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Adobe Creative Cloud and virtualization

T

Thuleman

Supreme [H]ardness
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Apr 13, 2004
Messages
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So everyone, their children, and their pets, are up in arms about the new extortion scheme of Adobe licensing. For the uninitiated; it's subscription based, you no longer own the software forever and ever.

The same people keep telling me that Adobe explicitly prohibits running their products in a virtualized environment. I am aware that as of the CS6 product line Adobe's stance is/was that virtualization is not supported but that there was no provision that one wasn't allowed to do it.

I have been looking around on The Google for a bit and wasn't able to find any info that says that running Adobe Creative Cloud in a VDI (for example) would be prohibited. In fact, I just read some VMware whitepaper that specifically mentioned results of running Adobe Photoshop in VDI.

The point is; VDI would be a great way to avoid Adobe taking our organization hostage with the subscription licensing model. Just buy enough licenses for a few VDIs and have people pull them up when necessary as opposed to licensing every single desktop even though some users only need Adobe products every once in a blue moon. I'd love to tell Adobe to just go and screw themselves for making such a ridiculous license change and it would be trivial for us (and I expect others as well) to simply give up Adobe products altogether, but there really isn't a proper alternative for InDesign. All other apps are easy to replace with low cost or open source alternatives.
 
If you were upgrading consistently, the subs are not that bad. I really dont like being locked to a sub, but in this case it is not a horrible deal.
 
I did read the EULA, or at least I searched it for "virtual" and the word came up exactly once as a full or partial match. So where exactly does it say that I can't run it on VDI?

See:
http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/#creativeCloud
http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/Gen_WWCombined-MULTI-updated.pdf

Grentz said:
If you were upgrading consistently, the subs are not that bad. I really dont like being locked to a sub, but in this case it is not a horrible deal.
Click to expand...

The subs are terrible for organizations because we were able to previously pool the licenses whereas now for Creative Cloud each install ticks away from the installs available.
So we went from install on 8,000 machines and have 500 floating licenses to having to pay for 8,000 subs (which obviously won't happen).
 
Section 2.1.7.1 looks relevant.

Doesn't sound like they're preventing you from running it in VDI, but you would have to purchase a license for each possible user (not each concurrent user).
 
Right. Most EULAs prevent "pooling" licenses. A license is usually for a specific, named, user. It's not a floating license. Therefore you'd need to buy a license/sub for each user that will use the software. Not for the maximum concurrent users.
 
I am not a lawyer, but 2.1.7.1 talks about installs on a server. In a VDI case the software is not installed on a server but on a desktop.

Considering that VDI didn't just spring up as a concept yesterday it's surprising that Adobe didn't include a blurb on desktop virtualization into what they knew had to be a highly controversial licensing change for their latest product.

I know that our organization will actually burn a bunch of legal payroll time on figuring our what it all means instead of paying the $500,000 Adobe quoted us for 2,400 installs (nevermind that 2,400 installs won't cover all users). Our current license CS6 agreement has 500 floating seats for ~$40,000 per year. The new agreement would take the cost per user from $80 to $208, and would not allow for floating because it would tick away from the 2,400 licenses as soon as someone installs the software. Keep in mind that this is a site license agreement and even there they got rid of floating licenses.

EDIT:
If you think about it, the world is going VDI, on-demand streaming apps, etc., how can a Fortune 1000 company create a licensing model that doesn't support any of this when meanwhile back in reality the technology is moving toward bring-your-own-device, yadda yadda yadda, it's just mind-boggling. I expect that Adobe will go the way of the VMware vTax soon enough when corporate America/World decides that they will just transition to different software rather than put up with such an insane licensing model. Also worth nothing is that the $500k for 2,400 non-floating seats is the result of contact negotiations that have been going on since Q3 2012.
 
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Because Adobe is slowly being diminished by Flash slowly going away. They are just looking for a way to secure more income.

What Vmware Tax? What are you exactly talking about?
 
I don't get the problem. VDI isn't some new magic way of delivering apps. Software, like this, is licensed to a user..not to a desktop. VDI, physical desktop, whatever. You buy a license per user unless it is defined as a "floating license" which always costs more.

This isn't a discussion about VDI. It's a discussion about per-user or per-device licensing and how that's applied.
 
Adobe used to allow concurrent licenses (This made life alot easier) but they do not any more. I'm guessing if you assigned a VDI desktop to an user you would be fine. But if its just a pool anybody can log into that would be against the EULA. Or if its just part of the Gold image that everybody gets that would not be kosher.
 
Wrench00 said:
What Vmware Tax? What are you exactly talking about?
Click to expand...

VMWare's failed pricing model for vRAM allocation, lasted for like one version release then they got rid of it.

Adobe should work like all cad programs do, have a central license server with XX number of available licenses, when a user opens an adobe program, it checks out the license.

The concurrent user model is much better than the 1 license = 1 user model.
 
I would love it if they would offer a network license like autocad, my users only need photoshop or indesign maybe 30 minutes a week. I'm not going to buy them each a license for that, so I setup a standalone workstation, they just walk over and use that when they need it.
 
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