fraisecafe

Hi @Ash. Hope you had a great long weekend ... I'm sure there's a lot you've got going on with this whole acquisition, but I wanted to follow up before this gets lost in the shuffle as I have seen a lot of Community Members wondering (myself included) and still not seen anything mentioned regarding AI after the acquisition. Similarly, with concerns being directed at how "things have happened in the past" and your own assertions that "that is irrelevant in this situation" (paraphrasing here), understanding the independence of Serif vs. Canva "oversight" seems to be of importance to help calm some of the remaining nerves. As you can see just a couple posts above mine, there is quite literally @Tia Lapis is bringing this up and, honestly, it's extremely concerning to me, too, how much control you as a business retain over your own operations vs. what control you (on the surface) appear to have given up. While I'm still not happy with the situation and how this was announced, and I feel a lot could have been handled better post-announcement, I've really appreciated you approaching this here in the forum as openly as you have. As a small business owner who purposely placed all my "eggs are in your basket" for a number of reasons, as much as I'd love the luxury of taking you at your word (especially re: the irrelevance of what has happened in the past, whether Canva-related or others in the industry), and reading the comments of others, having clarity on these two remaining items would really go a long way to helping provide reassurance that it's not as doom/gloom as it has seemed. As follow-up, then, could you please speak to these two items, as well?

Was that ever publicly corrected, @Ash?

I appreciate the clarifications, @Ash, especially re: V3 and beyond; That especially has been very concerning, not knowing how this works beyond V2. That said, I do have two questions: 1. What independence do you and the Serif staff maintain over the roadmap? What control/say does Canva have? You've stated that past acquisitions have no bearing on this. At the same time, honestly, we've heard that in the past, too. It would go a long way if you could clarify why you believe that. Given the potential impacts for designers/creatives/business owners/etc. for all of this, as well as those past examples, while it may not appear to have bearing for you personally, for many of us whose livelihoods rest on purchase decisions such as whether to invest in your ecosystem or another, it certainly does for us. This is our livelihood and we are right to be not only concerned, but cautious, especially given how the initial announcement dropped like a lead balloon. As such, I hope you can see how difficult that idea may be to swallow without further clarity on the above. 2. How does Serif/Affinity intend to ethically deal with AI, Data Collection/Data-mining, and 3rd-Party access to said data (including Canva)? It may be that you've spoken to this already, and if I have missed that statement, please feel free to point me to it, but I have yet to see anything noted about how AI may be implemented. Bluntly, Canva does not have a good track record with any of these and, as hot topics for the industry that has affected many of us, it seems like a glaring omission to not have clarity on this, too. To my mind, the most ethical way to do this may be difficult to implement: - Opt-in on a design-by-design basis for our own designs, with consent being required and consent also being able to be revoked. - Similarly, opt-in consent (with the ability to retract consent in the future) regarding Data/Datamining, as well as clear access to what data has been collected. - Opt-in consent for 3rd-party data sales on a per-vendor basis, likewise with the ability to retract and delete said data at any point. Could you please speak to these two items, as well?

Coming in with V2 and finding the exact same, meaning nothing has been updated in this regard. I appreciate Chris' work in documenting this as this is an extreme frustration for me, as well. Right now I'm working on several handouts for a client and, to facilitate ease of use, I have multiple copies of a single page in a Publisher document, one that requires logos in the footer (for use as a handout) and one that does not (for use as part of a larger booklet). One of the handouts is set to look like this: Removing the logos means that the remaining objects can be spaced a little less tightly in the booklet while avoiding inclusions that are found elsewhere in the booklet. When I try to do this, repositioning the object shifts the text due to this "feature" that I can't seem to disable, as shown here: While it may be helpful to some, especially as a legacy or parity option, this doesn't mean it is ideal for all situations and, by not including a checkbox to enable/disable this behaviour, it is not only frustrating but also forces users (and their clients, if applicable) to save duplicate copies of the same project, meaning more storage issues and the potential for more room for mistakes when selecting/editing the wrong file. It also means that and adjustments cannot be done in a master file, leading to possible duplication errors and/or layout omissions between versions, i.e. poor version control. As it stands, and especially for those coming from a different background (i.e. not InDesign), this behaviour is a fault, not a feature.

Curious if there's an update about this. I've just spent half an hour trying to troubleshoot this and, finally, after clicking "OK" about a dozen times I was finally able to get Publisher 2 to open again, just so I can update it to the latest version, and try to do some work. This is quite infuriating given that there's no reason why this should practically require access to a server just to open/upgrade software.