Adobe now giving away all CS2 products...for free

hi Simon,

many thanks for that clarification.

The problem seems to be where Adobe originally said the downloads were only to help customers with older versions of its products. However, Adobe subsequently removed this notice.

See helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-prici...vation-end-life.html

... but the more recent discussion at www.techsupportalert.com/content/get-ado...e-not-officially.htm digs into the info a bit more ...

John

So here's to the "Grey" area....again....lol

I use CS5.1 Extended anyway, so I won't be downloading CS2 anytime soon. I actually suspect it could also be to entice people to buy the newer version by "Tempting" them with an older product that doesn't do certain things to be told "That feature is available in our latest product"

There is no such thing as software theft, no matter what the copyright owners want you to think.
It may be unlicensed use, but it's certainly not theft. Those are two very very different things.

It's a rather clever move by Adobe - the same process that Microsoft used - where unlicensed use for personal use was always overlooked as it allowed people to become dependent on the software. This releasing of older versions for free has meant that a large group of people now have downloaded Adobe software and will use it regularly, lessening training costs for future employers and raising the profile of the company in the minds of the users.

Personally I thank Adobe for releasing a version that does not require a crack to run. No support offered, but I never expected that from a free version anyway.

So this broke a couple of weeks ago and various media outlets were saying it was a free download. Adobe has since clarified things and most of those articles will now have an update.

The activation servers as John pointed out were taken offline in December. Adobe then got complains from CS2 users that they could not activate their products when they tried to reinstall them. Rather than putting back the activation process for a 10 year old product they provided access keys. There is a post on the adobe forum (sorry cant find the link now) stating clearly that these codes are only for people who have purchased the produced but are unable to activate it.

Anyway we are now at a position where you can technically download CS2 and install it without having paid for it. Given it's very old software then Perhaps Adobe PR have decided that this might not be a bad marketing strategy and so they want you to download it. I suspect that's their current attitude, whether or not that was the intention all along is another matter.

In the absence of a clear press release from Adobe or notice on the download site, it can be taken as, well, download at your own risk Or just download gimp

Thanks for the heads up Simon. Already have a paid version of photoshop but nice to have the use of the full suite

cathalferris wrote: There is no such thing as software theft, no matter what the copyright owners want you to think.
It may be unlicensed use, but it's certainly not theft. Those are two very very different things.

Sorry to take things a little off-track but I just wanted to chime in and say thank you, cathal, for pointing this out. The faster we get away from this idea that you can 'steal' something non-tanglible the better it will be for society as a whole. This is not to say that there is no moral issue but that's a different discussion.

As someone who was trained to use a number of versions of Photoshop I would argue that the reason that Adobe is resistant to fully 'freeing' CS2 is that they recognise that there is not enough difference in functionality between CS2 and CS5+ for the dabbler - which covers most users of the software. Sure, Adobe has added a lot of interesting tools and features between versions but they also have made their software prohibitively expensive for anyone except those paid to use it.

Strictly speaking the GNU Image Manipulation Program* should have been able to fill the niche that CS2 left but it has the problem that it's not 'Photoshop' and thus many people won't consider it.


* As an aside - I tried to bring up the issue of the terrible name with the developers but they're adamant that in certain areas of the western world gimp is not offensive. Therefore, those of us who have an issue with trying to endorse software with an offensive, unprofessional name aren't worth bothering with...