Earlier today we brought word that Adobe’s CS2 suite of apps were, rather suddenly, free to download and install. It now transpires that we were misinformed.
Adobe employee Dov Isaacs took to the Adobe forum earlier this evening to say that Adobe are ‘absolutely not’ giving away free copies of Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2 or any other part of the Adobe Creative Suite – CS2 or otherwise.
Which is disappointing, but a better fit for the laws of reality as we know them!
A full statement on the drama is expected by Adobe execs in the coming hours.
Who’s To Blame?
If you read about the news, spread the news, and got excited by the news via this site than I am to blame.
But before you reach into your bag of rotten fruit, ready to unleash a messy, if healthy, form of vengeance at us I can take solace in the fact that we were not alone in getting caught up in the news.
Gizmodo, Forbes.com and CNet, along with a host of smaller tech and photography-orientated websites, also pimped news of the freebie to their readers.
Admittedly, alarm bells should’ve rung. This is Adobe, after-all. They’re not known for their generosity, especially if it might benefit Linux users…
So What Happened?
It seems someone, somewhere got confused by Adobe’s termination of the activation services for various parts of the CS2 suite. With these servers being taken offline those with existing valid serial numbers wouldn’t be able to re-install their paid-for apps on another computer.
To prevent this happening Adobe created a new set of CS2 installers for existing customers should they ever need to re-install. These updated apps could be ‘activated’ by using the special serial number provided on the download page.
In short, only those who have already bought CS2, or are somehow in possession of a valid CS2 license number, were legally entitled to download the installers.
The rest of us were not.
So how did a perfectly legitimate set of installers for existing customers end up engulfing the internet under the banner of a ‘free for all’?
Chances are we’ll never know.
But if this incident shows Adobe anything, it’s that their software, even when it’s 7 year old, is still popular.