Bearfruit

I was reading through Andy Fitzsimon’s blog recently and this article about the cost of non-free graphic design software really struck a chord. I’ll admit, I have often wished I could upgrade my version of Photoshop but just don’t want to spend the money. I am using free software for my graphic design 98% of the time now (estimated, actually probably more often than that) and do just fine. Andy’s comments really hit me - I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for over a week now.

He’s right on the money about the upgrade cost. If you bought CS2 for $600 it officially became obsolete when CS3 came out. You pretty much have to upgrade, costing another $200. And if you decide to be clever and skip a version, the cost to upgrade may go up. And the learning curve for Photoshop is no different than for other software. You learn it by using it and it takes 100’s of hours to become proficient. If instead of the commercial products you spent the time learning other tools you’d be proficient as well.

I’m glad I work for a company who is willing to stand up for free software. Not everyone gets a choice on the tools they use.