OSNews

Activation may not be the optimal solution, but there are more bootleg copies of photoshop running than legit ones. There has to be a way to verify if software is legit or not because computer piracy is a major problem.

But what is this really an indicator of? Adobe losing revenue due to piracy? Or perhaps that there are lots of hobbyists, students, and people learning to use Photoshop that can't (yet) afford it, and so wouldn't buy it anyway.

For example: I used Photoshop when I was a teenager. Really, I used it for pretty much nothing, just screwing around. But all that screwing around meant that I knew how to use Photoshop, and I eventually became a graphic/web designer. Since then, I've had 3 copies of Photoshop purchased by companies for me to use, and I've purchased 2 copies myself. That's 5 copies that wouldn't have been purchased (or might not have been) if I hadn't had a free copy to screw around with when I was a kid.

You say that you don't want the headaches? What headaches? You only need to take 5 minutes each time your legit software is installed, which should not be that often. I don't see why your make such a big deal.

First of all, this ignores that most corporations use some sort of imaging to roll out their machines (my company rolls out Macs using CCC), so depending on the activation process, it means you have to install the whole system fresh with each machine. That's a headache. Maybe they'll make a "corporate version" which will allow you to not-activate or something (like Microsoft does), but that completely negates the purpose of activation, in that pirates just pirate the corporate version.

Second, who are you to that installs of legit software "should not be that often"? What if, for some reason, I do have to uninstall, reinstall, uninstall software quite often? Like if you're supporting lots of machines, or if you have a test machine that you reinstall all the software on a semi-regular basis?

Third, what if, when I install it, I don't have ready access to the internet or phone. What if I want to reinstall this software in 5 years-- does Adobe pledge to keep their activation servers working? If so, for how long? 5 years? 10? 20?

Sure, you probably won't need the software anymore by then, or you'll have a newer version, but I don't think that's the point. Adobe is setting up a system whereby you're reliant on their servers in order to install/run the program that you paid good money for. I'm not a big opponent of copy-protection, as long as it doesn't cause any problems or inconvenience for paying customers. I won't pay for a product I have to activate/register for.