Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2015 11:51:57 -0500 From: Bigby James <bigby.james@dimthoughts.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Exist more advantage in doing design using open source or operating system of closed source? Message-ID: <20150321165157.GA2740@WorkBox.Home> In-Reply-To: <CAKfdDEKHk%2Bg4N0hwOrRZvXKRrTygsnS-=3s2s%2Bt38MUtUgmKmg@mail.gmail.com> References: <CAKfdDEKHk%2Bg4N0hwOrRZvXKRrTygsnS-=3s2s%2Bt38MUtUgmKmg@mail.gmail.com>
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On 03/13, clark designer wrote: > Exist more advantage in doing design using open source or operating system > of closed source? > > For example, using Linux? > > BSD? > > If yes, what are the advantages? The real answer to this question is another question: Are Windows or OS X "good for design?" The answer to that question is "No," because you're not using the operating system to do the design work. You're using software installed on top of the operating system to do the work. There are a number of free and open-source tools (which the other two respondents here have mentioned) that can be used for design, and those tools serve a lot of people very well. Inkscape, GIMP and Blender are notably widespread and well-maintianed, though not as popular as their Adobe/AutoDesk equivalents. All of them are available on multiple platforms (operating systems) as well. It's really a matter of choice: You can save money by using the FOSS tools, but you'll still need to spend time and energy learning how to use them to accomplish your goals, and if you're taking courses to train you as a designer you'll almost certainly be using Adobe or Corel tools in those courses. Trying to learn the fundamentals of design themselves, the software used in your course, and the FOSS alternatives available all at once would almost certainly be a fool's errand. Better to learn what to do and how to do it with one piece of software---say, Photoshop---then learn how to do the same thing in its FOSS equivalent (in the case of Photoshop, that would be GIMP). These tools are all capable of the same things, but do those things in different ways. Before you can learn what those different ways are you'll need to learn what it is you're actually doing, and using the tools provided in your courses would probably be the sane way to start. What I would definitely encourage, regardless of the software used, is to adhere as much as possible to open standards and file formats. Prefer PDF to .docx, SVG to .ai, OGG to MP4 and the like. If you're doing any design for the web, adhere to the web's open standards and write any and all code from scratch using a good text editor like Vim, EMACS or Sublime rather than using some "smart" garbage like Dreamweaver. This all ensures that your design work can be opened (and edited) from any computer that any potential client, collaborator or critic might use. There are several tools that you as a designer can use to maximize your potential, and some of them do happen to be free and open-source, and being free and open-source can give those tools some advantages (like being available everywhere and being frequently updated), but I would not say that those tools' being free and open-source will give you any objective advantage as a designer. It's a matter of you finding the tools that you're comfortable with and making them work for you. There are several insanely popular open-source projects out there that lots of people use because they're arguably better than the alternatives, but not many people would claim that they are better *because* they follow the FOSS model. As for me, I ran Linux as my main operating system for the better part of seven years and have been running FreeBSD for several months, but I confess that since I was trained to use Adobe tools *and* was made to pay about $320 USD for them myself, I've just kept using them out of habit and to make good on that cash investment. I have a Windows 7 Pro license that I used to install Windows 7 in a VirtualBox instance, and start that up inside FreeBSD when I need to do some graphics work. I can do all of the writing, coding and file manipulation I need to in an operating system I love, and use the one I don't really like just for the graphics work without the need to reboot or maintain another operating system. Not ideal, but it works very well. -- "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams
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