Journal Journal: The Demise of Director: A Sad Tale of Proprietary Software
The Demise of Director: A Sad Tale of Proprietary Software
There was once a multimedia program called Director that promised to revolutionize the development of software applications. This program began in 1985 as Videoworks Interactive Pro, developed by a little company named Macromind which later became the behemoth once known as Macromedia. Videoworks, under the guidance of Macromedia, became Director.
We were promised an update to Director MX 2004 in the first half of 2007. Which then slipped to the second half of 2007. When then went into 2008. Finally! A year past due, but at least things were looking up again. And then it started: the bug reports. Bug, after bug, after bug, after bug. Probably the biggest hurdle was getting the program installed.
Adobe took over, and the results have been... Not pretty. Director 11 has been outsourced to a team in Bangalore, India. The program doesn't even install anymore.
If one listens to the chat, you'll note that there is a group of considerably adept Director programmers in attendance. All of these individuals are pointing the way for Director, including suggestions for improving scripting, 3D integration, game development, you name it. But the most frustrating part of it was that this group of individuals might as well have been talking to themselves. The team from India, supposedly in attendance, had no comments about the meeting that lasted over two hours. No feedback whatsoever. Sad, to say the least. There is a complete disconnect between the users and the programming team, and absolutely nothing can be done about it, because the programming team controls the source code and nobody else can get at it. The quality of the code released for Director 11 is pre-beta, at best. But, as users of the program, our hands are completely tied.
In case people are wondering if Adobe might consider getting a new programming team together, it seems unlikely. A glance at the bio of Adobe's current CEO, Shantanu Narayen, indicates that he received his B.A. in electrical engineering from none other than Osmania University in India. One has to think that a native Indian would be biased towards keeping projects and employment alive and kicking in his homeland, in spite of the tremendous mess these programming groups appear to be making of once revered software programs.
By the way, what in the heck happened to the original programming team? Tom Higgins has since gone onto Unity3D, a program that fills the niche that Director was trying to hold.
Caveat: I do not own a license for Director. I planned on buying Director 11 when it was released, but decided to hold off on spending $1,100 for an unusable piece of software.
Say what you want about Richard Stallman and the problem of being held captive by idiots due to the proprietary nature of a software package that your livelihood may depend upon.
Either the users in the forums have surprisingly good manners, or there were very few users left by the time Director 11 was released, or the harsher criticisms were deleted. It's unknown, but there was very little of the harsh criticism (i.e., rants) that would be expected under these circumstances.
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/executivebios/shantanunarayen.html
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fadmin.adobe.acrobat.com%2F_a200985228%2Fp30314597%2F
http://www.corante.com/amateur/articles/20030211-3564.html
http://www.corante.com/amateur/articles/20030217-3668.html
http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2005/04/can_i_have_my_n
http://www.artie.com/cm/art/multimedia/marcintv.htm
