Talk of VLC media player, Firefox, blender, GIMP and a lot of other free, open-source software which are almost as good as or in some cases, better than software you'll have to pay for. If you've used commercial software that serves the same purpose as some of these free open-source software, how would you compare the two?
Well for sure there are more features that the paid version offers as compared to the free version, so I guess that's all there is to it. The free software does the basic job, but for the more complicated "add-ons", then you must pay for the better version. I personally am content with the free open source software though.
I used to always buy commercial software. I always assumed it was better. Then I tried out some open source software and I haven't gone back. The only commercial software that I might consider buying in MS Office because a lot of people use it and expect that I have it. I use LibreOffice instead and I love it, but it's a pain when I get the MS Office questions.
Case-by-case basis. VLC is by far the worst media player you can use, so that one is out of the question. GIMP is fine, but Photoshop is much more convenient. Firefox and Chromuim are pretty great (but, is Fiorefox truly open source?), though. I don't think I use any other open source software at the moment (is foobar2000 open source or just free?), but from what I hear, there are some very useful open source database managers and other software that can be used on corporate-level without any problems. I think that's the future of monetized open source.
I don't buy software ever, I always get it free, but I think each case is a case. I think there's no better than Microsoft Office for example, but apart from that we can find pretty much everything for free, unless you have a really specific need.
What exactly do you mean by that? It's pretty much the best alternative out there, it supports just about every format under the sun, and has a few pretty advanced functions too (transcoding/streaming video, etc.) Um, yes? Log In
I say do not judge a book by its cover. There is a lot of open source software that is much better than what is already out there and branded as commercial. I have been able to find and do a lot more with open source than i have with commercial software and it all really depends on you and what your plans are and what you need a particular software for.
I'm far from being a software expert, but I'd guess that it just depends on user taste and if the developers know what they are doing, regardless of them getting paid for it or not. I personally adore using Adobe Photoshop and a number of their other products, but for other consumer software, I just use what is free and available. I don't favor either free or paid, as long as the makers are competent, I will support them.
In my opinion VLC is the best media player out there, but then I prefer to use 3ds Max for modelling over Blender and I believe that GIMP equals Photoshop in it's performance. Honestly, it depends on the program, it could be better, it could be worse, or it could be the same.
id have to disagree on the gimp vs photoshop debate. Maybe for simple image manipulation yes. But for truly advanced tasks photoshop offers , gimp doesnt hold a candle to it.
I suppose it depends what you're using Photoshop for, I use Photoshop to make gifs, and photo edits, but in the past I've found Gimp capable of doing everything I need. I suppose for advanced things Photoshop is superior.
