I read about something truly forward thinking the other day. The surprising thing was that the thinking came from a government. The unfortunate thing was it wasn't our government.
It seems that close on the heels of giving Coke and Pepsi the boot that the government of India is teeing up Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, and everyone else in the world that ever sold software. Recently the Indian government mandated that their public schools would not teach, or use, software that wasn't free. They're backing it up with a pilot program to train thousands of teachers to use Linux.
I wish I had thought of that.
Years ago when I was in Vegas, one of the other PMs brought in a copy of OpenOffice and said we should trash our MSOffice apps and use the freebies. For a couple of guys in an office it seemed impractical. We were always getting files in from clients that we would have to be able to work with. The PC/Mac thing was hard enough. I can't imagine what it would have been like if we had given up Word.
But now, now I don't know. I write this blog on a free web app that I run in a free browser app. I dumped IE for Firefox a while ago and haven't looked back. I wonder if the free software I would need to get by is available, and if I am doing myself a disservice by sticking with purchased apps?
I mean, what do I use? Word, Excel, Outlook, Photoshop, Firefox, AIM, AutoCAD, Project, KerbFTP, Acrobat, Notebook, and Powerpoint. That's the bulk of it. I am sure there is more, a slew of proprietary driver based things for peripherals and stuff like iTunes. But really with all the applications on the machine the real use does break down to a small group.
I know that Google has a free word processor and spreadsheet that run as web apps, so that could deal with Word & Excel. Firefox, AIM, and Acrobat Reader are already free (come to think of it I guess I would need to add Quicktime and Shockwave, but they are also free and between them make up for the need for Windows Media Player). Its funny that when I shifted away from our old email app that I didn't even think about using Thunderbird, but instead went right to Outlook. I did it because it was the school's recommended application. But maybe I acted too quickly. That would get me most of the functionality of Outlook. There must be free plaintext editors, and I know there are free FTP clients, so scratch Notebook and KerbFTP. I also think I have seen public domain .pdf writers, so that would take care of the rest of Acrobat.
What does that leave: Photoshop, AutoCAD, Project, and Powerpoint. Anyone have any suggestions? There has to be free image editing software, and for the 1% of the functionality of Photoshop I use I could certainly use something a little less robust (and maybe something that boots faster). I have seen TONS of online project management tools, but I haven't seen anything that generates GANTT charts, but I haven't looked either.
Now I have. The third entry on a Google search for GANTT is a free Java app called GanttProject so I guess that's out there too.
Powerpoint? Wouldn't it almost be better if I couldn't find something for Powerpoint? A quick search doesn't find anything here, but it isn't that complex an app, is it? There must be something.
Which brings us to AutoCAD. I would think that a freeware drafting program that uses a .dwg format would be hard to find indeed. It does look like there are free programs that export .dxf though, so maybe it isn't hopeless. Although Vectorworks theoretically exports .dxf, so there's maybe more to it than just the file format. In many ways my utilization of Acad is the same as of Photoshop: "cutting butter with a chainsaw" as Kevin often says. Maybe scaling back the power of my drafting app wouldn't be such a bad idea. Its not like I will ever afford my own AutoCAD license anyway.
So maybe, just maybe the suite of programs I need is out there as freeware. What an unbelievable concept. A quick run to Amazon totals $2793.94 for the list of apps above not counting an FTP or text editor - and Acad LT instead of full blown Autocad. That's a lot of beer after work spending its life on my hard drive. Now, that doesn't include many educational discounts I have access to; but what with the "AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT" printed four times on every sheet output, I am not sure I want the educational versions anyway.
This, of course, ignores the elephant in the room - or on the drive rather: Windows XP. How many of the apps I found would run or have cousins that run under Linux? And could I deal with Linux? I used to function under DOS and TRSDOS and in a simple unix environment ages ago. I bet I could get up to speed enough to send email. I think anyone who ha successfully handled AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS and COMMAND.COM can probably handle something less easy than the Mac or Windows GUI. Could my IT guy handle Linux? Almost certainly, but could he integrate one obstinate freeware user into our network? Who knows.
Still, its a real cool idea and something to keep in mind down the line. And something to watch as a generation of students grow up in India.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Could Never Happen Here
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7 comments:
For Office: Try Openoffice.org, play with it, it's free, and it reads and writes MS Office docs. And it doesn't require an internet connection, or relying on a publicly traded company to not spy on you.
For powerpoint: Openoffice.org Presentation. I've actually built presentations in it, exported ppt's to people who use powerpoint.
For photoshop: I've been using GIMP (www.gimp.org), which gives you probably 95% of Photoshop 7.0 (or so). It only does 8-bit, the UI takes a little getting used to (there's http://www.gimpshop.net/ if you want it to look and feel like PS)
For Autocad: There Is No Equal. There's a couple of folks working on some things, but nobody serious enough to make it happen. If a couple of big Architecture firms teamed up, hired some F/OSS developers and made it happen, it could happen. But everyone is comfortable paying their Autodesk tax.
Notepad: Try Notepad++ (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=95717)
for Windows.
FTP: I really like FileZilla (http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/)
Operating System: I really like Ubuntu. www.ubuntu.com They've got a LiveCD you can download (or order free discs) and just boot your computer into to play around without trashing your HD. It's a linux-like distribution, most of the above stuff runs (OO.o, gimp, etc), and sooo much more you can't get for windows yet.
Couple this with the following:
I run Photoshop and Autocad and Windows XP and Outlook and Office at work. I try to run as much free, or at least garage built software at home. (I'm buying a $130 photo workflow solution that blows the doors off anything else I've played with).
There's also a difference to pay attention to between "Free with restrictions" and "Free with sourcecode". If something is provided via google (who rock, btw), it can be taken away, sold, arbitraged into a friendly port and sold for profit. If some bit of free software is provided with its sourcecode, you can keep using it forever.
(Sorry for the rant =)
I use GIMP at work on my machine because "Photoshop is only for the design department".
It works fine, but I also have no idea what I'm doing with any photoediting software. It opens things, so I can see if they look like the picture.
And now you've got me thinking about this whole freeware software as an actual option thing.
Granted, software is expensive and most of us find ways to avoid the system all together. I, as a Mac user, have been given way to many programs to be considered a moral compass on this issue, but here's the question: Why is the freeware free? Many free goods (software, publications, web space, etc...) are "free" because the client has agreed to host a certain amount of add space on their product. So basically, they offer you free software as long as you agree to let them advertise to you? Is this a healthy thing to encourage? Is it not more consciencious to pay people like Photoshop and Autodesk for the specialized services they provide?
Caitlin:
"Free software" Ad supported is one boat. (This often referred to as "free as in beer")
The other boat is "free as in speech". This software is given to the world with the understanding that you can do what you want with it (it's also often restricted-- usually in that if you make changes to it and republish the software you also have to publish the source code so others can benefit from your changes).
Of course, there's two ways this works:
- A couple of guys "in their garage" can write something. A lot of the little projects work this way-- somebody takes Part A from this project and Part B from this project and turns it into something far more useful.
- The other way (I alluded to as the only way to make a serious competitor to AutoCAD) is for several companies whose business has nothing to do with writing software "band together" to make something better/easier/cheaper. They're doing it because it's cheaper for them to hire a few developers to write software, and then be able to use it forever and fix it when it breaks, than it is to keep paying some company a maintenance contract to fix their buggy software. It usually takes a couple of big companies to make it happen. A huge chunk (I'd guess 75%) of web sites are hosted on a webserver called Apache. Apache was started by a hacker or two, but the bulk of the development on it was by some big hosting companies that wanted to be able to do data centers full of webservers without paying licenses for each copy.
It takes a leap of faith for a company to say "we're going to put money into this opensource project because it will benefit us in the long run", but it works. The long run benefit to >keeping< it open source is that other people will find and fix bugs, and add features to it.
To go back, I think you asked if it's better for the economy for Adobe and Autodesk to receive payment for their R&D work. I feel it is imperative that if I am benefitting from the work that Adobe and Autodesk did that I pay them for it. However, if I can make my business more agile or profitable by moving away from propreitary software with restrictive licensing then it's better that my small business grows than for the execs at Adobe to increase their profits.
I'm a little preachy about "open source", and I apologize if I come across as Bible thumping a bit. =)
Ben:
No, you don't sound preachy at all. But I have some queations for you.
-By whome are these people "in the garage" getting paid to develope this freeware? Is it a hobby? How do they have the income to support their development?
-By using their freeware, who am I benifiting on the food chain?If I pay Adobe, at least I know who I'm benefiting...
Caitlin:
- The folks in their garages are typically not getting paid for their work (at least not at first), usually they're hobbyists. There's lots of OSS software to support things that people do-- 90% of it is actually "I needed a tool to do X, so I wrote it, here it is." Sometimes an OSS project gets picked up, and the original programmers are hired. Linus Torvalds (the guy behind Linux more or less) is pretty well employed for something he messed around with in college. Typically these are folks who enjoy writing software, and having a large code library to pull from helps them to make their software better.
- Nobody gets paid when you use OSS software. That's not the point. The point is that you have 700 more washingtons to go spend somewhere else because you didn't HAVE to buy Photoshop. So you can spend $700 elsewhere in your business.
Does using OSS help software companies to increase profits/keep developers employed? No. But it doesn't hurt the economy on the whole-- plus the money you save can be put into the local economy if you choose.
(So you support the caterer down the street when you throw a larger office party, rather than subsidize Bruce Chizen's kids going to college)
(I think it also helps to stop thinking of software as a product, and think of it as something akin to a tool. Except: it takes a forge an anvil some steel and a lot of hammering to make a chisel. To make a software chisel, it takes a forge, an anvil, a lot of hammering-- but you only have to do it once. Then you make unlimited copies of the software chisel. The furniture I create with this chisel has value-- but because of a lack of scarcity, my chisel has no value once created. DRM and copy protection are based on the need to enforce the scarcity to justify paying for things. I'm not trying to argue that people shouldn't be paid for their work, but once you stop restricting the distribution of software, it becomes only what people DO with the software that has the value, not the software itself.)
I'm starting to see half a dozen holes in my arguments, but it's late and I need to sleep. Caitlin: thanks for the volleys, I'm enjoying this =)
may i recomend CutePDF Writer as an alternative to adobe. unless yu need to add comments to documents. it basically works as a internal printer and will "print" any document to pdf.
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