It's official : open source software has won

Support Other Software
1

It’s official : open source software has won.

You can write documents and build spreadsheets in Libre Office,
Create 3d images in Blender,
Edit photos in the Gimp,
Paint and draw images in Krita,
Animate in Blender,
Create vector graphics in Inkscape,
Create games in Godot,
Edit videos in Blender,
Record audio in Audacity,
Track camera movement in Blender…

All the software you need is free and open source,
Adobe are defunct,
Sure, open source programs can sometimes be a little clunky they allow you to do basically anything.

Why isn’t this true of Android?

Sure, phones are smaller and less powerful than computers,
But there’s a lot of things they should be able to do,
Like create tunes,
Like create games,
Like write documents, spreadsheets,
Draw pictures,
remove background noise and maximise volume compression in audacity
Audacity! That’s a simple program!
Y’d need some manipulation of how all those menus fit on the little phones,
But why can’t we use it on phones?
What else can’t we use on phones?
There’s a thing we can’t do on Gmail when its on android:
We can’t delete large amounts of emails at once on an operating system made by the same company as the Gmail server!
Why are phones limited like that?
Where can I go to find open-source software for Android?

Am I doing this wrong?

Should I look at like Linux for phones?

I don’t actually use Linux for computers
I use mostly open source software on Windows
It would be nice to have some open-source programs for Android
Facesid for Android is opensource
Draw Pixel Art Pro is free and very good.
Simple Teleprompter looks like it’s fine.
Neather of those has adds or in app purchases.
Date Alarm has adverts, but they’re small and subtle and that’s fine.

Maybe there are more good Android programs, but the expectation just doesn’t seem as high as it should be.

2 Likes
2

In your first list you forgot about streaming and OBS.

You can find FOSS apps for Android on dedicated app store called F-Droid:

https://f-droid.org

I hate ‘working’ on mobile because of how unwieldy this form factor is for any serious work. Small screen and input methods are too limiting for my taste.

1 Like
3

Yeah, i should have mentioned OBS. Sorry bout that.

That F-droid looks really good and like something I would really like to look at.

I see what you mean about phone screens being very small and this making a lot hard … this does mean the software for phones has to be different from the software for computers, but i think there could be advantages when you can go into music creation or image drawing while your sat on a bus, layed in bed, on the toilet, all those kind of times when doing something on phone is just right.

4

Open software doesn’t need to win because there is no market to conquer… if monetization is involved it always goes ugly. There are only hearts (or better minds) to win.

((Using Linux since Slackware… don’t remember… SUSE, Ubuntu (see what i mean? :money_mouth_face: :chart_with_downwards_trend:) now Debian 9))

Also:
Paint and draw: Blender
Vector graphics (SVG): Blender
Simple python editor and shell: Blender
Simple Text Editor: Blender

:wink:

3 Likes
5

Blender is more of an exception, in terms of quality. I absolutely hate working with Gimp after Photoshop, even if I do that because of principle; working with layers is absurdly overcomplicated for no reason.

3 Likes
6

Two things gimp does better than photoshop:

  1. you can copy/paste the folder’s filename in gimp. In photoshop you have to actively go to a folder by hand.

  2. you can invert the perspective … so you can select perspective, select corrective (backward) and you can line up the grid with perspective in your photo, and it will flatern out the perspective.

One thing i really need to know more about is music creation open source DAWs. Audacity is very good in a way, but it doesnt allow you to program drums or synths or do what other music creation programs do. The music software i do use (which i will not name) does not have the option to change the bpm of samples without changing the pitch in the same way audacity does. It also has far too many synths, each of which is capable of way too many sound options. I would like to know about good open-source music programs. At the very least id expect it to work in all 3 operating systems.

7

I’ve had great results with LMMS, it’s not perfect but it’s a pretty decent DAW

3 Likes
8

The GIMP is a lot better than it used to be, but let us not pretend it is already capable of overthrowing the Adobe Suite (as it does not have some of the more advanced features without needing plugins).

As for LMMS, I am not sure where they are right now, but when I tried it many years ago it did not come with many virtual instruments out of the box and had some of those signature quirks that screamed “I am a FOSS app”.

Also, another to add to the FOSS list is Material Maker, it is about to hit 1.0 and it is now quite good as a texture creation app. However, I would not say that FOSS has defeated the commercial app. vendors as Blender and Godot are still more of an exception than the norm, the norm has gotten better compared to 15 years ago but commercial vendors still have R&D departments.

9

I can’t consider GIMP a serious photo editor until it has adjustment layers. Why it’s taken their devs this long to add them in, I have no idea.

2 Likes
10

These functions are more of a gimmick, compared to moving and rearranging parts of the image, which you need pretty much every second in graphic design. In GIMP, you cannot move only the selected part of the layer with Move tool, you absolutely need to cut and paste. Even then, pasting stuff doesnt create a layer by default, but some “floating selection”, which needs to be turned into layer with another command. The icing on the cake is that resulting layer has its working area limited to the bounds of pasted fragment, which only can be solved by merging with a new, empty layer. Way too many steps to work efficiently

2 Likes
11

There is two debates here, one about free software in general, the other about free software for android.

About free software in general, they are here for such a long time.
You can use linux since years, but it’s quite recent that it can be a good alternative for average computer user who isn’t into informatics and have basic needs.
Yet linux is one of the less used OS :

Same with blender, while it’s used since a long time, it’s 20 years old, but it’s only recently that it can be looked widely as an alternative to commercial counterparts. And yet my guess is that we are a minority
of regular users here.
And we talk about one of the most successful opensource project in CG.

Probably some opensource project for Android can flourish, I don’t know about that topic, but my guess is that it will take a bunch of time too. It’s a slow process, people making these software needs to live.
They can’t be as much funded as a commercial project, especially in the beginning.

1 Like
12

LMMS eh?
Does that do a few audacity things like change tempo without changing pitch? Remove noise from a recording? Compress audio? Record audio? Audacity is good for doing these, sure, but then it lacks when it comes to creating synth paterns and drum parterns.

13

I love GIMP! I’ve done photo-editing, book cover design, image stacking, procedural images, and plenty of other work with it to know that it’s very powerful.

LMMS is the same story. I’ve made quite a few music tracks and synthesized SFX. The only problem now is my lack of talent…

Also, Blender is the only program I know of that can do pretty much everything! With the exception of audio editing/creation there’s pretty much nothing that Blender can’t do! :joy:

2 Likes
14

As far as i know Krita.org does have something pretty interesting layer “modifier” option thingies but i just don’t use them :sweat_smile:… I did used Photoshop a long (long) time ago and thought: *oh why doesn’t have a more simple (and cheaper) photo/image/manipulation/drawing programm does have layers… (yes back then layers were expensive)… and Gimp came to the rescue :grinning: … then i used Krita for some time but they changed something a bit drastically (at least for me rarely Krita/Gimp user) so i did simple manipulations more in Gimp (which is even to big for this) and in recent past i used Blender while exploring the (new) grease brush…

I interested in a more non-rarely user opinion of Krita.

1 Like
15

Craig Mullins (a VERY influential concept artist/painter) recently tried out Krita. (Edit: This post wasn’t intended in response to you Okidoki—we just coincidentally both posted about Krita at the same time)

https://twitter.com/craigmullins3/status/1535763083313876993

https://twitter.com/craigmullins3/status/1535763092570705920

2 Likes
16

From Wikipedia:

LMMS (formerly Linux MultiMedia Studio ) is a digital audio workstation application program. It allows music to be produced by arranging samples, synthesizing sounds, playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers.

Used it for a time myself… but i’m a noob in making music :sweat_smile:… have to learn a lot about music in general. Never even know what type of genre i’m listening to. (Okay not never but my my most known knop on the radio is OFF… )

17

From Wikipedia:

LMMS (formerly Linux MultiMedia Studio ) is a digital audio workstation application program. It allows music to be produced by arranging samples, synthesizing sounds, playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers.

Used it for a time myself… but i’m a noob in making music :sweat_smile:…

18

If you have work to get done using software then most of the better software is commercial. I use Blender because it is superb, and I don’t find it worth the money to buy LightWave, the nearest commercial equivalent, because it wouldn’t do what I do any better.

However I keep an old 2005 Mac with Photoshop CS3 installed on it, and that is vastly better than the Gimp. I have used Photoshop to edit images over 80,000 pixels wide (86,400x43,200 to be precise) on that old machine, and you can’t even load an image that size in the Gimp. On my current Mac Pro there is Affinity Photo, and yes, that too can be used to edit those huge images. There are a few things that Photoshop CS3 still does better than Affinity Photo which is why I keep the ancient Mac, but I hardly ever start the old machine now.

For my music I use Logic Pro, and none of the open source programs come anywhere near it for usability and the wealth of features, bundled sounds and plug-ins. The same is true of all of the commercial DAW programs, they are miles ahead of the open source efforts. Audacity and LMMS may be good, but those commercial programs are years ahead.

Now if you’re on a tight budget the Gimp, Libre Office and Audacity etc. are life savers, but no way are they winning over commercial programs. In most cases they are a somewhat clunky but workable alternative for those who can’t afford the commercial program.

Blender is not that, it is a real alternative that can get serious work done. I sell 3D models online and have been doing it since 1990, and I am not even tempted by LightWave or any of the other 3d programs.

Once I get a new graphics tablet I will be taking a look at Krita too, as I have read good things about it. It may convert me to another open source alternative to Affinity Photo and Photoshop, you never know.

I wish I hadn’t accidentally kicked my old graphics tablet. I had it by the desk and got up in a hurry to find my mobile phone when it rang, and I booted the tablet hard enough to split the case open. It hasn’t worked since, not surprisingly…

It was an oversized square one in a size that Wacom don’t seem to make any more. There is an A3 Wacom but it will have to wait a month or three as it is a silly price.

19

It does. I use Krita all the time these days, and love just about every second of it. About the only thing it’s missing relative to Photoshop are the content aware fills, which I don’t use much, since I’m rarely ever using it to edit photos.

The only thing I don’t like about it is how it dulls the background when you bring up one of the adjustment layer panel. It kinda makes it difficult to edit your colors when the UI darkens them to draw focus to the active window.

20

The GIMP is currently undergoing a major rewrite that should allow the team to add a lot of missing features.
Development version: GIMP 2.99.10 Released - GIMP

As you can see, they have been putting more effort into resolving major sore points (which technically started when they finally fixed the UI and made it a single window by default, as well as giving more attention to the Windows platform). Their GSoC project meanwhile hopes to further repair their historically bad reputation as a print environment.
GSoC 2022 project announced: CMYK features - GIMP

It still won’t replace Photoshop, but not having to mess with payments or DRM in any form is a plus if it is all you need.

3 Likes