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Archive 2016 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available

  
 
jancohen
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p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available


Is it possible the arguments here get lost in the meaning of "perpetual" licensing/ownership?

Perpetual licenses and software maintenance contracts aren't the same thing. Perpetual licenses typically allow a software purchaser to use a software application forever, unless otherwise stated; while software maintenance contracts usually specify that the software vendor will provide support for a purchased product for a limited period of time (e.g., one year), and may include updates as part of their provisions.



Jan 31, 2016 at 05:33 PM
Jeff Donald
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p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available


This a response on another forum from an Adobe employee,

I'm not a lawyer or an accountant, but the idea is subscriptions change how we will be able to do feature bearing updates because of revenue recognition laws. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act prevents new functionality from being added to goods for which the revenues have already been recognized. Because of this we have previously been able to do bug updates with fixes for advertised features, but not add new functionality when we have already recorded the sale. Subscriptions change what may be done in updates because the revenue is recurring in the same time period as the update.

An excellent question is how have other organizations been able to release features without charging for an update? There are a few ways in which this is possible such as deferring revenue by not recording perpetual sales in the period for which free functional updates are given. When a product makes up a tiny fraction of a company's portfolio this may be feasible, but for Adobe the Creative Suite makes up too significant amount for this to be possible.

We've been listening to the feedback that has been provided on our announcements and will have news around some issues raised shortly. We are really excited for what the Creative Cloud allow us to do and are fully committed to using it to deliver value that we could not do by spending more effort on isolated application sales. We will now be able to release awesome new Premiere Pro features when they are ready instead of waiting for other applications, and accelerate integration between our offerings. Please keep the feedback coming, we appreciate hearing your concerns.

--Steve Hoeg, Engineering Manager,

As a former employee of Apple, I can confirm they followed the same accounting principles. Here is a link to a academic paper on SOX,

https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/jbl/articles/volume10/issue4/10U.PA.J.Bus.Emp.Law.955%282008%29.pdf




Jan 31, 2016 at 06:24 PM
butchM
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p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available


Yes, every time this subject is discussed someone eventually trots out the "Sarbanes-Oxley Act" show pony to circle the arena.

Though as with any ambiguous lengthy law, regulation or other legal stipulation ... much of it is left to interpretation ... as can be evidenced in any U.S. court room on any given day such matters are discussed.

Jeff Donald wrote:
As a former employee of Apple, I can confirm they followed the same accounting principles.


This is a classic example of citing a claim that if investigated even in a cursory fashion, reveals there is plenty of evidence to to contradict that statement.

While the Apple accounting department may have been working under SOX ...it's clear that other departments may not have been so encumbered.

1. Aperture 3 was introduced on Feb. 9, 2010 and received it's last update in Oct. 16, 2014 about the time Yosemite became an official release. Throughout that four year period, Apple added much new functionality and features along the way and never charged any additional fees.

2. Final Cut Pro X was introduced on June 21, 2011 and has had 18 updates, the most recent v10.2.2 released Sept. 4, 2015. Even if one considers that FCP X was released prematurely and a little short of a few established tools expected in a NLE ... there have been several substantial new additions to FCP X that one would surely deem worthy of the SOX qualifier. Heck, just the 3-D text feature that came in v10.2 alone would clear the bar for one.

It's these contradictions that cause more confusion rather than clarity. I'm not denying that SOX is the rule by which Adobe conducts business ... but it doesn't hold water in other instances.

Regardless, for this discussion on whether Lr 6 users are being deprived, SOX is immaterial. The details for both licensing models is clearly spelled out and the end user should be well aware of those details before they purchase either license. The inclusion of receiving new features in CC is an incentive to subscribe (as per meeting the requirements of SOX) ... withholding those features is not a punishment for not subscribing as perpetual users would not have received them early if CC did not exist.



Feb 01, 2016 at 08:05 PM
Jeff Donald
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p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available


Obviously you didn't read the academic article I provided the link for. It make it easier for you to understand, here's the first paragraph.

"In 2006, Apple began shipping certain Mac computers without informing customers that the computers were equipped with the latest innovation in wireless technology, the 802.11n wireless card. Later, Apple revealed that these computers were enabled to use the wireless card, but that customers would have to pay $1.99 to download software to activate the technology. In response to customer demands for an explanation, an Apple spokesperson explained that, due to accounting rules mandated by federal corporate governance law, the company was required to charge a nominal fee for the software because it had already recognized revenue on the computers when they first began to ship.1 This incident demonstrates that there is a subtle yet powerful relationship between innovation and corporate governance."

The key is when a company chooses to recognize the revenue of products. Adobe feels they are not in a position to defer the venue. It's not a hard concept to understand. On some products Apple may defer the revenue, such as the software you reference. But on hardware, the hit may have been too much and raised an eyebrow from investors and regulators. Software makes up a very small portion of their business, for example they been giving away OS X for years, what was the last paid release, Snow Leopard? You really ought to read the article if you want a better understanding of all the issues these tech companies are facing.



Feb 01, 2016 at 10:20 PM
butchM
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p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available


Jeff Donald wrote:
You really ought to read the article if you want a better understanding of all the issues these tech companies are facing.


I think I have a better understanding than you give me credit for. By your own assertion, you first pointed out that Apple and Adobe implement SOX in their accounting practices as though they both doing the same thing ... Now you are agreeing that both Apple and Adobe adhere to SOX in different manners. Now do you get my point about SOX being an ambiguous accounting regulation? If the law is the law ... shouldn't both companies have to implement the accounting procedure in the same manner .... no matter what percentage of their business comes from the sale of software?

As I indicated earlier, ALL laws, regulations, ordinances and other such legal rules are open to interpretation. The article is another exercise in futility to some extent because different companies implement SOX in different ways. Put 16 lawyers in the same room with your "academic article" and you will hear 24 different opinions as to the the proper legal definition of SOX and how it should be adhered to.

Not to mention you cite a quote from the article about a situation in 2006 ... and I shared with you two examples of separately purchased pro software (not OS software that ships with the hardware) that transpired since 2010 that contradict your premise. I'm always amazed by the contortions some folks are willing to execute when trying to explain the differences in the law and the laws of physics between San Jose and Cupertino ...

I'm not exactly sure I am the one having difficulty understanding just what trick that SOX pony is supposed to perform ...



Feb 01, 2016 at 11:38 PM
ubjuris
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p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available


blurredvision wrote:
Would you bitch if you still had LR5 and LR6 was getting these features? If not, then be quiet. Just as LR5 and LR6 are different products, LR6 and LRCC are different products. You are entitled to get what you pay for, nothing more. If you don't want to pay the LRCC price, then you won't get those features, simple as that.

I simply cannot understand why you or anybody feels so damn entitled to shit you didn't make.



It appears to me that the argument is being made that LR6 was purchased as a concurrent release with LRCC with the sole difference being pricing models and not in functionality. At least that is how I understood it as well. I think saying someone feels "entitled" because they were looking forward towards the incremental releases that are usually release for programs between versions, and has been release by Adobe in the past, is questionable.



Feb 02, 2016 at 12:09 AM
butchM
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p.2 #7 · p.2 #7 · Lightroom CC 2015.4 / 6.4 now available


ubjuris wrote:
It appears to me that the argument is being made that LR6 was purchased as a concurrent release with LRCC with the sole difference being pricing models and not in functionality. At least that is how I understood it as well. I think saying someone feels "entitled" because they were looking forward towards the incremental releases that are usually release for programs between versions, and has been release by Adobe in the past, is questionable.


But that is just the whole point ... there is much more different than pricing models between Lr6 and Lr CC. Adobe made this abundantly clear in their marketing and the EULA for both options.

Lr 6 users ARE receiving the same exact form of "incremental releases" (as in bug fixes, new camera RAW support and new lens correction profiles) as they always have. Nothing has changed in that manner.

For example, Lr 6.4 users received nearly everything CC received in the 2015.4 except for the new Boundary Warp feature. To indicate that Lr 6 users are not receiving these updates is a false premise.

When it comes to new features ... Lr 6 users will have to wait until v7. Just like Lr 5 users had to wait for v6 to be released. That hasn't changed either.

If you understood differently, you didn't read the EULA for Lr 6 or compare it to the EULA for CC.



Feb 02, 2016 at 09:19 AM
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