An update from Affinity and Canva on the acquisition of Affinity/Serif by Canva. They have made 4 pledges, including to maintain perpetual licenses.
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cough cough
Once bitten twice shy.
I would like to believe the pledges were positive news. But Affinity has already broken their promise on acquisition, so I’m having a hard time now taking their word on licensing.
What was the context for this? Were they denying rumors of a 2022 acquisition?
Long story short:
- They pledge to keep the status quo. (IE perpetual licenses in new versions)
- Development is going to speed up.
- Subscriptions are 99% coming. (Albeit optional at least at the start)
- Free in schools. (IE training new artists in the Canva ecosystem. So they can be milked later. Here’s a personal anecdote: Maya, the paid 3D alternative to Blender is free in schools. Come out of school and it’s 235$ a month)
&
- Now throw all those pledges out because words mean nothing. This is not a partnership, this is an acquisition, and unless the contract is provided for us, in writing of the agreed upon terms. Nothing else matters but the actions that we’ll see in the near future.
This pledge isn’t worth the bits its written on.
Just got this email. It’s better news at least but I’m not totally convinced by it just yet.
Hahahahaha.
In 5 years time they’ll whittle the pledges down a bit.
In 10 they’ll remove it altogether.
Well, at least they’re not being purchased by Adobe.
“At least it’s not Adobe” is such a cope.
For sure. When they had our livelihood by the balls because ‘industry staaaandaaaard’ then they stick it in a perpetually cranking vice called subscription model, we reach for any cope available. Its been decent cope and now we need a new cope.
inkscape needs more contributions, both financially and in the way of code.
The new advanced snapping system is as good or better than Affinity, path effects are an experimental feature that allows you to do batch shaping of a paths nodes using logical and mathematical parameters, CMYK support has landed and Inkscape is charting it’s own SVG standard specifically for vector graphics, design and drawing.
The font handling was my biggest gripe, but even that’s gotten better.
Besides the lack of art boards and certain other “nice to have’s”, I think I’ll be switching to Inkscape as a replacement.
Or what? If they back down do they execute the executives in charge? This means nothing.
