I've seen this term a few times lately. Napster briefly made all copyrighted music available for free.
This person (group?) is making feature-equivalent "clean room" versions of Adobe products in Rust.
https://github.com/storytold
I clicked through to their website which I didn't previously notice. Their pitch
"Stop renting from websites.
ArtCraft is yours to own and keep, forever. No subscriptions needed, no aggregator middleman, no rent payments."
https://getartcraft.com/
Napster was a CD killer for people who didn't want to buy music. This is more like a Spotify killer.
I've tried Adobe alternatives. All disappointing (though several good enough that I haven't paid for an Adobe products in many years).
Adobe is rapidly adapting to become a chat-based interface. The race is on for Adobe to figure out some way to add value.
Ironically, their revenue model is... wait for it...
SUBSCRIPTION!!
Of course it is. But the software is free. You pay for the AI capabilities. Which makes sense since those have real ongoing costs. But it's still ironic
" In addition, members of ArtCraft commented to the social news site Hacker News that they are also planning to develop tools equivalent to Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, and Solidworks."
https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20261005-artcraft-crafting-apps/#gsc.tab=0
Don't poke the bear. Poke the bear, the lion and the velociraptor.
Debbie says, download your Artcraft studio while you can.
Debbie also says that in a few years, replicating the Artcraft effort will be a simple matter of a few good prompts and a few days of tweaking, but few people will bother because it will feel in 2030 like a good HTML editor feels today - a thing for which there is almost no market because nobody wants to get their hands that dirty