OT-open source 2005-05-08 - By nospam
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Bonjour Eric and Brian,
First I would recommend you to try the Open-Office 2.0 beta. It is
very stable. I have been using it since Christmas in a production
environement without any trouble. It is much better than version 1.x
in speed and ergonomy.
I share your point of view regarding open-source apps.
I have been on a transition to open-source since year 2000 and I get
in very carefully. Right now, about 40-50 % of my professionnal work time
is open-source enabled, and it gain a few percents (5% maybe)
each year, no more.
Every six months or so, I re-evaluate all my commercial software and compare
them to the
open-source equivalent.
I then only switch to the open source equivalent if :
- it is also cross-plateform (with the aim of switching from Windows to Linux
when all the softwares I run will be
cross-plateform) ;
- it has 100 % of the daily used features of their commercial counterpart, and
at least 50 % of the not-so-used features.
- it has a good number of conversion filters or/and is based on an
open standard file format (it is not a dead-end using an unknown,
obscure file format with no way to reverse back) ;
- it is not more difficult to tackle than their commercial
counterparts.
I currently run daily OpenOffice, Firefox, Filezilla, The Gimp,
TightVNC, that meet these requirements for me.
Inkscape is a good example of a software that may soon replace my
Illustrator (it is open-source, it is based on an open file format -
SVG - and it is easier to use than Illustrator*), but the current lack of
support for filters (such as
blur) prevent me from switching right now.
Thunderbird is a good example of an open-source software that is years
behind some commercial counterparts such as The Bat, on the feature
list.
Actually, if you use ordinary softwares such as Outlook Express, a
switch to Thuderbird makes sens, but if you suse some high-end ones
such as The Bat, it is currently impossible to switch without loosing very
usefull features.
When I can't find an open-source equivalent, then I try to find a
commercial one that use a standard file format. Fo example, I didn't
decide for Sunbird (the calendar app. of the Mozilla fundation) yet,
but I decided for Calendarscope, a commercial software that has
import/export to the open standard iCal.
Some times, I used simultaneously a commercial and an open-source
software. For example, Photoshop and The Gimp.
Things I cannot leave for the moment are mainly :
- InDesign (closest equivalent is Scribus, Linux only) ;
- Illustrator (closest equivalent is Inkscape - very stable) ;
- Acrobat (closest equivalent is Ghost) ;
I hhave not seriously evaluated Blender versus Carrara so i cannot
tell for that part. Feature set is interesting but it is not the whole
thing by itself, ergonomy is another matter.
* regarding Illustrator and Adobe softwares in general, I always think
they are not very easy to use. The access to most features are always
one or two clicks farther than they are in other packages such as
CorelDraw, FreeHand, Expression, ... I don't know if I am alone, but I
thought it was a very bad idea to uniformize the interfaces of the CS
suite since it was a bad interface at the begining. Apparently, I am
not alone and Adobe listened to the message because Illustrator CS2 is
said to have a context-sensitive tool-bar - something CorelDraw has
had for a dozen of years...
Le / On jeudi 5 mai 2005, vous ��criviez / You wrote :
EW> Brian,
EW> I think while there are some real gems in the OS community and there are
EW> a few tools I use from there, they invariably, for me, require more time
EW> with it (compared to commercial apps) to get it to work and are not as
EW> feature complete or easy to use for the things I do. If it takes me 2
EW> days to get an app up and running smoothly or it slows me down
EW> significantly, it's just not worth my time. I'll pick the commercial
EW> version.
EW> I've tried Blender, didn't like it, GIMP, didn't like it, Open Office,
EW> really slow, but works okay enough for the little I do. So my machines
EW> are built on Carrara, Corel, and Open Office.
EW> I am a commercial software developer so this of course is coming from a
EW> particular viewpoint. I don't think there is enough incentive for OS to
EW> match commercial software. I know there is a difference between free (as
EW> in beer) and free (as in speech) software, but they most of the time go
EW> hand in hand. When an open source developer is presented with a
EW> decision, do I go have a beer with my buddies or fix that bug/improve
EW> the workflow/add that feature to the project I'm working with, he has a
EW> much less motivation than the commercial guy who can't pay his mortgage
EW> if his product is not competitive. Building software is an expensive
EW> (machines, compilers, research, time, etc.) endeavor and it's hard to
EW> spend your own money on that when there is no return on the investment.
EW> I also find that many open source projects are poorly organized or just
EW> abandoned. I tried to help out with a key remapper on OSX a while back,
EW> but couldn't get the project to even compile. Repeated emails to the
EW> project leader never got a response. It was either abandon or the crew
EW> was just rude, either case, not worth my time.
EW> Another example, in my day job I program Java web apps. We use
EW> websphere, built on the open source eclipse. It often can't keep up with
EW> my typing speed on 2ghz P4 with 1gig of RAM. The intellisense is so slow
EW> as to be nearly unusable. It often will lock up trying to scan for
EW> errors because you haven't closed quote on the string you're currently
EW> typing yet. No drag and drop editing. Finally it simply won't handle a
EW> text file above a certain size without going off into the weeds. It
EW> can't compete with a commercial web development IDE (Visual Interdev)
EW> from 7 years ago, much less a current one like .NET.
EW> If I was still in college, less money, but LOTS more time, my viewpoint
EW> might be different. 99.9% of the time my commercial operating system and
EW> commercial apps just work, on open source experiments I hit closer to
EW> 50% and it always takes more time just trying to get that 50% working.
EW> It shouldn't have to recompile my kernel to get a rather popular
EW> wireless card working in a major linux distribution in 2004, that's just
EW> silly! Time to try getting OS projects to work has to compete with the
EW> wife, kids, DCG, house, and those things are simply more important.
EW> Regards,
EW> Eric Winemiller
EW> Digital Carvers Guild
EW> 3D plug-ins for Carrara
EW> http://digitalcarversguild.com
EW> nicholas8681 wrote:
>> I'm curious what people think of the current expanding selection of
>> open source software out there.
--
Cordialement / Sincerly yours,
Fran?ois
Flocons de P?ques
Infographie 2D et 3D - Cr��ation web - Services informatiques
www.floconsdepaques.com
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