I've been running my own Graphic Design business for the last 16 years. Like many in my situation I’ve upgraded hardware and software regularly during that time but currently I’m still on a Mac G5 tower running OS X 10.4. The reason? My all-time favourite vector drawing programme, Macromedia Freehand, won’t run reliably on newer systems. As I may have mentioned elsewhere I’ve been using Freehand from Version 2 (when it was Aldus Freehand). IMHO Freehand is a superior, more intuitive product than its rival, Adobe Illustrator. While I have used Illustrator when pushed, Freehand suits my work style better, is faster and saves files smarter/smaller. And the ‘xtras’ that I regularly use are not included in Illustrator.
If, after buying Macromedia, Adobe had included some of these ‘superior’ features in later builds of Illustrator I would have thought they were listening to their users. But they didn't. Instead they have simply told Freehand users to ‘get over it’ and come across to the wonderful world of AI. They simply stopped supporting Freehand (though they do still sell it), allowing it to languish to the point where it wouldn’t run a reliably on later versions of Mac OS. And I believe it won’t run at all on Intel-equipped Macs running Apple's new Lion OS.
I recently discovered the Free FreeHand organisation. Free Freehand came into existence to persuade Adobe to continue development of Freehand, or to sell the code to an organisation that will continue to develop what it calls ‘quite possibly the best vector drawing application ever made’. To this end they have filed an Antitrust case against Adobe.
To read more about Free FreeHand and follow the progress of the Antitrust case, visit www.freefreehand.org
