Correction appended.
When the University's contract expires with Adobe April 30, students will no longer be able to run Adobe programs downloaded from Brown's software distribution page on their personal computers.
Geoffrey Greene, director of IT support services for Computing and Information Services, said he did not think the University would provide Adobe programs, such as Photoshop, in the future because the new contract would likely stipulate a higher cost for the Adobe suite.
"As Brown looks to renew its contract with Adobe, they are overhauling how the licensing works and significantly increasing the costs," Greene wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "In order to include student coverage in a new contract, Adobe is asking for funds that will far exceed our existing budgetary resources."
Greene would not say how much Adobe is asking for.
Christopher Grossi '92, assistant director of desktop support services for CIS, said that as he and his department were exploring options for new agreements and price quotes, they discovered that the preliminary quotes for continuing the service for students' personal machines "were just too expensive."
Grossi said Brown has signed a contract with Adobe to make copies of the software that do not require access to Brown's network available to students from the Brown Bookstore "for far cheaper than the list prices."
"We are doing everything we can to comply with Adobe's rules," Greene said.
While this change in licensing directly affects students who use personal computers, computers owned and operated by the University will be virtually unaffected, Grossi said. Computers in labs and clusters of buildings and libraries throughout campus will still have Adobe programs.
Because the change affects mostly students, Grossi said he is working with departments to make sure they are aware of students' limited ability to use the software.
Adobe offers several types of software. PDF files will still be viewable through Adobe Reader, which can be downloaded and used anywhere for free. Greene said the most significant change for students will be losing access to Photoshop.
Greene's department has received very few inquiries or complaints regarding the change, but added that he expects more noise as the semester progresses.
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that starting April 30, students will no longer have the ability to download Abobe programs onto personal computers. In fact, on that date the University's contract with Adobe will expire. Beginning Feb. 25, Computing and Information Services will stop providing downloads of Adobe programs onto personal computers. The Herald regrets the error.
