FreeHand and Lion (Mac Os X 10.7). The game is over

Question

Is sad, but Freehand ends this summer, with Mac Os X 10.7. Lion will drop Rossetta (the emulation code to support legacy Power PC programs). Freehand runs smoothly in Snow Leopard but it hasn't been ported to intel version.

Answer 1

If Freehand has not died yet after such a long time since it was taken from Macromedia, it is because Adobe failed to offer a good alternative solution... Zyldavia
It will cost me 20,000 Euros or more working time... nobble1111
Those Adobe people are just blockheads here obviously having fun hurting other people.
In any case, I have bought one of the last Macs with Snow Leopard recently. I cannot afford to loose thousands of illustrations still making money...nobble1111
I didn't have the time to spend learning Illustrator... Matthew Rawdon
Reading these comments reminds me of the lithographers with whom I worked twenty years ago. Digital prepress has made the skills these talented individuals had about as useful as a 5 1/4 floppy disk. And while the rest of the printing world moved on these people watched, dragged their feet, were unrealistic in their expectations that someone owed them a living based upon mastery of an outdated trade that in some ways offered a better solution.
But that time of "better solution" is over. The number of people graduating from trade programs with a thorough understanding of lithography are about equal to those turning out competent Freehand users.
All of the things I have read in the Freehand forums illustrate to me that those who chose Freehand so long ago, who stayed faithful to Freehand during the Illustrator/Freehand wars, and who had the opportunity to switch to a program that would obviously remain viable not only once, but twice (Freehand's short revival around the time OS X originally came about), have done it under the full light of day, resenting the obvious every step along the way.
The thread-worn arguments have little to do with reality and have crossed into a religious zeal. And yes, I DO have a thorough understanding of the history of Aldus/Macromedia/Adobe and the legal and moral issues of supporting the format. For example, I know it was Macromedia that killed FH and dispersed the development team, not Adobe, but that's just too inconvenient to recognize. (I don't know why Marion D. spends so much time pouring out facts and common sense. It's futile.)
Now that Adobe owns FH in a legal and thoroughly vetted manner they have every right to do with it as they wish. It's easy to bring suit against a company and frivolous suits are filed every day. Yes, it was shocking when Adobe acquired FH, but I've had YEARS to get over it and around the problems at hand, and years of knowing it was very likely to go the way of the Dodo (incidentally, a very nice bird that had every reason to live but was unfortunately made extinct nonetheless).
But the kicker is this one:
And, "dear" Adobe, I have bought Quark now. I dont throw money away money for Indesign to a company ignoring its clients when there is a good alternative!...nobble1111
Seriously? You're going to do the same thing AGAIN? Doesn't this strike you as about the same as using a hammer to swat the fly on your own face? Why do this to yourself simply from spite? It's certainly not because of Quark's track record of fabulous customer service and warm, immediate response to their client base...
The thing is, for better or worse, Illustrator and InDesign are what they are. There will always be ways to improve things, ways to accommodate for some legacy workflows or improve the way customers and a company dialogue. But to drag one's feet kicking and screaming because the industry standards have passed you by is hurting no one but one's own self. It's silly - and guarantees you will join the line of jobseekers alongside the lithographers who did the exact same thing.
A post like this is like preaching Christianity to a Zoroastrian congregation, and it will be met with just as much derision and understanding as so many of Marion's posts. But just like Marian is trying to talk you into recognizing an unpleasant reality, so do I, having seen so many good, close friends suffer economic destruction and personal despair as time and economic principles turned them into antiques. One of the saddest cases I ever saw was a hardworking, good family man with great talent stuck at the last dedicated light table in the building, taping down film to a large sheet of mylar before cutting a standard mask of cheap, orange plastic. He could barely look me in the eye, an alcoholic shell of what he used to be, and one of the most ardent that lithography would never die.