Software being free doesn't mean that no-one is being paid to develop it though.
People have this idea that open source software is written in basements by people with big beards and half eaten pizza lying around. A great deal is actually written by companies like IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, etc.
Software being free doesn't mean that no-one is being paid to develop it though.
People have this idea that open source software is written in basements by people with big beards and half eaten pizza lying around. A great deal is actually written by companies like IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, etc.
Ah, so you're saying that if there was any good remote reason to imporve GIMP by anyone/any company it would have been done years ago? :p
Part of the reason imo why pros don't use open source software is because it has a reputation for being coded by computer geeks for computer geeks and thus has things like confusing and nonsensical UIs,
Whilst that's often true, I'm not sure Photoshop has ever had a UI that anyone can claim isn't confusing and nonsensical*. However a lot of people have spent a lot of time learning it's quirks and are thus used to expecting software to work like that.
It's a lot like driving a car. If you sat down and entirely redesigned how cars work these days, you'd come up with a far less convoluted design than we all know (whose design was as much, if not more, about making mechanical linkages that work reliably as it was about ergonomics and practicality). However if someone actually tried to release a car like that, nobody would be able to drive it.
*admittedly not nearly as awful as the GIMP though
The cost of developing new features for something like Photoshop are amortized across the entire customer base, so despite the fact every customer is paying for a new feature, nobody is having to outright fund the development themselves. That doesn't work with FOSS software, so if one customer really needs a feature they've pretty much no choice but to pay someone to do the work in it's entirety and then is pretty much obliged to give it away for free to competitors. Making the argument for ROI on such an investment is incredibly difficult in most cases (though by no means all).
On the other hand, if there's a feature that you want and no-one else needs, you can either (pay someone to) add it to an open source tool, or go without.
Software being free doesn't mean that no-one is being paid to develop it though.
People have this idea that open source software is written in basements by people with big beards and half eaten pizza lying around. A great deal is actually written by companies like IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, etc.
And every single one of those is driven by ROI and their own corporate strategy. That makes it great for things like databases, system management, development tools and things that are generally beneficial to IT people, because the end user scenario generally overlaps heavily with the funding bodies own agenda. It's a lot less workable in other areas, despite them having just as much a requirement for software. Very few art and design studios, for example, have either the knowledge or desire to employ software developers and, quite frankly, they shouldn't have to either.
On the other hand, if there's a feature that you want and no-one else needs, you can either (pay someone to) add it to an open source tool, or go without.
You can. It's cheaper to buy Photoshop though and then you don't go without.
Ah, so you're saying that if there was any good remote reason to imporve GIMP by anyone/any company it would have been done years ago? :p
Yes, that's why it still requires an X11 server, can't do CMYK, has buggy clipboard support, and no scripting engine... Oh wait, they were all done years ago ;)
You misunderstand me, I mean you want a capability that Photoshop doesn't have.
Photoshop supports plug-ins, so you can pay someone to develop any functionality you need if you can justify the outlay. And doing so offers the benefits that (a) you're working against a defined ABI, so carrying the functionality over to future versions is more likely to work without effort (b) you aren't obliged to hand your functionality over to competitors (which you can only really avoid with FOSS if you entirely maintain your own fork ad-infinitum, increases costs yet further)
Part of the reason imo why pros don't use open source software is because it has a reputation for being coded by computer geeks for computer geeks and thus has things like confusing and nonsensical UIs, Blender being a case in point. OK, so any piece of software will have a learning curve, but seeing as 3D CGI is complicated and time consuming enough as it is, you don't want to be fighting with the UI as well.
I loved Bryce3D back in the 90s but boy did it have a silly GUI, same with TrueSpace if mammaries serve me.
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People have this idea that open source software is written in basements by people with big beards and half eaten pizza lying around. A great deal is actually written by companies like IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, etc.
Ah, so you're saying that if there was any good remote reason to imporve GIMP by anyone/any company it would have been done years ago? :p
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Whilst that's often true, I'm not sure Photoshop has ever had a UI that anyone can claim isn't confusing and nonsensical*. However a lot of people have spent a lot of time learning it's quirks and are thus used to expecting software to work like that.
It's a lot like driving a car. If you sat down and entirely redesigned how cars work these days, you'd come up with a far less convoluted design than we all know (whose design was as much, if not more, about making mechanical linkages that work reliably as it was about ergonomics and practicality). However if someone actually tried to release a car like that, nobody would be able to drive it.
*admittedly not nearly as awful as the GIMP though
On the other hand, if there's a feature that you want and no-one else needs, you can either (pay someone to) add it to an open source tool, or go without.
And every single one of those is driven by ROI and their own corporate strategy. That makes it great for things like databases, system management, development tools and things that are generally beneficial to IT people, because the end user scenario generally overlaps heavily with the funding bodies own agenda. It's a lot less workable in other areas, despite them having just as much a requirement for software. Very few art and design studios, for example, have either the knowledge or desire to employ software developers and, quite frankly, they shouldn't have to either.
You can. It's cheaper to buy Photoshop though and then you don't go without.
Yes, that's why it still requires an X11 server, can't do CMYK, has buggy clipboard support, and no scripting engine... Oh wait, they were all done years ago ;)
Photoshop supports plug-ins, so you can pay someone to develop any functionality you need if you can justify the outlay. And doing so offers the benefits that (a) you're working against a defined ABI, so carrying the functionality over to future versions is more likely to work without effort (b) you aren't obliged to hand your functionality over to competitors (which you can only really avoid with FOSS if you entirely maintain your own fork ad-infinitum, increases costs yet further)
I loved Bryce3D back in the 90s but boy did it have a silly GUI, same with TrueSpace if mammaries serve me.
There is an obvious joke here.. *bites lip*