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So you thought you bought some software
At the heart of the computer industry are some very big lies, and some of them are especially iniquitous. One is about commercial software.
[...] Anyone who chooses to use free and open source software on their desktop regularly gets asked why. Why bother? Isn't it more work? Isn't the pro-grade gear commercial? Isn't it worth buying the good stuff? Windows is the industry standard, isn't it simply less work to go with the flow?
[...] The practical upshot of which is that most of the time, the commercial stuff isn't significantly better. No, it isn't less hassle. Mostly, it's more hassle, but if you're used to the nuisances you don't notice them. If the free software experience was really worse, most of us wouldn't do it.
[...] Anyone who chooses to use free and open source software on their desktop regularly gets asked why. Why bother? Isn't it more work? Isn't the pro-grade gear commercial? Isn't it worth buying the good stuff? Windows is the industry standard, isn't it simply less work to go with the flow?
[...] The reason that it's not better to buy software is simple, but it's a lie. A lie at the heart of the entire computer industry, but nonetheless a lie that's very hard to see – "for the same reason that people in Trafalgar Square can't see England," to quote a good book.
It isn't better to buy commercial software because you can't buy software.
It is not possible for you to own paid-for, commercial software. You can't buy it. You probably think that you have bought lots, but you haven't. All you really bought is a lie.
[...] All you can buy is licenses. Serial numbers or activation keys or maybe even hardware dongles. Strange abstract entities that only really exist in lawyers' minds, which claim to permit you to use someone else's software.
As someone who started installing gcc in the 80's, I use more open source packages than closed source. The only "bugs" they have tend to be compatibility issues. As in, $GiantCorp releases a new version of $PopularProgram and suddenly the Open Source version can't open the new save files.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 11 2022, @06:53PM
Have you used CAD software? Professionally? In 2003 I was daily driving AutoCad 14 and Inventor, and there was nothing like it in open source. There have been a few things come along, maaaybe up to the level of utility found in AutoCad 14, but the 3D design stuff I have found in OpenSource is nothing like the 3D mechanical stuff used in design and manufacturing. I mean, there's Blender, but that's a whole different animal from SolidWorks. And when I do 3D design for my hobby printer I use OpenSCAD, but that's like building a lean-to out of branches compared with the steel-and-glass skyscraper stuff in the commercial 3D packages.
Microsoft learned the schools trick from Apple, and Apple is still a strong presence in our local high schools.
I agree: LibreOffice is on-par with or better than Microsoft office, has been since 2003. I used Photoshop instead of GIMP in 2003, but switched to GIMP by 2006 and it was good enough that I never looked back. Tried to get my son to use Krita for illustration, it looks pretty good (GIMP is definitely NOT a drawing software), I'm not even sure what the Windows equivalent of Krita would be - maybe Adobe Illustrator? And I think LibreOffice Impress is every bit as useful as PowerPoint or whatever the Mac equivalent is, for the same reasons you give... Unfortunately, if you make a slide deck in Impress, it won't import to PowerPoint well, if at all, so when your colleague needs you to provide 3 slides to fill 2 minutes of their snoozefest, it's not really a viable alternative, because even if your colleague loves Impress over PowerPoint, they're going to be getting slides from a bunch of your Uni graduates who "just can't be expected learn another software."
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