FreeHand users sue Adobe for ‘killing’ the application

Free FreeHand, a group of users of the eldery-but-still-available vector drawing application FreeHand have followed through on their threat to sue Adobe, accusing the design giant of anticompetitive behaviour by effectively ‘killing’ the product by not updating it and favouring its own vector tool, Illustrator.

Adobe has not developed FreeHand since at least 2007

The current version, FreeHand MX, can be bought from Adobe’s site, but the last upgrade was released in early 2003 when the product was owned by Macromedia, which was later bought by Adobe. Though Adobe hasn’t developed FreeHand since at least 2007, the company has said that it incorporated popular tools from FreeHand into newer versions of Illustrator.

In a newsletter sent to members of Free Freehand, the group says that it has filed a civil antitrust complaint in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against Adobe. The suit alleges that ‘Adobe has violated federal and state antitrust laws by abusing its dominant position in the professional vector graphic illustration software market’ and that ‘Adobe has engaged in a series of exclusionary and anticompetitive acts and strategies designed to kill FreeHand, the dominant competitor to Adobe’s Illustrator software product, instead of competing on the basis of product merit according to the principals of free market capitalism.’

The group’s demands, which were set out last year, is that Adobe releases FreeHand to the open source community, sells FreeHand to another private interest, or develops and maintains FreeHand as a full part of the Adobe Creative Suite lineup. Let’s get ready to RRRRRRUMBLLLLLLE!!!

Who is behind freeFreeHand?

Thomas Thü Hürlimann, former Art Director of Macworld & Computerworld Switzerland, graphic designer & multimedia artist (Ecliptic, Zugergrafik, Short Encounter), who has worked with FreeHand since 1987 (Aldus version 1.0).

Jabez Palmer of Bez Design, Seattle (founded 1997), whose first experience with MacDraw on a Macintosh Plus in 1986 made an indelible impression on his psyche. Since then his eclectic career points to variety of projects including illustration, graphic design for print, and web design & animation.

Mark Gelotte is a book designer and illustrator of Gelotte Book Design. A designer since the late 1970′s, he began computer arts with Aldus FreeHand 3 on up to the present FreeHand MX. As a user of Adobe products, Mark is a strong believer in healthy competition and that a variety of graphic applications are essential to the design community.

Learn more about their noble cause by clicking HERE.