Sure. I'd be glad to write something up if that will help out. Let's exchange contact info over PM.
Nice!
I think the straw that broke the camel's back for me has been the trend towards software-as-a-service. That model is fantastic for businesses and terrible for consumers. Businesses already dominant in their market love SAAS, because it lowers the cost of adoption of their software, thus increasing their dominance over smaller competitors, while raising the barrier-to-entry for new competitors who will not have a large enough user base to compete at that low-cost, high-volume game. In the absence of competition, and without the need to motivate customers to upgrade to a new version every year or two, profits skyrocket because less money now needs to be spent on software improvements and marketing. In the process consumers who thought they were getting a great deal in the beginning, are now dependent upon tool providers who no longer need to do a whole lot to keep them around.
This is exactly what has happened since Adobe has moved to a SAAS model. New releases are no longer about innovations, but rather new methods to create interdependence between their tools and their growing number of services. I cannot remember their last Creative Cloud release that really made my job easier or my work better. I'm not paying less and I now have thousands of files that I can only edit by subscribing to an additional 12 month license. I'm just not interested in it anymore, and I think designers need to take a stand and support the only real alternatives, which are free and open source tools that cannot just be bought out as soon as they pose some threat to the status quo.
ok, thats reasonable. apart from that the SAAS is just a logic step to keep businesses like adobe running and profits growing constantly in a pretty fast-paced environment for digital products. at first sight not a bad idea for both of them, consumer and business, as the SAAS model has benefits and costs on both sides. i think there is a lot of competition also for big businesses because of open-source-tools available, becoming better, feature rich and usable in professional environments. and it is still just a question of time for big businesses to significantly loose market shares, if they are not top-notch with their products. otherwise more people and professionals will turn over to open-source-tools and free equivalents. to put all the money into the development of the software and less into marketing would be a wise idea for them. if they don't, they won't sell their stuff via SAAS either. to punish the customer with additional fees and useless services is just a indication for loosing balance regarding the benefit-cost relations which unavoidable results in a bad situation for the company no longer selling the product or services in the long term.
today, a lot of people still use SAAS products and are happy with the low cost access to tools you'd have spent thousands of $ ten years back. i had a big discussion with a friend of mine, an independet filmmaker, about SAAS products and espc. Adobe's "Premiere" last year. although he is short on money, he stated that Adobe's tool meets standards regarding usability and codecs which open-source-tools wouldn't and which he needs for his professional work, so he is willing to pay for it. why not.
if you strip it down and have a look at the counterparts on the open-source-side, there is and will be a race for standards the software has to match for professional environments and features it needs to be usable. for example i've been reading a lot of complains at other cgi - forums about the new GIMP and the new Inkscape too - long development cycles, almost no new features, small to no improvements on perfomance. you could have written the same about Adobes tools, but they seem to meet standards most professional people in cgi are missing with the open-source-counterparts. if this is so, it's also a good reason to stick to properitary software however. who cares?
there are business models around open-source-tools also and they struggle too, as seen with the cannonical - amazon - deals and ubuntu to raise money for its further development. its pretty hard for a fair business model based on donations to compete with a business model based on user fees. both has its up- and downsides. i understand people who want to feed their families from developing and selling properitary software tools, and i also understand those who have time and money to create an open-source-software available for free. both seems to be necessary. everything else is in between and its evaluation always depends on subjective experiences and viewpoints. it rather seems that the SAAS - model has some common ground with the business-models of some open-source-systems too, not selling the software to customers, just selling the service for/with the software. redhat and novell are good examples for that.
seems like they are dependencies everywhere in life, like by using open-source-tools someone could be dependant upon providers developing the open-source-software he/she needs in the workflow.
There are other, more personal, motivators for me. Free and open source software is a way to foster a more egalitarian world where people are unencumbered by their limited means or access to expensive tools. The whole of humanity is improved when talented people are able to communicate and create. If I can by some small means contribute to that cause, I would like to do so. By building awareness of, donating to, and otherwise contributing to free and open source software I feel like I am helping create that world.
I wish I could just get everyone to get on board, but even within my own company it is hard. But open-source-first is my goal, and something I'm going to keep working towards.
true, but looking at the essential meaning of your words, you could also say open-source-software is just a way to whatever, a piece of art, something nice and fair, beautiful with good intentions. even that and everything else is just a subjective viewpoint depending on the person using the software. to foster a more egalitarian world, it's all about the doing and the motivation, not the tools someone is using. your motivation is good and fair, maybe thats why open-source-software seems to be a good idea for you reflecting yourself. and it surely is for a lot of people like me too, who enjoy all of their benefits and their costs.
about your websites: nice informations, i was just missing infos regarding LibreOffice and other open-source-publishing-tools on your Open Creativity board. i've been working at several non profit ngo's in the past, all of them exclusively using open-source-systems and tools, and LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) was always part of the management - workflow creatives use to write concepts, organize the administration and put publications or portfolios together. and there are other publishing tools like scribus for example, which might be interesting for creatives of the writing guild to read about.
