proprietary software eats other proprietary software (canva acquires affinity)

Lounge
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I know some of you are happy affinity users, good luck.

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That means some people are going back to the high seas, or look at FOSS alternatives, or go with Adobe.

I don’t like the current state of FOSS with regards to 2D, but at least GIMP is getting NDE, so I will eventually ditch Krita entirely unless there’s good selection tools. Even doing painting, I just don’t need those fancy settings

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If Affinity were to go away, it’d be a terrible day for the industry. They are the only serious commercial competition for the Adobe suite. Them going away would only entrench Adobe’s quasi-monopoly further.

I very much hope Affinity stays alive. But my hopes are slim. I rather suspect a slow withering away, much like Capture One after they were bought. And Olympus, who haven’t developed a new lens since their acquisition (only re-releases of existing glass with new names).

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I bought the Affinity suite V1 back when there was a sale and have no plans to upgrade to V2 because I find that GIMP + Rawtherapee is what I prefer. The raw developer in Affinity Photo is way behind what rawtherapee can achieve.

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What about the 12-40mm F2.8 PRO II (announced 2022 feb) and the 90mm F3.5 Macro IS Pro (announced 2023 feb)?

That said, it apparently takes 3–4 years to design a new lens. So maybe these were in the pipeline before.

With micro 4/3 being the oldest MILC mount in use, they have pretty much everything covered so I am surprised whenever they make a new one.

Since (AFAIK) Canva has no competing product, I would be surprised if that happened. From the announcement, it looks like they wanted to round out their portfolio of products.

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I also doubt they’ll go away, but I’d guess they’re headed for being part of the canva subscription. Everyone’s favorite.

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Well, maybe they won’ t like it, but this kind of thing happens all the time with proprietary software, so users should not be surprised.

Since no one is going to acquire Emacs or Darktable, my workflow is safe :wink:

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Then one day you wake up to find the guys from vi took over the codebase. :smiley:

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Yeah, there was the announcement followed by a raging furor on the forums and elsewhere, then a damage control follow-up full of assurances. I’m not impugning Ash Hewson’s integrity nor character,* but what he says, wants, promises, etc., factually doesn’t carry much weight as of now. He’s no longer the boss, but rather just another employee subject to the whims of the bean counters behind Canva. They can do what they want, his wishes aside.

* Indeed, could any of us guarantee we’d “stand strong” in the face of an offer of a boatload of cash? I’d like to say I could but… and money isn’t the problem (good for whoever gets it) but rather what will transpire under the new owners. :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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Why would anyone expect that? It is their company and intellectual product, so they can do as they please. Making a useful product and then getting a buyout is a great way to get returns on their investment.

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My point was, I don’t fault them for taking advantage of a buyout offer, from their perspective. But unfortunately the usual aftereffects on product, price and ultimately, the customers are very rarely good.

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The sad thing is, when proprietary software withers and dies, all the engineering once put into it is lost forever.

Which is why, in my opinion, Open Source always wins in the long run. When Open Source is abandoned, it often finds new maintainers, and can rise from the ashes. (this may be less true for end user software than infrastructure).

Also, the need to sell licenses forces a conflict of interest onto commercial software: it needs to change, to justify continued investment, and can’t focus as much on stabilization. Open Source, in contrast, can be complete, with no need to grow beyond big fixes. Where commercial software “stagnates”, OSS “matures”. (again, more true for infrastructure than end user software)

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Ars Technica has an article with some more information:

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I mean of course they say that now…

  1. We aren’t chsnchinf anything, things will always be the same!
  2. We are introducing subscriptions, because customers want it!!
  3. To make things easier, we are getting rid of perpetual licenses
  4. PROFIT!!