Open Source vs Commercial software
About Andrew Price
I like long walks on the beach and yelling out during movies. My cat's name is dog, and my dog's name is cat. I am hilarious. I like Blender.28 Responses to “Open Source vs Commercial software”
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I totally agree, although sometimes it can depend on whether or not someone has money to spend.
i’m not a professional artist myself, i’m an opensource programmer. but i’ve seen a lot of comments on foss products from professional artists who often blame it, say something like – i’d rather pay my money to get the work done. so you’ve probably expressed the opinion of this whole huge crowd. this opinion is right and expected from artists because they don’t make software. they are making something different and for them the software is like an ingredient for a cook. to cook something tasty you probably to need to pay more for better quality of ingredients. the main difference between people like you and those who appose you is that you take the software as input, as an ingredient that you have to by in a shop, while those other people treat the software as one of their products. you know things like gimp or blender wouldn’t be that great without support from thousands of users who are not even devs, but just send good bugreports, feature requests and things like that. so they feel responsible for the quality of the software they use. personally i when i use a foss program feel responsible for improving it at least as a user because i understand that the success of the software totally relies on people like me who can make a patch to fix some issue, or to just send a clear bugreport or such. the devs themselves can rarely make someting that would please nongeeks, without a huge stream of feedback. i think that many foss fans who hate paid software have some sort of parental feelings to the software they use so they seek for more attention to it because the more users there are, the higher its quality is. this can quickly become a paranoia when people refuse to use paid software even when there’s no foss alternative. but who cares about these paranoid people
so. i mean to say that if people can use foss software that isn’t as perfect as paid variants they should do it. because even if you spend a whole night having sex with a program you still have a chance to make it better. so if people can donate their time to deal with such things they definitely should do it. no matter are they paranoid or have clear mind their efforts bring us to the days when you don’t have to pay a cent just because you want to become a professional artist. so if people want to play with foss things they should do it because finally all of us benifit from their work. if they become too annoying i think it’s not hard to just ignore them for a while:) as i mentioned i’m a foss programmer and currently to don’t have to pay anything for just having the right tools at hand, because many other people, who may sometimes seem marginal, have done great work so far. now we have free compilers, ide’s, etc so it doesn’t cost you anything to start developing for enterprise environment for example. you don’t have to pay for your windows, visual studio and other tools that may be neccessary. so i think you get the message – if people want to use foss programs they should do it caz they’re doing the right thing, and their hatred for users of paid software or its devs can be just ignored 
Well, there are a few problems with what you are saying.
First, Open-Source can be Commercial. In fact the GPL encourages commercial use (the beautiful thing about copyleft) . You can and should get money for your work, even though if it is Open Source.
Another fact is that if you license content and prohibit commercial use, it renders this content as non-free.
In this manner, I think that the title should be “freeware vs commercial” instead of Open Source.
Another issue I would mostly consider, before consuming any content is what rights would it give me. This means that whether it will not be free (as in speech), will have a significant role in the decision of whether I want this content or not.
To conclude this, I just want to say I love your content a lot. And I’ve been suggesting your stuff to lots of people.
Firstly, I don’t really understand the need for this rant. I could understand if it were in response to some other topic or debate, but as far as I can see it’s just a rant.
Secondly, you state that free software would usualy be buggy, lack support, no video tutorials etc etc etc. I think these are some shocking statement to make considering the quality FREE software that is out there at the moment, Blender, Gimp, InkScape etc etc. I think that the wow factor may have gone to your head slightly here because it’s given you some money in your pocket you seem to have forgotten the blessing that is Free software to those who don’t have the big money to spend on graphic software.
You are absolutely right when you say that it is sometimes better to pay for software than just to struggle with free software. But there can be several reasons to continue the struggle to use free software:
- Because in the end it gets better. I agree with the other comment that Blender, Gimp, Inkscape, MyPaint, OpenOffice have reached an incredible level. I use Ubuntu on my laptop and it really works and looks like a dream! I do not dare to tell you how often I installed Linux on a machine and then removed it because it didn’t work. But I am almost at a point where I would like to remove the other operating system.
- Because it is fun: I have ‘played’ with an awfull lot of free softwares. With paid versions you can play for 15 or sometimes 30 days. Due to Murphy the fun always starts after the 30 days.
- Because paid software is too expensive: I really love Cinema 4D and have used an older version that I was offered with a French magazine. It cost me around 100 Euros and really was worth the money. Several times I approached them to see if I could get a ‘non-commercial’ licence at a lower price. 1000 Euros is just not a reasonable price for a software that I will be using three to four years without an upgrade. That’s almost the price of a fast new laptop. Note that this is not a complaint. The companies have to make money and obviously there are not many paying customers, hence the high licence fees.
Sometimes I ask myself if spending the amount of time is worth it. Should I just buy the full version of Photoshop instead of figuring out how to do the same thing in Photoshop Elements, Gimp, Artweaver or any other cheaper alternative. I only have to look at the price of the software and the quality of what I am able to produce to know that it is the right decision. Often it is not the software that determines the quality but the time and effort you put into things. Your own work is a perfect example.
Thanks for your nice blog and tutorials.
I do love Open Source software. Specially Blender, Linux, Mypaint and Gimp.
However, I am not of the opinion of not paying for it.
Although I haven’t had a chanc to actually do what I will say (Mainly because I’m broke as hell at the moment) I do intend on, as soon as I’m able, make donations to the respective organisations and institutions behind the software.
Maybe, if everything goes well and according to plan, even as far as to assign a certain percentage of profits to go monthly to this purpose.
I’d like to think I’m not alone in this thought, so I just wanted to share it.
Great video Andrew.
You are a gentleman and a scholar, could not have said it better myself. Open Source is great but when people outright refuse commercial software/tutorials/ect just because they have to pay for it I think that’s misguided.
Everything costs something, even Open Source which costs time to develop, test, and debug. Is it no surprise that a lot of these people eventually want to be paid for their time or support?
I agree with you to some extent..
First: (as someone already pointed out) it’s a big difference between OpenSource and freeware…
I’m all for OpenSource and would have absolutely no problem with paying for OpenSource (sadly there is’nt many products that are OS and commercial..)..
(I love OS but my favorite software is proprietary and costs a huge amount of money..)
2nd: Yes it’s true that many free softwares have lacking documentation and/or support/updates.. But many do have great documentation etc..
And just because it’s a proprietary/commercial software it doesn’t guarantee that there will be good support, updates etc…
It all comes to this:
Use the right tool for the job and budget. You don’t need to pay a lot of money if there’s another version that’s free/OS and will handle the job just fine. (Examples: Maya[etc] vs Blender, Microsoft Office vs OpenOffice etc)
AND: Make sure you get what you need and NEVER trust just what it says “on the box”. You don’t want to pay too much for too little..
And just because it’s a “paid product” it doesn’t mean it’s the best for you.
I’ve used a lot of OS text editors (professionally) but then I paid for an editor, simply because it offered some features that I wanted.. (can’t use it anymore, since I switch to Linux, but that’s another story..).
But I could have stuck with the OS editors, and there hadn’t been a huge difference..
At last: Not all paid education are great (believe me!!) and not all free education are bad (There are many great and free tuts etc on the net [*cough* BlenderGuru].. MIT release a lot of edu.-material free… And in here in Sweden your whole education [including university] is free…. etc)
So once again: Take a look on what you get. But don’t dismiss paid/commercial products, don’t strictly dismiss free products.. And NEVER dismiss OpenSource because it’s OpenSource.
(Then you’ll live longer ;?P )
Just my view (and humble opinion) on it.
)
When I remember the old times when I used to spend hours writting software codes to only have a simple 2D image, comparing to the fantastic things we can do with Blender 3D, I always say by myself: ” Why I do not pay for that, man?”
We also should think about the thousand of dollars paid for softwares like Maya an Max to have something better, but not exactly thousand times better than Blender 3D. The cost of them should be less than US$ 100 because even if you consider the support, tutorials and “blá,blá,blá”, they definatelly are not more than a hundred times better than a free application like Blender 3D or Gimp.
I was the same way Andrew. I finally gave up Gimp, and went for Acorn, which has saved me so much time and hassle.
But Maya is amazingly buggy, and it does not cost $40 it cost´s about $6000, Weight paint is a headache, Modeling in maya is a headache, UV mapping in Maya is a Headache!
@P4blo
Yeah! I used Maya when I was an intern and, although is was quite great in many ways.
Wight painting and UV mapping made me scream in rage, they just suck!
andrew.. i completely agree.. 95% of blender tuts online are really bad and a waste of time
this site ad blender cookie are the only ones that i bother watching.. for people that dont have the money to spend though they dont really have much choice 
I have found several products the are expensive that look amazing, so i look around and about 97% of the time i find a program that is either better or close to it thats free. So it really can depend, if you find a book on interesting blender tutorials, keep looking around you may find an Andrew Price.
I see it basically as matter of exchanging for something that you find valuable.
Even with Blender, which is free, it’s such a good program and though I’m just starting with it, I see it as a program worth supporting. Either donating to the Blender Foundation or supporting the overall Blender community by purchasing educational materials, etc.
Free is okay, but I agree that the sites and materials that usually interest me are paid, and often higher quality because the people are able to work harder to make good content than someone putting out free material.
Of course if everything was free, no one would be able to keep going on it, unless they are independently wealthy. I love seeing guys like Andrew and Wes/Jonathan with BlenderCookie because it’s inspiring that you can do something you love and contribute to the growth of a cool community while still earning an income yourself.
Can be better video if come with some of infographic video about topic on.
True! I pay 25$ every month for lynda.com, and I don’t regret, that I probably already spent 500$ on it. The learning resource is just awesome and I think if something is really good, it should be paid eventually. Of course for something like Blender that’s not the case and would be too much for the community, but I think paying for education is great. I probably almost spent 1500€ on books and it might seem like a lot of money, but you also get a lot for it. Without such educational resources I wouldn’t even be able to work in my industry.
People shouldn’t be hating too much for low price education and stuff like that … I mean c’mon just like you’ve said. In the time you struggle to get it working, you could have finished the job for your client and you paid 50€ for the software, but you also get 150€ from the client.
You didn’t even touch on the real problem with OSS. The FSF may encourage commercial OSS, but the terms of the GPL prevent it from being viable.
I just finished reading over the GPL and there’s no way to restrict a paying customer from distributing the product in any way they see fit.
From the FAQ:
“If I know someone has a copy of a GPL-covered program, can I demand he give me a copy?
No. The GPL gives him permission to make and redistribute copies of the program if he chooses to do so. He also has the right not to redistribute the program, if that is what he chooses.”
If I release the game I’m developing under GPL or a compatible license one guy may spend the $5 on it, but then he can give copies to his friends for free or even put it on his website for download. Zealots who believe that commercial software shouldn’t exist can use that to pretty much drive a developer out of business.
From the article “Selling Free Software:”
“Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.”
Note the RE on redistribute. Some guy who pays $5 for my game could turn around, put it on his site, and charge $10 for it. Naturally people would pay the lower price if they knew about it, but if the guy redistributing it for $10 can build more of a web presence the $5 copy will be hard to find, and none of that $10 goes to the developer.
We actually had that happen with Blender. What the guy did was legal under the terms of the GPL, but there was an outcry from the community mostly because a guy was profiting off of software that he had no part in the development of.
If it’s out there for free then that game could end up on 300 machines while the developer only gets the revenue from one copy. That amounts to selling it for 1 2/3¢ per copy.
Now I’ll admit most of the software I use is open source. I use Blender for models, The Gimp for textures, Ogre for rendering, OIS for input, Bullet for physics, and I’m thinking of going with Open AL if I don’t go with Direct Sound.
However, I also intend to charge for my products. The zealots may see this in the same light as walking into a Baptist church during services and conducting an infant sacrifice, but I don’t intend to live in my truck and any revenues from the game will get me the gas money to get out and look for work.
The question is, why mess with a license that says you can sell your software, but if someone puts it up for free download or sells it themselves you just have to take the hit?
That’s like getting a work from home job in data entry, at best not getting paid because someone provided the exact same data for free, at worst someone else getting the check because you emailed the data from their computer.
Thats why gaming companies make key codes…
WoW for instance, you have every right to distribute the game for how ever much you want, you can even download it free online, but you HAVE to pay for a key code to have an account then you have to pay monthly.
sorry, put that on accident, meant to do @ dwmitch
Firstly I came to Blender from commercial software and have spent money on commercial software and used good free software. I could not however afford the thousands of euros on Maya and ongoing updates
You firstly make the assumption that there is always a choice, often users cannot afford commercial. Sure they can afford a computer, but numerous 30-50 dollars mounts up, especially when you find the software is crap, or doesn’t do exactly what you want.
Secondly some of the best software in the world is open Source. Blender, Linux, PHP MySQL Apache and on and on and on.
Buggy as hell with frustratingly bad support, Mmm? Microsoft Windows methinks
Oh and if you change your MB you have to buy it again ???
Education, I have purchased a number of books, so have no problem there, but they have to represent value.
I think the problem you had with the WF, is that you just pitched the price a bit high (no pun intended
) Your PDF tut, while undoubtedly superb as most of your work is, had less content than a book half the cost.
Anyway, keep up the good work Andrew, I guess you deserve a good rant now and then
I couldn’t agree more with this video. People have been given free stuff for so long now that they get upset if they have to pay for anything of value.
Suck it up. Nice things cost money.
If you’re lucky enough to find a website like this one that doesn’t charge you for the benefits it gives you…well…you lucked out. My fear is that the ungrateful people will get so loud and so piously insistent that folks like Andrew will just throw up their hands in frustration and call it quits.
Andrew, you also tar many good programs with the same brush that you use to describe the bad. There are reasons why the many computing platforms of the ’80s have died ways, the the range of software has dwindled to a few powerhouses.
With the Open source vs Commercial software. There have been studies on the Total Cost of Ownership for equivalent products (Eg. Blender vs Max, Linux vs Windows), and the critical difference is that Commercial Software has less of a training cost (or learning curve), when compared with Open Source solutions. BUT much OS Software has woful training, support, documentation and the like. Commercial Software tends to be more driven, as you stated, but OS grows organically based on the needs of those in the community.
There is this DYI mentality that you should do it yourself (rebuilding the wheel and so forth), but there are problems with this. It has lead to a fractured OS community, with many forks, and not the building up of effective solutions.
In the end, I do not want to focus my energy on searching and testing out new software, or writing a solution from scratch. I just want to create.
I would agree entirely. I use completely free software, and I do often spend extra time learning about it.
I had been wanting some advice on this, as I was considering getting Cinima 4D since everyone says its so easy to use.
Interesting – I like this documentry on the OpenSource vs Commercial Software. Free vs Profit. The Virtual Revolution 1 – The Great Levelling 1 of 4 – BBC Documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYqrbohcSOc&feature=related
I’m hoping the 3D web will be here soon and want to make content for it (TurboSquid). This is why I have changed to mostly opensource from Commercial. Rezzable are creating 3D virtual worlds just now. Here is a good video about using OpenSource.
Open Source Software Fuels the 3D Web Revolution – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piht3oqHYDU
I believe that both Commercal and OpenSource are needed, its a kind of dualism. Each drive each other forward. Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge are the main goals to aim for. But for me, when I create a piece of artwork I don’t want to have to buy the latest version of 3D MAX or MAYA to open up the file so I can edit it. So OpenSource is the way to go for 3D artists that need to keep control over their work.
I agree with a lot of the comments here. I think you confuse freeware with open source. And it’s really strange coming from someone who uses Blender as their main tool to say that open source is often buggy etc. Compare Linux and Windows: which is more buggy? And as far as I know 3dsmax crashes a lot more often than Blender. It’s much easier to track and remove bugs in open source, as anyone can have access to the code and contribute. So yes, the title of the video should be “freeware vs commercial”. Freeware probably usually IS worse than commercial. As for education, that’s a different story. There’s no issue of “community contribution”. Sites like yours or BlenderCookie are better than most of the stuff out there. Although most of what you offer is still free. But why not just talk about the superiority of paid education instead of ranting about the potential superiority of commercial over “open source”
Anyway, good luck and keep up the good work.
I don’t have the money to pay for all the software I use today and it’s not like I make money from using them either. I just use what I can afford to pay for and I’m grateful that we have quality software like Blender we can use for free.
Even though i’ve not paid for Blender, I’ve helped support it by buying books and DVDs from the Blender shop. So some free software still costs a bit of money.
I’m new to this site and enjoyed it’s contrent very much. I’ve bought the WOW Factor already and the content is premium stuff, good work.
Sites like this cost time and money to run and if they can offer premium content that I can use then I’m willing to pay for it. I’ll need plenty of bonuses to go with it of course just for insentive purposes.