From shlomif at shlomifish.org Sat Mar 12 22:34:36 2016 From: shlomif at shlomifish.org (Shlomi Fish) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2016 22:34:36 +0200 Subject: [Haifux] Open Source Graphic Design - Discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160312223436.08f2c5fe@telaviv1.shlomifish.org> 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 Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .