[Haifux] Open Source Graphic Design - Discussion

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Amichai,

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 15:49:32 +0200
Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il> 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 .