps them to avoid you reverse engineering their files which they don't like because it allows you to circumvent their rights management tools. Again, I don't condone or support, just report.

So what may happen here is that something which has some value to a person, will be put outside their reach behind a price they are unwilling to pay. I understand that this situation sucks, but on the positive side it adds energy to the 'free' side of the equation because if there really is value there, it is only extractable if stealing is less easy than paying, and paying is at a market price that can support the energy of making it available. That price may be in programmer hours, not necessarily in dollars.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe has spent decades worrying about color accuracy in their applications in every path it can take to your eyeball and they're not just going to screw up the last hop because it didn't occur to them to take the effect of whatever remoting technology they're using into account.

Based on the backlash over Creative Cloud, I don't think they really care.

Has there been backlash over color accuracy in Creative Cloud?

Because there are a lot of things Adobe might not care about as much as you'd like- but color accuracy is one of the things they care about A LOT.

(I spent a summer working in an art computing lab, nearly every minute of which was spent managing color accuracy)

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#140
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids in the first world having access to mobile broadband at speeds and prices that make Photoshop-as-a-service feasible on their chromebooks is explicitly not awesome unless you're one of those privileged kids. This is a "rich get richer" situation that is developing. The problem with the centralized model is that it rather fucks over even people in developing or under-developed countries, and also places like, say,…

I don't see how lowering the barrier to entry (access to tech) has any impact on the "rich getting richer".

Do you not understand analogies or something?
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