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Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

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Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#981

Post by panick21_ »

hedgehog wrote: post #562
panick21_ wrote: post #556

Since this is a thread of Adobe and some people might know this: In the late 80s and 90s many of the window managers were based on PostScript. Sun News was an extension of PostScript and Next was based on Display PostScript. How did licensing work back then. Could Sun have OpenSource News? I mean it did implement PostScript but my understanding is they were not using actual Adobe code.

I don't know specifically but it was bad enough that Apple decided to rework OS X before they shipped.

I never read anything about why they did it. Next developed Display PostScript with Adobe back in the day.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#982

Post by panick21_ »

grishka wrote: post #596
panick21_ wrote: post #556

Since this is a thread of Adobe and some people might know this: In the late 80s and 90s many of the window managers were based on PostScript. Sun News was an extension of PostScript and Next was based on Display PostScript. How did licensing work back then. Could Sun have OpenSource News? I mean it did implement PostScript but my understanding is they were not using actual Adobe code.

Is it even possible to license a standard? Not a particular implementation, but the standard itself, like a file format or a network protocol.

I don't know if there were libraries or things like that provided by Adobe that was included in News.

> Is it even possible to license a standard?

Its the age old question of software interfaces right?

My assumption would that if Sun had their own implementation with no code from Adobe, they should be able to open it up. But unlike that that is something Adobe would have liked.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#983

Post by spiderice »

true_religion wrote: post #975
veritas20 wrote: post #974

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the examples that you site, the acquisitions were complementary additions. In this case, Adobe already has a competing product suite.

In the YouTube example, Google already had in house tech. Google videos even continued to run for a few more years.

Why are we just taking for granted that the Youtube acquisition wasn't anti-competitive? There is a reason that Youtube hasn't had any competitors in the 15 years that Google bought it. It's because video can't be done as cheaply as Youtube does it, unless you have an entirely separate industry propping it up. Selling on product at a massive loss and propping it up with a separate industry is anti-competitive.

Nobody can compete on Youtube-style video unless they first create Google. If that isn't true, where are the competitors? TikTok is the first one to even resemble a competitor, but it took 17 years and even that isn't really the same thing.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#984

Post by webworker »

wildrhythms wrote: post #821
tristanb wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I considered putting Adobe in a VM because i didn't want the 30,000 extra processes running when I install it. Its embarrassingly fragmented and bad. I absolutely dread the moment when I need to install CS on my new machine.

How the hell did Photoshop get so bloated? The featureset hasn't changed all that much since CS3 era, and yet CS3 ran at half the memory and at twice the speed. What the hell happened?

They were still using the native ui frameworks back then. Look at the widgets (buttons, etc)

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#985

Post by imbnwa »

hn2017 wrote: post #780

I think it's hilarious how many libertarian-minded people want government to step in with an anti-trust lawsuit but in everything else, they want no involvment with government. hmm..

I mean this is HN, never forget the 'Netflix for Black People' thread

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#986

Post by rglover »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #944
rglover wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not anti-competitive because there are plenty of other options available (and anyone can go and make their own if they're willing to invest the time). Anti-competitive would assume that there's no other viable option or means for replacement. FWIW, I think Adobe is a shit company but calling daddy government in to thump them for (presumably) taking away or breaking the favorite toy sets a terrible precedent. If…

> but calling daddy government I pay for them, I may as well try to get them to do something that benefits me for the astronomical taxes I'll be paying this year.

Giving them more power isn't the way to do that. It hurts you long-term because you're basically saying that individuals/companies are not responsible enough to make decisions on their own (and need the government to step in).

Today they're helping you, tomorrow they're increasing your taxes to pay for their "increased efforts in policing anti-competitive behavior in private industry."

It's a beach made of quicksand.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#987

Post by slt2021 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #979
slt2021 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with Nginx being acquired by F5 Networks. Nginx really ate their lunch and were rewarded handsomely for that

How was Nginx affecting F5’s business?

nginx is widely used as a free and opensource load balancer for web apps, which is bread and butter of F5's BIG-IP business..

why buy big hardware appliance as a load balancer, if a VM with nginx can do the same trick?

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#989

Post by FractalHQ »

shabbatt wrote: post #525
FractalHQ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. This is going to do tangible damage to my daily life as someone who opens Figma daily. I also spend time hunting rogue Adobe spyware processes in activity monitor daily. Adobe destroys everything they touch and Figma was finally innovating despite them. I hope we get real anti trust laws someday.

but are you willing to walk away from your current job where your employer won't share your sentiments? Are they going to switch to a Figma alternative because of ideology and emotions tied to the change in ownership? Isn't it more likely that the product will work as is and businesses won't face any direct interruption because owner changed? I think Adobe made a smart decision, businesses are locked in and unlikely…

I’m a freelancer so I have the luxury of choice here, but I agree there is likely not much that will change until Adobe cripples Figma enough for an alternative to surpass it significantly.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#990

Post by zjaffee »

ulfw wrote: post #904
bears-n-beets wrote: post #648

As a current software engineer at Adobe, I was really disappointed when I got the internal email announcing this this morning. It's reminiscent of Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior in the early 00s. Figma is the better product and Adobe knows it - but instead of using that to light a fire under them and work harder to create a better product, Adobe just used its deep pockets to make the problem go away. I was alre…

What a weird way of looking at things. Microsoft bought Powerpoint, bought Excel basically too. There wouldn't be an Office suite otherwise. Google bought Keyhole, there wouldn't be a Google Maps otherwise. Google bought Youtube. They couldn't win with Google Video. Google bought Android. etc etc etc This is how the industry works. In general.

Adobe shouldn't be compared to Microsoft or Google, or hell even Salesforce, which are really good at integrating new companies into their existing suite of tools.

Adobe is comparable to Oracle or IBM, where acquisitions mean the death of product innovation as Adobe has a hard time attracting and retaining engineers to the same degree as the above companies.

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