Macromedia Sues Adobe, Claims Photoshop Infringes Patent 190
jmorse writes: "According to this article at sfgate.com, Macromedia is suing Adobe for patent infringement, claiming that Adobe's Photoshop and GoLive products violate a patent they filed in 1998. The article is a little short on details, so I'm wondering if there are other sources with more on this patent." Adobe and Macromedia have been skirmishing and counter-skirmishing over patents for some time now. The AP article doesn't say which patent Adobe is supposed to be violating this time, so just pick any random thing that Photoshop does that Macromedia might have patented and express outrage about it. :)
because of NetObjects Fusion?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Heres a little info from NetObjects site:
http://www.netobjects.com/transition/ [netobjects.com]
Looking for more information (Score:3, Interesting)
There is also an article [washingtonpost.com] in the Washington Post which mostly gives the same information we have already but also cites the case more specifically as "Macromedia v. Adobe, C01-3940". So the next step is Findlaw [findlaw.com] which can get us to the web site of, say, the district court for Northern California [uscourts.gov] (disclaimer: I'm not sure that is the right district but it is a decent guess). That web site seems to say there is lots of fascinating information on PACER [uscourts.gov] but that's a pay service. So I think I'm more or less at a dead end (although I didn't try, say, searching the patent databases looking for macromedia owned patents which look plausible).
As for why PACER costs $$$, they answer that on the PACER site as follows:
Re:For those who weren't paying attention.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh really? Would you care to put your code where your mouth is? Here's a nickel, kid, go whip up a working Pantone color-matching scheme for XFree86. (Note to audience: this is funny because it is impossible.)
I'm sorry, but this is just idiotic. The Gimp is a cute toy, and it's certainly replaced Photoshop as the tool of choice among a few hundred people who would never have paid money for Photoshop to begin with. But don't kid yourself that this has anything at all to do with the professional prepress graphics market.
Adobe's hideously inflated prices
Back here on planet earth, we call those "what the market will bear." Looking at Adobe's P/E ratios over the past 5 years, I'd say they've gauged it pretty well.
You know, horrible things like paying the salaries of the (hundreds) of programmers they employ and increasing the value of their (millions) of shareholders.
Yup. He's right. Photoshop has been completely stagnant since version 3.0. That's why the company went bankrupt in 95, and most graphics professionals are using either LivePicture, CorelPaint or The Gimp.
Oh wait, that's bullshit: Adobe has actually consistantly improved the product, and has crushed every major competitor in the market as a result.
Flash could be so much bigger than it is now if it were an open standard.
Current estimates are that over 95% of all web browsers have a flash plugin installed. Most Windows OEMs bundle it, Apple bundles it with MacOS 9 and X, and there's even a linux version available. What, exactly, do you mean by "bigger?" I don't think Macromedia is losing any sleep over the lack of support for the all-important IRIX market.
For shame!
Quite. Do you usually post while in a vegetative state, or was this a one-time-only thing?
they all sux0rz (Score:2, Interesting)
in the end i wish both companies a fist full of nothing and pint urine.
Not a lot of difficulty? My ass. (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the web developers I know consider Flash to be a standards-breaking, improperly used piece of ass. But then, most of the web devs I know are rabid about making damned good and sure that the lowest common denominator can use their site. On a modem.
I'm a professional graphics designer. I live in photoshop. The GIMP - the closest thing that OSS has to a graphics app - is a huge steaming pile of poo compared to the ease of use, power, stability (on a Mac, no less!), and most importantly, USEABILITY of Photoshop (version 5, don't get me started on 6). The GIMP is "almost photoshop", everyone says. We (the graphics community) can NOT use "almost". What we NEED is "Better Than Photoshop".
I've seen a lot of GIMP art. I've seen a lot of Photoshop art. The capacity and useability of GIMP - particularly with regards to fonts, anti-aliasing, color control (emphasis), et. al., is severly lacking. I've seen some mindblowing graphics produced with photoshop.... I have yet to see anything comprable with the GIMP.
A *PROFESSIONAL* graphic design app is a good deal more difficult to execute than a window manager, an office suite, or an IRC client. OSS is almost worthy with Nautilus, barely palatable with word processing, stinks horribly at fonts, has produced a number of excellent IRC clients, and a stable as well as surprisingly portable codebase.
The functionality that graphics people demand isn't there because graphics people don't code and coders don't do graphics (some think they can in both cases, but the evidence supports my statement). Hence, a graphics person that depends on Photoshop has about a 99.9% chance of not knowing a single line of code, and hence, not knowing how to build what he wants to use for free. The issue with OSS is that the "by geeks, for geeks" mentality is simply incapable of producing an application of the quality and caliber of Photoshop- it takes a corporation like Adobe with the money and management to ram the coders and the artists together to get the results necessary to produce a useable application.
If Adobe and Macromedia's killer apps could be "easily replicated" by OSS, then why haven't they been? I don't know a SINGLE graphic designer that works in Linux. I know two that work in Windows. The rest use MacOS- and of the MacOS users, ONE uses OS X , and she runs her apps in Classic. NONE use or recommed the GIMP. Point of fact, it is a common conclusion within the Pittsburgh professional graphics community that the GIMP is very good at making very bad art. Likely due to the fact that "configue / make / make install" and "Orator 24 point/ Soft Light / desaturate/ color balance / variations (blue, two iterations)" involve two completely different sides of the brain.
Photoshop is worth the price tag. It is the ONLY graphics app out there that can do what professionals demand- easily, smoothly, and in a stable fashion (on a Mac- hasn't crashed on me once, minus poorly coded third party plugins). Compared to the price points of comprable video compositing and editing software, Photoshop is CHEAP.
When the GIMP (or comprable app) can use the photshop 5 keyboard shortcuts (and actually DO with equal effectiveness what those shortcuts key to), get color right, support a gazillion fonts, do alpha channels and selections on the flip of a click, read PSD files, launch in under ten seconds, dynamically allocate swap disks (something photoshop doesn't do), AND competently handle a 11x17 @ 600 DPI image with 45 pixel layers and 30 type layers... AND manage five gigs of swap disk without dumping core.... then I'll think about actually seriously using it to do some work.
The day that OSS can produce a useable graphics app - that can be installed in less than five clicks without resorting to a terminal - is the day I cease dual booting.
That day is nowhere near. We'll see another thousand or so IRC clients on sourceforge before we see a Better Than Windows WM, let alone a Better Than Photoshop graphics app.
Re:what about the alternative (Score:2, Interesting)
Copyright Violation (Score:5, Interesting)
From: B.Franklin, Geo. Read, Jaco. Broom et. al.
Dear Sir,
We understand that you are planning to embark on certain legislation that will require the invocation of section eight of the document known as "The Constitution of the United States" [nara.gov], specifically the clause that reads:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
We wish to remind you that this text is covered by modern copyright law. Should you find it necessary to refer to this clause, or any clause of the document, in your pleadings to the court we will require that you pay a reasonable and non-discriminatory fee. This fee will reflect the value of the document to the United States.
We trust that you will contact us before use or publication of our copyrighted material.
Kind Regards,
The Founding Fathers
Re:All I can say is... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a lot closer to 30 than to 14, and I actually use Photoshop in a professional capacity. That qualifies me to speak about it a lot more than an AC who sounds himself like a 14 year old with a chip on his shoulder.
But I never denigrated Photoshop at all. If you reread my post, you'll see that I said either the patent has to be on something Photoshop has been doing for many many years now, or on something minor. To an experienced digital artist, yes, the changes made to Photoshop in the last 3 years since Macromedia filed their patent are pretty minor. And I'd know because I've been using Photoshop a lot since 1995. The biggest changes were made between 95 and 98, rather than between 98 and 01.
As for UI tweaks, they fall into the category of minor changes--I doubt Macromedia is suing Adobe over a UI change. But I wouldn't put it past them. And BTW, the UI tweaks tend to be a distraction for *real* users who've been with the software for a long time, not usually an improvement. The only reason I bother to keep upgrading every once in a while is better performance--one of the drawbacks of closed source software is not being able to recompile it when you get to be a couple of processor generations ahead of what your software was compiled for. But I digress.
Now get back under your rock, trollboy.
Re:It's probably over... (Score:2, Interesting)
In retrospect, the money really isn't all that much.. actually its not much in comparison.
However, I do agree that to pay those prices as a student.. even with the discounts are horrible. Unfortunatly that's how the world works... with anything. A student who studies Graphic Design *has access* to photoshop just like a sound engineer who has access to a mixing console... it's the same thing.
That's why I support this philosophy, however illegal. If I am trying out a product, I will get it as Warez and use it. But if I ever make money for it, I will buy it. Those poor guys who sat there for hours and wrote it deserve some $ back