AI-Coded Open-Source Adobe Alternatives Challenge Paid Creative Software

Can open-source software replace Adobe?

Thomas, who says he has about 10 years of experience working on large-scale Rust projects, is building an open-source alternative to Adobe software. He says the project was inspired by being “stricken by the dark pattern of ‘cancellation fees’ over and over again.” He discussed the project on Hacker News.

The software is available under the free MIT/Apache license. According to Thomas, development is funded by selling token-based access. Artcraft’s existing visual AI models and IDEs are offered as in-app image-generation options alongside third-party models.

Thomas says this revenue model is intended to prevent the applications from becoming “siled, small team projects.” “We have a team building popular software for filmmakers, and this support will be fully funded,” he wrote in a Reddit post.

AI-assisted reverse engineering raises legal questions

Thomas is the latest programmer to use AI tools to accelerate the long-standing, labor-intensive process of reverse engineering: duplicating software functionality without directly copying its code.

Although reverse engineering is generally considered legally permissible, an Artcraft application could still face legal issues if its “trade dress”—including its appearance and interface—looks too similar to Adobe’s familiar design.

“Software is done,” Thomas says

Thomas says he has coded exclusively with AI tools since February. He envisions a near future in which everyday developers can recreate open-source versions of popular paid software and “take back the internet and own the technology forever.” He shared that vision on Hacker News.

“Now you can create high-performance, cross-platform, 1:1 functional equivalents in a clean room. There’s nothing stopping you,” Thomas wrote. “We will replace Google search, we will build our own smartphones, we will build better infrastructure. We will remove all advertising and we will liberalize the entire technology world.”

“Software is done,” he gloated in a previous comment, which claimed to have “all the one-shot Photoshops.”