If you wish to accept the terms of slavery and indenture, Mark, by all means be my guest. Some people nostalgically yearn for the unheated hovels of serfdom again.
DxO along with all these commercial software houses have slowly but surely waging lawfare on their paid users. I do not accept their terms, I do not accept that I have to abandon their software or my art, because they impose them. And I don’t recommend anyone else accept them morally either. Practically there is little that DxO can do. Though I own paid copies, I take care to obtain copies that will run without any internet access.
When I bought into the DxO system, the terms were far more fair. Licensed once meant licensed forever, there was no phoning home. Update discounts were available from any paid version not just the most recent.
If DxO decides to change the terms mid-way through the relationship that’s their lookout. I accepted the original terms when we started the relationship. DxO may think they can change the terms part way through the relationship and may be able to get a court to agree to their lawfare. But it is fundamentally wrong. Working with creative software is like a marriage – and neither party has the moral right to change the terms part way through.
DxO’s bait and switch is exactly why I do not recommend PhotoLab or DxO software to people any more, and in fact, where possible warn them against it. My children will use either RawThereapee or DaVinci Resolve (there’s a new photo section which I’m eager to try) on Linux. Those of you out there are parents, take care not to indenture your children to a life of digital peonery.
I’ve put enough years into working on my images in PhotoLab that no one, including you Mark, is going to nanny mind it out of my hands. If you wish to celebrate your digital serfdom, it’s your lookout. It’s exactly your celebration of your non-status which is so depressing to see.
On a larger scale, what we are witnessing is the inexorable decline of a civilisation, on a scale with the fall of Chinese empires (the richest in the world), the Roman Empire (both Western and then Byzantine) and the Ottoman Empire. What happens is the ruling class and scribe class both become so greedy that it is no longer possible for the makers to continue to work. Protests like mine start, people like Mark wander around telling the workers to go back to the fields, but gradually but surely the whole edifice collapses on itself. This time is different say Christine Lagarde, Larry Fink, Peter Thiel, Alex Karp and Elon Musk (just four relatively loud voices). Our instruments of control are so much stronger. The serfs will never free themselves of their digital chains.
Every empire who has pillaged its people has fallen. So will this one. DxO is just another brick in the wall. In the meantime, PhotoLab is at the core of my photo work and I’ve DxO a lot of money to have access to that tool. They can change their terms of service all they like, I will continue to use the software. It is equally my ethical obligation to warn other potential users to be very cautious of DxO, who continuously change terms of service in their own favour at the expense of its users (and funders).
