[Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

Tue Jun 26 10:34:59 PDT 2018

Hey Pete,
I can only wish that my company was open-minded enough to allow us to upgrade what we have and even use different tools if so required.
Great explanation from you.
-- Ken in Atlanta

      From: Peter Gold <peter at petergold.photography>
 To: Ken Poshedly <poshedly at bellsouth.net>; An email list for people using Adobe FrameMaker software. <framers at lists.frameusers.com> 
 Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2018 12:34 PM
 Subject: Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

Hi, Ken:
Thanks for the brief trip through memory lane.
As to InDesign as a replacement for FrameMaker for technical publications, IMO one major obstacle to this is that designers, who are its target audience, are predominantly not technical-content authors. The FrameMaker community of users over the years are mostly technical writers who create original content; they also apply these skills to shape the content originated by subject-matter experts across the spectrum of technical and scientific professions, and submitted to them, into usable technical information. In other words, they're language experts, teachers, trainers, instructors, testers, information organizers, fact-checkers, editors and clarifiers, of information, and also technical-document publishers. FM has been the right tool to enable individuals to do both of these complex sets of tasks simultaneously.
It's not that InDesign isn't a good replacement. Since version CS 4, its book and related text-control tools compared well to FM's. But, it's just as difficult to get InDesign users to learn, create, and consistently use paragraph and character text styles (AKA FM "formats",) as it has been historically with Word, WordPerfect, FM, and others. In fact, InDesign has named styles for tables, objects, frames (containers), variables, page layouts, and so on.
But the foundational difference in the user base is that FrameMaker users have been primarily content developers and InDesign users have been primarily content presenters. Different skill sets, different intents. The foundational difference in the use of the tools, I believe, is that FrameMaker document sets are often created with the expectation that there will be future revisions, which informs their design, structure, methods, and organization. InDesign document sets are more often seen as one-time productions. So, there's a cultural difference about ongoing maintenance and revision, more due to the mindsets of the users, than to requirements of the tools. It is possible to progress from FrameMaker to InDesign as a corporate technical-documentation publishing system, but it shouldn't become mandatory because FrameMaker was intentionally killed off.
Progress is always slow and fast, depending on the pain and cost associated with it. Years ago, in the InDesign community users complained that their print provider demanded they submit material in specific non-InDesign formats, such as a certain level of PostScript, QuarkXpress, PDF or NOT PDF, etc. "It's too expensive to update our time-honored workflows and equipment. List members said, "Tell your providers that there are other providers who welcome your preferred output and they are hungry for business." One year, my wife and I each received our laminated and perforated new annual wallet health-plan ID cards on letter-size pages. The lamination covered the full page - card and huge blank area - front and back. I suggested to the membership director that I received other cards whose laminations only covered the card area, not the full page, and, with rising health-care costs, asking the vendor to change could save more than a few bucks. "They say their equipment can't do that." "Say other vendors would love your business." The next renewals came laminated only over the card areas. He said they saved bunches of money. Of course, my rates stayed the same.<G>
As has been noted more than a few times, even the cost of simply upgrading FM to the next release isn't trivial. Changing from one major tool to another, converting legacy content, retraining, etc., are beyond trivial. Staying with a proven workflow has lots of value. Nothing wrong with this model…EXCEPT WHEN THE VENDOR INVALIDATES PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED LICENSES! That's bad faith on a corporate level. Unacceptable.
My 2 cents.

On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 7:36 AM, Ken Poshedly <poshedly at bellsouth.net> wrote:

I may be a little off-topic, but here goes anyway . . . I've been using FrameMaker since 1998 when my company got version 5.5.6 and, as the saying goes, "I never looked back". We had been using WordPerfect for Windows (version 7?) and I personally found it "clunky" to work with, especially in doing two-column layouts (text on left with one-column graphics on the right; yes, it can be done, but it was never as easy as with FM). While the rest of the tech pubs world is now up to FM2017, my current employer won't upgrade past FM 11.0 (due to the "I-know-it-all" attitude of the guy who makes decisions about my group; another story for another day). 

Anyway . . . I recall in the early 2000's the fairly numerous posts that Adobe (which had purchased Frame Technology Corp.), was not really interested in upgrading it, but had gotten what it wanted (money from new sales and a huge fan-base) and was really trying to slowly let it "die on the vine" because Adobe really wanted to sell that fan-base on Adobe's own homegrown product, InDesign. There was always a periodic hue-and-cry about this and Adobe did wind up issuing updates over the years (although many still say the last good, solid version was FM 7.0). Adobe did actually drop the Macintoch version of FM.
Some folks compare Adobe tech support with "customer service" by Comcast (the cable TV company). Solely based in India and sort of nonexistant and super-deficient even if/when can get someone on the phone line.

So, nothing is forever and Adobe will someday probably deep-six FM for no good reason (just like NBC just cancelled the great TV show "Timeless", resulting in a HUGE online backlash about that. Lower-than-desired ratings don't seem to matter for other shows that still remain, however.).

I'm old enough to remember when competitors compared their "word processing software" to WordStar by MicroPro. I loved that program and all its keyboard shortcuts (oh, wait a minute, that's all we had because mouse-pointers hadn't yet made the scene). Though it has a rockier history than FM, it is still used, but just barely. There's a great write-up about it on Wikipedia. (The FM Wikipedia write-up is not nearly as extensive.) And let's not forget the late, great Ventura Publisher which was distributed by Xerox but is owned by Corel since 1993 and is a mere shadow of its once glorious self before the Corel purchase.

I wonder how Corel supports Corel Ventura (still available but supposedly last updated in 2002).

      From: "Harding, Dan" <dharding at illinois.edu>
 To: An email list for people using Adobe FrameMaker software. <framers at lists.frameusers.com> 
 Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2018 7:20 AM
 Subject: Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

Program software, yes. Customer support and licensing, no.

At times it feels like FrameMaker is "abandonware", at least with respect to the attitudes coming from within Adobe... a begrudged necessary evil that no one there really wants the hassles of dealing with, hoping that it will just die and go away.

-Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Framers <framers-bounces+dharding=illi nois.edu at lists.frameusers.com> On Behalf Of Shmuel Wolfson
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2018 3:55 AM
To: Peter Gold <peter at petergold.photography>; Framers - frameusers.com <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: [Framers] Final note about Adobe Licensing

Why does everyone feel that Adobe is abandoning FrameMaker? In the latest version they redid the menus and added a shortcut to finding menu items. They also claim to have fixed some long-standing bugs.

My only gripe is the high price for upgrades. But they do seem to be working on the program.

--
Shmuel Wolfson
Technical Writer
058-763-7133

On 26-Jun-18 3:25 AM, Peter Gold wrote:
> These recent threads about licensing and related Adobe corporate-level 
> failings, and the associated sense of abandonment that's been voiced 
> by long-long-long-time FrameMaker users who represent a community of 
> talented technical authors and publishers prompt me to think "Is there 
> any next step that Adobe might take?" Well, if anyone at Adobe with 
> any power to communicate with the higher Adobe Powers That Be reads 
> this list (or if any members have contacts with folks who have the 
> ability to communicate with those APTBs,) how about floating the idea 
> that if Adobe's no longer interested in supporting FM and its 
> community of users, perhaps it's time to think about finding a company 
> that would like to buy it. FM might be only a mere fragment of a niche 
> in Adobe's spectrum of products and services and income streams, but 
> to a smaller enterprise, it could be a substantial business.
>
> Just another wild idea. Anyone out there? Bueller?
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