Re: [Haifux] Open Source Graphic Design - Discussion

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Amichai,

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 15:49:32 +0200
Amichai Rotman  wrote:

> I have recently found out that the Graphic Design field in Israel is held
> captive by Adobe!
> 
> A friend of mine is finishing his Graphic Design studies at Tiltan in Haifa
> and I asked him if they teach any software other than Adobe products. He
> said that everybody uses Adobe exclusively, so *there is no reason to learn
> anything else.*
> 
> I say - any monopoly is a bad thing!
> 

Well, there are some open-source monopolies or near monopolies out there as
well. A monopoly is not necessarily bad as long as it isn't abusive, and
monopolies tend to arise in any kind of economy from my experience. Not saying
that Adobe as a near monopoly is a good thing to have, just saying that you
should not waive the monopoly argument.

> He also said that the Open Source solutions out there are not as goodas
> Adobe products, so nobody uses them.

It is true to an extent, and the best way to overcome it is to volunteer and
contribute and improve these projects. See:

*
http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/How_to_start_contributing_to_or_using_Open_Source_Software

*
http://blog.smartbear.com/programming/14-ways-to-contribute-to-open-source-without-being-a-programming-genius-or-a-rock-star/

I have contributed quite a few patches to GIMP in the past, and have recently
started contributing to Inkscape, and I suggest you do the same, and like these
links indicate, there are other ways to contribute besides coding. Today I
built GIMP from git (which was time consuming due to the need to
resolve dependencies) and then noticed it segfaulted right before exiting it -
a problem which I intend to try to reproduce and report.

> 
> I was sitting in my regular hangout cafe today and a guy walked in, opened
> his laptop and started to work on Graphic Design - and he was using GIMP,
> Darkroom and UFRaw - on Ubuntu. I started talking to him and he said he is
> a student from Germany and he uses Ubuntu and Open Source because he has no
> money  and these are good enough for what he needs. That he doesn't feel
> the need to use Adobe products and, this way, he says, he will be able to
> give his future clients lower rates.
> 
> The biggest problem in Israel, as I see it,  is that very few freelance
> designers actually buy the Adobe Suite they use and if the want to work at
> *any* design shop they are required to use Adobe products *exclusively*.
> 

Well, open source programs use similar paradigms to their proprietary
equivalents (with a somewhat different UI and feature-set) so people who know
how to use the latter should be able to adapt to using the open source
alternatives given some time, study, and attitude. It's not as if using Adobe
products somehow poisons your mind.

> So, why would they even bother to study GIMP and other FLOSS programs?!
> 
> My friend says that the only way to change this, is if design shops will
> require knowledge of Free Software - then Design Schools (like Tiltan) will
> start teaching Graphic Design using FLOSS
> 
> Clearly, a vicious circle...

I don't see a vicious cycle here. If open source programs become good enough,
then they may hopefully see wider adoption.

> 
> I'd like to hold a Round Table meeting with FLOSS Graphic Designers and
> Non-FLOSS Graphic Designers (i.e. Adobe users) and Graphic Design Teachers
> to discuss ways to introduce FLOSS solutions to the Graphic Design field in
> Israel.

See what I wrote above. FLOSS solutions have won over their proprietary
competition in quite a few fronts already, but usually they were better or at
least not much worse to justify the extra cost. I don't see what this Round
Table meeting will buy you except for stating what we already know. A meeting
was sometimes described as a "session where minutes are kept and hours are
lost."

Regards,

Shlomi Fish

-- 
-
Shlomi Fish   http://www.shlomifish.org/
https://youtu.be/n6KAGqjdmsk - “Hurt Me Tomorrow”

Wikipedia deletionists Don’t Die. They lose notability and get deleted.
— http://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html

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Re: [Haifux] Open Source Graphic Design - Discussion

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 10:42:59AM +0200, Maxim Kovgan wrote:
> hi, Amichai.
> Sorry... got carried away - started yesterday sending this today :)
> Thanks for bringing this interesting subject to this list, this
> "design" market behaves very much like audio/music making market:
>  - size of the market is what can be fairly called "narrow niche", so
> sustainable income (business) cannot be done immediately by selling
> products to "anybody" on the street.
>  - problems the market is facing are very computationally expensive
> and non-trivial, complex - thus requiring very highly skilled (i.e.
> expensive) people to implement and perfect

I got the impression that it's the other way around, with plenty of
small-time freelancers.

> 
> The result of this "setting" is: very few big players providing
> solutions, and relatively "high prices" in LAYMAN terms.
> This "layman" comes to products of this market usually without the
> intent to make money, so a couple of thousands of dollars for license
> is expensive for it.
> 
> My speculation follows, but in short: I don't see how open/free tools
> can give solution for items 3 and 4 in the following list, and 2 is
> also a very tough one to handle.
> 
> Pleas,for a moment, relieve your mind off the ethical side of free
> software, and ideals :), think "business" (with speculations of
> course)
> 
> BIG companies INVEST their own time (=money) in "open source" and
> "free" software.
> Not because they like to hug trees and raise pink unicorns or ponies
> (sorry, a father of a couple of daughters is talking)
> They do it mainly because it saves them $$$ and brings them quicker to
> market (*usually* internally, BTW)
> 
> free+open solutions have apparent value and potential for *wide*
> markets ("consumer" grade).
> e.g. every company has operations, infrastructure and support needs,
> every one needs operating system to run their own computers.
> 
> Thus, in these areas, sharing code/knowledge with other companies
> saves you much more visible amounts of expenses.
> This is why in the area of IT/OPS the free solutions thrive, and this
> is why Android (not purely free linux, yet linux) is *the most
> widespread* OS.
> 
> My guess is that the German guy you saw  using free tools has probably
> worked on digital only, with small business, this is doable, but less
> convenient.

You've got to start somewhere.

> 
> 
> Below is just a list of "state of the things" (subjective, IMHO, speculative)
> Let's see how it can be "attacked":
> 
> 1. unified workflow
> Most of adobe tools give the same user experience, this makes it very
> easy to jump between the tools
> Free tools currently have a very high variability in the user
> experience: Scribus, inkscape, GIMP, blender.
> 
> 2. industry standard == hardware support
> multitude of hardware vendors supporting their software (drivers for
> plotters, color profiles for displays, calibration tools, PRO cameras,
> sketching input devices, etc.)
> Adobe tools know how to work with "big bad printing press" devices.
> yes, GIMP|inkscape support wacom tablets, but color stuff and output
> hardware - not sure it does...

Can anybody give some actual facts here? For instance:

https://lwn.net/Articles/672138/

> 
> 3. NOT really expensive directly
> 
> By "directly" I mean - what you pay for a license to run this "evil"
> proprietary software vs. what you get back.
> I don't have real data on design shops - what are their expenses, how
> much they charge, but my guess is the software cost does not limit
> them.
> And the BIGGER the shop - the less those costs affect the price, so
> the customers don't really suffer.

Still, not everybody works for those larger companies.

> 
> 
> 4. Skill/knowledge transfer, certifications, support, easy to find users
> (smells like there should be a word for this :) )
> This is the "vicious circle" :), very important for businesses:
>  - usage process is streamlined, easy and known to all
>  - People know how to use the tools, and they can teach others, so you
> can on-board your employees by passing them official or in-house
> tooling certification, or require that certification from candidates
>  - commercial support and integrators exist, and support you (they
> often are the ones that provide you licenses for even cheaper price)
> 
> On the other hand: If you're using a tool that only has community
> support, and resolving a bug involves undetermined amount of time, it
> is a "no go" situation.
> The training often costs more than license, so called "invisible"
> cost: less training = less downtime, more value.

If there are enough users, there should also be commercial support.

But then again I wonder: just how good is that commercial support?

> 
> 5. DRM
> Adobe tools support DRM, this is something design shops/publishers often WANT.
> This is ... against freedom, and free tools, especially FSF based
> won't ever support this.

Can you give examples of where this is actually used?

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