by _SiD_ » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:59 am
That's that then.
FFH are obviously under obligation to offer this settlement to it's members in an impartial manner. I can appreciate this. I'll decline Adobe's offer, thanks anyway but i'll take my patronage elsewhere. Thanks to the FFH team for taking it this far.
All the speculation about 'releasing the code' 'forcing adobe to redevelop FH' can at last be put to one side. The positive thing is it can now move on. That's a real positive!
Here's the state of play.
1. Freehand is gone. So nothing has really changed.
2. No one really wants to get sucked into Adobe's overpriced, bloated, poorly supported, poorly developed products. No real change there either.
3. People don't want Freehand per se. They want a sensible, intelligent, user friendly vector app that 'does what Freehand did', can open their legacy work, talk to other apps and has a future, reasonably priced, open sourced (? maybe), responsive development, etc. Again, no change.
4. Through this forum FFH has managed to band together over 6000 skilled, highly experienced vector artists, each one with more than 20 years working, talking, tweaking, discussing the finer points of vector apps. This is new. This is 6000+ beta testers. 6000+ potential investors. This is a chance to move this away from the tired Freehand v Illustrator debate.
Here are the options.
1. Keep talking to Adobe and try and improve AI.
Realistically it's not an option, for me anyway.
2. Kickstart a new App.
Let's say 6000 users pledged $100. This got you a new app, with the features you want. Open sourced. Responsive.
This could take a while, there may not be a useable App with the features we need for several years.
3. Get behind an existing App.
Take our patronage and 'collectively' get behind the Vector App with the best chance of challenging AI.
With a Kickstarter model - a lesser $20 pledge from 6000 users, take this 'collective investment' ($120,000) and drive through the changes and features the FH community need now. This size of investment may even buy a share in a small company, giving the FFH community a say in the direction of the App. With a company already in place, code in place and a platform to build on a viable alternative could be in place in a fraction of time.
S