Hi Dean,

I understand what you said. Sure - you must have good reason to hang on Director despite obvious problems with it's development.

When talking about reasons you have presented why Director is lagging behind other Adobe's product I may agree with them though I believe Director extensibility is one of them too. Extensible Director for Adobe means "uncertain, unsafe" - whatever fancy feature they implement the competitor may come offering better plugin. Look - how much they locked Flash Multimedia Server - this is what they want to do, I am sure. Director is simply too much "old style open software" and Adobe doesn't want to be a damn pipe - creating infrasturcture but not participating in lucrative incomes from VOD and similar services. How can you explain locking Director's Flash Xtra so it's can't do HTTP streaming, he?

Dean - it's so sorrow Director is dead but it's a fact. You are a kind of necromancer - really ;-)

I only look forward what will they do with the next release - simply what features they will charge these 400 bucks for upgrade? You know what? It must be something really cheap. Some really outdated, abandoned piece of code they could easily buy on stock for a few pounds and wrap into an Xtra. Then they will come with bells and whistles shouting: "wow - look what a nice new feature we put into Director - 400 bucks please!". And this will be the end. Nothing more will happen. They will earn these few bucks and will mute for next 24 months or so. Funny guys, really.

Bye!

>> Dean I think Director should employ you as they can learn a lot from you with regards

>> to support and hearing what the "people" have to say.

Hehe,

I can only fully support this point. But Macromedia / Adobe did their best to actually incapacitate all influential Director-friendly people worldwide.

I can't call it other way round: it was methodical execution - first they relocated all valuable Director evangelists, and only left this arrogant ****** named Allen Partridge in charge of Director community. Ths guy has completed his task in a brilliant manner - I recall the way he treated Martin Schaefer - it  was a brutal kick in the *** - really.

Adobe could maintain positive Director image at no cost at all - simply through minimal affiliation to enthusiastic and strong developers community. People like Dean, like Martin, like many Director Forum wonderful contributors I do not recall names anymore (Alchemist, Christoph Leske and many others) used to keep the momentum and excitment around Director for years with no single act of support from Adobe. In a contrary - finally they only got arrogant repel or at least complete "désintéressement".

So again - we can't see this all as "incidental" - it must have been a planned, long-lasting strategy decided at the corporate level. In the result, today - even if you were in a need to develop something in Director - you are left with no learning resources (but Director Online, what is only because of Dean's irrational persistence), no community help, no customer support, fading extensions list (former "Mile High" list of xtras has shrunk remarkably). etc. And this is all for  $1000 worth product! - Isn't it rediculous?

So, we are chatting here but nobody cares - the Indian guys do not visit this place obviously, nothing has changed. All communication halted in a very same manner as updating Director's official website (you can read it was last updated on 07-14-2009, so practically two years ago already). Director is dead. Whatever voodoo Adobe is doing around it, it is puppeting a zombie not real application revival. It's like a yet another "down of living death" sequel movie only made in a purpose to draw some more cash out of the cow's corpse.

Really - if there were on a position to save Director, we would already knew it. They would start from doing something about an application they allocated resources around. They would update the website, made some interesting communication, Adobe Lab samples, whatever. This is normal way they proceed in case they do something about a hot product. But Director is not hot at Adobe's. It's dead cold actually. Amen.

Sorry, but I don't think I may be of any help in terms of legal advisory.

I have no idea what is applcable procedure, what is American lawsuit cost, how was the practice in case of similar issues in the past, etc.

I believe you should rather ask a professional lawyer for advice than look for our opinions as they might be completely irrelevant.

On the other hand - it would be very interesting to observe such a case. Definitely, I can fully agree Adobe has violated its own terms of service, but I really can't guess what could be the scope of legal responsibility for such a failure and how much it is actually limited due to the terms of service.

Normally, the standard base of a civil lawsuit is a claim of loss suffered due to the action (or lack of action) of defendant. So, first of all you would have to evaluate direct and indirect loss you suffered due to missing Adobe's support you paid for on the basis of subscription.

Direct losses are for instance extra costs of development you actually had because of increased time neccessary for solving an inssue in case of missing support from development tool (Director) producer (Adobe).

Indirect lossess are for instance contracts you did not gain because you had to include such possible extra costs (as described above) in your projects budgets, what rendered your company less competitive on the market.

Unless Adobe is out of legal responsibility for such lossess due to explicit terms of subscription service, your lawyer should be able to construct a lawsuit. I believe American law is quite sensitive on abuse of monopolistic positions (please notice, in many terms Director is indispensable tool for certain projects, so one may say Adobe's market position in this case is monopolistic-like), so such a lawsuit could be sucessfull IMHO. But it is only my opinion with no actual relevance.

Good luck anyway!

Oh, I cannot be sure but I believe as in case of any business agreement, the law applicable as well as relevant court should be indicated directly in the terms of service.

After accidentally killing one of his guests...

My godness - that really makes a lot of sense actually!

Wow !!!

(and from Wikipedia:

Partridge is characterised as an insecure, superficial and narcissistic 'wally',  concerned largely with status, the level of his public profile and, to a  lesser extent, the ostentatious possessions this allows him to acquire  (such as his beloved Rover and Lexus cars and Bang & Olufsen stereo systems). Despite being a broadcaster, Partridge is a socially incompetent and awkward character prone to one-upmanship, embarrassing social faux pas and displays of deep insensitivity to social norms. His thoughtlessness  and selfish lack of interest in anything beyond his own objectives  exposes an unsympathetic character that is disliked and privately  lampooned by many of those with whom he comes into contact. Among  Partridge's few friends are Lynn Benfield, his put-upon and  long-suffering personal assistant, and Michael, an emotionally tortured  ex-soldier from Newcastle upon Tyne.  It is notable, however, that he treats even these people with little  more than disdain despite expecting complete loyalty from them in  return; in the first series of I'm Alan Partridge he does not even seem to be on first-name terms with Michael (who exclusively addressed him as Mr Partridge throughout the two series). Bizarrely, he appears to have a close friendship with Bill Oddie,  who even sends Alan Christmas presents. Partridge is otherwise depicted  as being unable to forge genuine friendships or connections with other  people (who are, seemingly without exception, repelled by his unpleasant  and self-absorbed personality).

This is simply a perfect match !

Hmm,

While you might be right in terms of "Terms of Use and Online Policy" publishing date, I do not err too much in merrit - can you remember when Director's website was updated actually? I feel the same content is hanging over ther since I can recall...

I don't believe Adobe will ever sell Director to a third-party company. Neither I believe they will open-source it.

Director is direct competitor for Flash and having proper maintnance, within a year of code refactoring, implementation of modern text and 3D engines could easily threaten Flash/Flex dominant market position.

Adobe is not stupid. They would rather sink Director source code into deep see than let it float at large on someone's boat.

Thank you Dean, I understand that this is input from everybody out there but I feel "robbed" like many others out there and think that Director should take accountability on their non support, non everything.

So I spoke to our legal team and it went very much on the lines of ZiggiZag. We would have to look at the licensing agreement. Is the licensing agreement for the individual Director product or is it for all the Adobe products as a whole? If it is for Director alone the case could be stronger. We would have to prove tangible loss and how much it amounts to. We would sue Adobe South Africa as we purchased the product through them.

The big question is, is it viable to do it? The short answer no! Why you may ask? Well even if there is a great loss and even we have a 100% full proof case and win, according to the South African law, a time period would have to be given to Adobe to "fix" the issue at hand.

So this is not the right root.

Dimitri

And that is only the tip of the iceberg, Carl.  To my view, the real issue here is that we, as a developer community, do not simply wish to punish Adobe.  Rather, we want Director to flourish and grow because it is a major tool of our trade.  A one-time collection, even if it is won in court, does nothing to solve the problem unless it moves Adobe to action in that direction.  That is not a given result of taking them to small claims court unless enough people do it.  And If you have ever had experience with trying to move a large group of people to action in a unified effort, you know that can take years to accomplish, if accomplished at all.  I’m not saying that should not be done.  That is not my personal decision to make on someone else’s behalf.  I’m simply saying that perhaps we as a community can better spend our time searching for solutions that might encourage the longevity of Director without relying on “individual efforts” multiplied many times over by a group.  A class action lawsuit might be such an effort.  But, from a legal standpoint, do we even have a case here?

Here is my take on this issue as it now stands.  I cannot believe that Adobe is going to that much trouble to be “sneaky” and “underhanded” about removing Director from their product line.  I also own a company.  I if we wish to take away from our product line, we will, as a courtesy, publish our intentions on our Web site.  But we will not devise some diabolical plan to try to deceive and drive away the customers affected by that decision.  What company has the time, or the “extra” money, to waste on such a plan?  What’s the point?  We will simply drop the product – end of story.  As far as I know, such an action is neither illegal, nor unethical.

Adobe’s stance on Director indicates to me an uncertainty on just what to do with that product.  It seems clear at this point that they are either on a steep learning curve, or  simply have no idea how to deal with Director, given the poor job their people have done on the first new version they released.  I have the latest one, also, but have not had the time to really get into it, yet.  So, I will reserve comment on that one.  Their programmers are obviously struggling with that product, and likely trying to convince Adobe to get rid of it so they won’t have to deal with it.  Given its popularity, and the fact that nothing else currently competes with it, it is my opinion that Adobe should have picked up some personnel from Macromedia and kept it alive and well without handing it to those who may not be able to deal with it properly.  If you have ever tried to get into someone else’s computer code, you will know what I mean.  I apologize to Adobe personnel if this is not the case.

Having said that, I will admit that I do not know if any of what I have said is what is actually happening. However, I do believe that the “let’s deceive them and scare them away so we can drop Director” is not happening.  That doesn’t make sense to me from a business perspective.  If Adobe would come to the table and openly discuss the Director issue with the community, all misconceptions, if they exist, might go away and cooler heads could prevail.  I think what we are seeing here is what we normally see when a group is left to come up with its own answers to provocative, possibly threatening questions without the data to do so.  I believe it is always far better for the source of the correct answers to freely provide them.

My vote?   Prevail upon Adobe to come forward with open dialog with the Director community on their future plans for Director.  I believe an open forum is better than dialog between representatives of both camps so that all voices can be heard, and all ideas considered, and all skills and talents brought to the table for the benefit of both camps.  If both Adobe and the Director community will be open-minded enough to refrain from anger, sarcasm, name-calling, threats, accusations, and personal agendas that might not serve the community, perhaps a workable plan for the future of Director might evolve. 

If Adobe is struggling with Director development, and if they are astute, and open-minded enough, they have at their disposal a very large community of Director talent who can, and probably would, help them develop and improve Director into a powerful and profitable product for them.  They are not alone.  It need not be “them against us”.   Shorter the road when sharing the load.  We all have a stake in this, so let’s reach out in whatever ways we can to Adobe and stop throwing stones at them.

In the meantime, legal advice is required on whether or not small claims court or a class action lawsuit are even feasible.  Will losing Director affect me personally?  Yes.  Over some period of time, it will put me out of business.  Is Adobe liable for that?  Probably not, but that question begs an answer.   Otherwise,  any ensuing discussion on such courses of action might be a waste of time.

Can anyone reading this offer a qualified legal perspective on these issues?

Dewey

From: CAnuszczyk forums@adobe.com

Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 5:49 AM

To: Dewey Parker

Subject: Re: Director's Future Meeting - Summary and Evaluation Re: Director's Future Meeting - Summary and Evaluation

I'm not saying whether I think that Adobe should or should not be sued, but in the US (well, at least here in Georgia) there is always small claims court.  While I believe the cap is around $15000 if you sue a company they have to send a represetative.  They have to prove their case and from what I understand, it is very difficult for them to do.

Of course, winning is just half the problem (maybe less - lol) .  The rest is actually collecting...

Cheers

Carl

In the UK at least, it would be very easy to sue via the Small Claims court.

Adobe UK would need to send a representative and if they lose, you can apply for a Garnishee Order - which would freeze their bank account until the debt is settled.

Just Fancy that

@mbtmobile

I always keep respect to British legal tradition, so successful in providing access to courts for regular people with their small issues and problems...

@All

Adobe's "uncertainity on Director" keeps lasting far too long to be considered just incidental. I am pretty sure, when they have their monthly business meetings there is kind of ritual last accent: "and now Director please... hehe". Definitely "the people in the more senior Adobe positions" are aware of Director case and it is a conscious decision to attatch lowest business priority to it. I am not aware of particular reasoning behind that decision but it's like this - point.

This itself would not be the worst actually but the real problem is this complete communication cut between Adobe and Director community. The consequence is that even if they try to make some rational decisions - they only make wrong decisions (like complete stupid idea of making Director primary a "game development tool" - I strongly believe Director is predominantly a B2B applications development tool flexible enough to fit into various type of projects and delivery media) and year by year the application gets older, less relevant and abandoned. I do not know what to do about this stalemate but I know one day the final decison must arrive. And more time Director remains "stalemated" - more certainity it will be eventually phased-out.

Consequently, I do not see a practical way to introduce a "Director Champion" - a person of influential leadership capable of product rejuvination - at Adobe's. Simply speaking - there is no "transmission" and whatever voice eventually pass through - it can be easily suppressed with "Flash can do it too" way of argumentation - at least on their internal meetings.

So - I stay on the side of pessimism, but feel free to go on - please, try to convince Adobe's management Director is a little "Cinderella" and if they only clean the old dust it would shine like a princess in glory ;-) Sorry guys, I double bet you'll fail.

As a Director game developer, I feel one of us should at least speak up on this.  There are TONS of us using Director to make games, our company has produced over 60 games in the last 3 years, A and AA titles, all produced in Director.  We currently own 10-12 Director licenses, and we reference all sorts of Director forums that we may or may not be bothered to create an account and post on.  There are plenty of other companies in the casual gaming space that have and continue to use Director to make their games.  Companies who are much bigger and smaller than ours.  As much as we all may have various levels of hatred for Adobe, I would think they are at least capable of data mining who is using their application and what for.  You guys seem to have less faith in that than me, and I could certainly be wrong about this. 

That said, NO ONE in the game development world cares at all about the 3D capabilities of Director.  If we want to make 3D games, we'll use Unity or one of the cheaper cross-platform 3D development suites.  Director has and always will be a strictly 2D game dev environment.  The fact that Adobe doesn't seem to understand this is what leads to my doubts about their understanding of who the clientele is in my first paragraph.  Unless Adobe does a major overhaul, Director can't compete with Unity3D in the world of games.

Finally, to really go out on a limb, perhaps the 3D capabilities aren't even intended for game developers?  Maybe there are some bigwig medical clients who need 3D support for their large scale medical imaging software coded in Director?  Now i'm just being silly, that's it for me!

Would it help to start a petition to Adobe full of Director supporters?

Count me in too!

Sent from my iPhone

After more than decade with director i do not believe that this will change anything. Our company is already looking for other solutions. And i personally started to learn serious programming. But still, too many of our products are built in director, so it will take some time to change them to other core. So i will not abandon director immediately. I had alwayz reasons why to stay with director. But we are going to face new problem in near future. Using plugins in new explorer 10 will be complicated (restricted for common user) (even flash) and we do not know how director issue will be solved. Also there is another old problem that shockwave is an extra plugin that has to be installed and for common user it can be considered as "threat" to hurt the computer. Now html5 looks like can doo everything that director. (Only problem is that you need better programming skills than in director). And lately when i search internet for some troubleshoting in director, i often find shockwave = flash. :-(

Dean

At the risk of sounding political, the only thing keeping the Director

community from growing is uncertainty!  I would love to tell people

how great Director is (I've been making a good living from it for 15+

years!) I won't talk about it because there is so much uncertainty

concerning how long it will be around.

The reason people are jumping on the idea of a petition is to make sure

Adobe knows that there IS a community.  It does not feel like they

realize that.  You say they do, but when I called Adobe to ask a

pre-sales question about Director 11 it took several attempts

before I got anyone who even knew what is was, much less an

answer to my question.  Finding it on the web site, or forum lists

is nearly impossible.

The feeling of abandonment makes XTRA developers lose interest,

and that further weakens the product.  Adobe could say "Director

is going to be around" through actions, like including it in a couple

of panels on their web page... wouldn't cost a dime, but would mean

everything!  They could also reveal a little bit of forward planning -

"a version that works with OS/X Lion will be out

Might Edge be the replacement product for Director - any thoughts?

Wow. I found this thread by accident while googling something completely unrelated to Director. It's so sad. Director was such a great tool; and the community we built was such a great thing to be a part of. I miss it more than anything in my professional life.

This thread brought it back and reminded me at once how glad I am that I finally let go in time to salvage my career, and how sorry I was to be put in that position.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9JOmU2jFUo&feature=fvwrel

Love,

Dorothy

I recall visiting this forum a few years and reading the exact same sentiments. Nothing is going to change here, people.

Despite the rumors of D12 serving as Director's resurrection, I suspect that Adobe is going to go right on keeping Director on life support. (and little more)

Which isn't entirely a bad thing, when you understand it from the proper perspective.

I have several legacy Director (kiosk) projects that I update every year. I enjoy the work and it's a little coin without any fuss. I'm grateful that Adobe is keeping Director alive as a legacy product, so that the app will continue to work on successive operating systems.

I'll be shocked if D12 comes out and proceeds to trounce other alternatives as an iOS app platform. But if it permits a guy like me who already knows the app...to export projects out to that platform...I'd sure belly up to the bar and pay $300.

Director is now an old horse. She still can get me to town...and sometimes with better efficiency than Flash or any other app. But I just don't see a future here.

HTML 5 or something like Unity is where the game will go next.