Free alternatives to software piracy

Generally speaking, I hate open-source software. They tend to prove not the slightest match to commercial software and in my opinion, is worth going to any extent just to get a commercial leading software, most usually from the magnificent Microsoft.

 

http://f4l.sourceforge.net/

There's also a cheap Win clone, Swish. I looked at it but decided my brain was too full already.

That gets you on the blacklist, 3 strikes and you're out.

 

If you aren't a skilled graphics artist, GIMP is great. You may not need all of the features that you find in Photoshop, so what's the sense in paying for them (because you ARE paying, of course).

If you're a highly skilled professional graphics artist, it could be that GIMP suits your needs (and maybe you're an OpenSource junkie!). You've got to pick which tool will best serve in a given situation.

Software is like Pokemon. Write that down.

What I wonder is why people think GIMP is the only free alternative. Here's one I just found: Paint.NET.

That Zimbra looks really interesting though, I'm going to have to check it out.

 

Thanks there, and thanks for the backup cpemma

 

And why is that?

Thanks for the link, btw.

 

While there are many free alternatives to commercial software, the main problem is that they've been developed to "Scratch an itch" on the part of the developer. Once it does that, however, development ceases.

I'm an ASP developer by trade, and while there are many programs out there for development, they all seem based around a very faulty premise (Here's an emacs template for ASP... You know how to use emacs, right? No? How about vim? AARGH!). I don't want to have to sit down and learn a piece of software, how to get around it's niggles, "Features" and bugs, just to use it. So, seeing as I was on the beta team for VS2005, I use my "Beta 2" copy of VS. It didn't cost me anything, I'm using it legally. Could I afford VS otherwise? Hell no! And I'm not the only cheap one here. I was employed by a large company (A pharmaceutical company who's name rhymes with "Loony Ken") to develop their intranet, and I was expected to use Notepad to develop the whole thing (Needless to say my copy of VS travelled in with me on a USB stick).

Free software is usually made so it does what it needs to, but no thought is given to the user experience. I mean, who the hell decided that <ESC>!wq is an intuitive way of saying "Save and exit"?

Free software tends to develop from one of two pathways.

1. To do a single task
2. To copy an existing piece of commercial software

So you end up either having to stitch together numerous small programs, all with very dissimilar user interfaces (SDI for an image editor? Where's my tool pallette gone?) with a lot of "Glue" and workarounds (I'm looking at you, perl, grep, sed, awk, and all the rest of the "Just pipe it in" set), or you have to deal with a second-rate copy of an existing package, who's UI has been ripped off wholesale without any thought as to why the designers chose to do it that way ("It's like that in word, right?").

Microsoft and Adobe (And the like) all spend thousands of dollars a year on User Experience testing and usability research, and for the most part it shows. I have no problem paying for software, but I expect to pay a reasonable amount for it.

As an example, how much cost goes into the development of the average Computer Game? There's programming, Modelling, Actors for the voice overs and motion capture, yet more for the FMV, online gaming servers to put up, advertising, licensing of the music. A cost of millions by the time all is said and done. Yet how much does a game cost, retail? £30? £40? Yet something similar, original input cost wise (Say, Adobe Photoshop CS) will set you back 100x that amount! It's patently ludicrous.

And (For Windows, at least), it's in Microsoft's best interests for you to have it. Then you can use software made for the system (WINE nonwithstanding), which equals more profit for them. MS are getting the idea. .Net's main development tools are free to download and use, which increases the market share and encourages more people to use it. If MS wanted to achieve greater market penetration, they should release a version of Windows for free (What an idea!). Perhaps a bare version, with nothing bundled inside (No Media player, no IE etc). Then people could buy MS products, or third party ones, to upgrade their system with exactly what they want.

As for the "Apple" argument, use you get a lot of things built-in. But you do with Windows, too. (mail=Outlook Express, iPhoto=Windows Imaging, iTunes=Media Player and so on). And you pay less of a premium for PC hardware and Windows than you do buying the Apple experience. When you buy "Apple", you buy a lifestyle, and you pay a premium for it.

Note, this is all IMHO, and any resemblance to views of other people, companies, or the view out of my window is purely co-incidental.

 

Well said

 

Not to disagree with your whole post, but this point doesn't quite stick. Assume that both Game A and 3D Modelling Program A cost $5M to produce. The game may sell 150,000 copies at $50 each, giving everyone involved a nice profit. Game company then turns round a year later and releases the sequel, and people buy that. They don't make a massive amount per product but volume adds up.

3d Modeller A, on the other hand, is unlikely to be usurped by it's successors nearly as easily. Sure, next year's version may have a spangly new interface but for the vast majority of users there will be nothing new for them - they can use if for three, four or more years without a problem. Although a similar number of engineers etc may buy the product, they won't buy another one in a year's time so the company has to get three or four year's worth of profit out of each item.

Hope that makes sense but I'm a bit too tired to read it all again.

 

Looks like a ban for you and your other bit tech name is going down soon, unless some stupid sap signed up to get banned....

 

I would use Linux, if it could read (and write) to my 200gb's of NTFS data. :/

 

Id agree with that. I tried it and absolutely hated it, its SO not user friendly at all, its really, really roundabout and stupid. It seems like the GUI was designed by a programmer, not a pc user/ergonomic specialist.

For anyone developing relatively complex software, PLEASE, for the love of god, think about how people are going to use it, make it as intuitive as possible... It doesnt have to be crazily perfect, it just needs to make sense to the average user of the OS its on...

 

there are still too many "IF" to use all those free software. they look good but when i use them i _always_ have problems!
the only one i use everyday it's Thunderbird.
i also agree with the gimp's unfriendly user interface, i think they only wanted it to be "different" from photoshop...i use paint.NET 2.6 (it's free, and do something...)
last time i used office was almost an year ago, i think..
and i think i'm going to buy Vista...OEM sure

 

Some are better some not yet available

To me free softwares must tried twice as hard to gain recognition as one car rental company motto 'we are not the first so we tried the best'. Using my Sony Ericsson T610, the included software from Sony Ericsson dubbed Download Sony Ericsson Communications Suite is only gave me HELL. It installed some drivers and can only sync with MS Outlook. Lucky for me there is Float's Mobile Agent which is freeware and I can assure you all the SE users out there, there's another reason to have a SE phone, its the Float's Mobile Agent

Only... what is an alternative download manager for Pete?

 

Good article but you could have gone further. I've used these free alternatives for a while now with no problems:

Open Office (Abiword is also great) instead of Office. CDBurnerXP Pro 3 instead of Nero. TUGZip instead of winzip, winrar or/and winace. Free Download Manager as my download manager. Netmeter to monitor my net usage.

And so on, http://www.nedwolf.com/ is a good place to start and then searching http://www.sourceforge.net/ for whatever else.

I own an old version of PaintShop Pro (6 I think) so I use it for my image needs, however if I didn't have it I'd use Gimpshop. Which, as you can guess by the name, is GIMP edited to resemble the interface of Photoshop. http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294

Only thing stopping me from switching to my work setup (FC3) are the games needing Windows. bah.

 

This is the problem I have with my external HDD. I only use nix here but there are times I need it to be read/written to from a windows box (and do not have the ability to install one of the various ext2 drivers that exist), it's FAT32 atm....

 

Welcome to all that this thread is bringing to join, nice to see new people here on bit!!

 

Has anyone seen the Xgl demo video yet? I'll probably switch to ubuntu when it has it rather than upgrading to vista.

 

I find many free software come with alot of crap like spyware and so on. You need to watch what you download if its free. Also need to watch what you download even if its a normal software.

 

Tomm:Seashore is basically the GIMP rewritten to use cocoa.

I use Inkscape for vector, Paint.NET for bitmaps and Blender for 3D regularly. I find they all work well espescially Blender and Inkscape. I don't use paint.NET for much besides resizing and compression right now. I also have a computer set up to dual boot XP and Ubuntu.

 

Personally i use leechget, and find it to be reliable + fully featured. I definitely recommend it.