In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| the reality is that 'ultred' doesn't have a license and is pirating it.
|
| Is he even using it?
|
| he claims to have used it, however, that's irrelevant. since he never
| bought it in the first place, he is not entitled to legally download
| it.
|
| That applies to most people.

Why are so many people always so quick to
go on a witch hunt when it comes to "pirating"
software?

because piracy is illegal.

It's not clear what the OP did.

oh yes it very definitely is clear.

It's not
relevant to his question.

yes it is.

And the CS2 download
was, indeed, legal for a period of time.

it was never legal, except for those who *already* *owned* *it*.

I saw the
page when they posted it. They included a legal
ditty that said, specifically, that it was only
legal to use the software if it was obtained
directly from Adobe. That was it.

nope. what it said was it was for existing cs2 customers.

They gave it away. They said they were giving
it away. They gave away a working key along with
it.

it was only for those who originally *bought* cs2.

it was *not* worldwide distribution to everyone.

In any retail store, even if it were a mistake,
the store would be expected to honor such an offer.
I'm not convinced it was a mistake. Companies don't
"mistakenly" put together a web site and free
software offer.

the only mistake is your understanding.

there was *never* a free software offer.

They also claimed it was about
a problem with activation servers. It's their responsibility
to operate the servers. If they won't then they should
give it away.

there was no problem with the activation servers.

what they did was turn them off because there were no longer new
customers buying a nearly decade old piece of software that no longer
worked on newer systems, therefore they could not justify keeping them
running. they created a version for *existing* customers (not new ones)
so that they could reinstall it on their existing hardware.

The weird way it all went down may have
been an attempt to sidestep that issue. The likes of
Adobe and MS surely don't want a court case about
their responsibilities involved with activation-crippled
software. On the other hand, they'd like to keep milking
software they no longer support.

nonsense.

(When MS started "product activation" with XP they
put out the word that when XP went unsupported they'd
"probably" issue a universal key. But XP turned out to
be popular. MS still don't dare to give it away, lest it
have a resurgence.)

xp is no longer supported.

microsoft did offer a free win10 upgrade.

But all that's beside the point. Adobe gave away CS2.
Period.

no they didn't. period.

And no one needs to take my word for it.

don't worry, nobody is foolish enough to do that.

Look it
up. The articles from the time all say basically the
same thing: Adobe gave it away.

you mean articles like these?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriank.../07/download-a
dobe-cs2-applications-for-free/

Adobe scientist Dov Isaacs clarifies:

On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated ...

You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies
of CS2!

What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers
for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to
reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don't require
activation but do require valid serial numbers are available.
(Special serial numbers are provided on the page for each product
download.) See http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1114930.

Downloads were
extremely numerous. Adobe then backtracked and said,
"Oh. We didn't mean it was free." Then they put
up a page to require getting a "membership" in order
to download.

that's not what happened.

It all looks like a planned marketing
ploy to me.

it wasn't.

No one using it professionally would
have bothered downloading CS2 at that point.

only because cs2 was at the time nearly a decade old, 5 versions
outdated and didn't work properly (or at all) on (then) current
systems.

professionals would have been using the current version, which at the
time was cs6 or creative cloud.

But
it *could* be used as a free trial to get new customers
hooked -- which is a common strategy. And if Adobe
wanted to do such a marketing campaign, how else
could they do it?

there is no point in offering an obsolete version as a trial version,
one which won't even run properly (or at all).

adobe *does* offer trial versions of *currently* shipping software.

So was it marketing? Was it a legal step to get out
of running activation servers? Who knows?

many people know.

just not you.