“Software is over”: Bold AI developer takes aim at Adobe with open source clones
AI-rewritten: This is a summary of an article from Ars Technica, rewritten by AI (Qwen, running locally) to make it easier to read. The facts come from the original article – read it for the full story.
Kyle Orland
• October 7, 2026
Brandon Thomas, a software developer with ten years of experience in large-scale Rust projects, has launched seven open-source applications designed to mimic Adobe’s Creative Suite. Using Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 for AI-powered reverse engineering, Thomas created "clean-room replacements" written in Rust and available via WebAssembly for browsers. These tools aim to replicate the functionality of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro without directly copying Adobe’s original code.