Posts Tagged ‘open source’
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
I recently ran across this 3D artist’s perceptions about moving from commercial to free, open source software. I appreciated what I believe to be an objective analysis of the costs and benefits of commercial and open source software. Sure, the commercial software has some nice features that you’ll have to live without…but do those really affect your artistic expression? Probably not. How much do you gain by moving to free, open source alternatives like the time you gain for artistic work when you don’t have to analyze the financial costs of upgrades, plugins and other up-sells that keep subtracting from your personal or professional budget? I’m guessing most non-profits and churches identify closely with the author’s tension caused by “[wishing] to conduct business in a legal, sustainable fashion amidst a struggling economy”.
There are many very full-featured free, open source alternatives to all of the mainstream art and production software. Give them a try…you just might find that free is freeing in more ways than just in your pocketbook…
Tags: blender, gimp, inkscape, kdenlive, multimedia, open source, scribus, software
Posted in Culture and Community, Philosophy, Ethics and Theology | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Ran across this article from Collide magazine. The author asks a lot of good introspective questions about church services and what that means about priorities. Of course, why limit that to only your church services? Why not ask that about other parts of the church including your IT strategy? About the type of computers and software you use? What do you elevate? And what does that say about your church? Does it say exclusion or inclusion? Does it say selfishness or sharing? Once you know what it does say about your church, it then follows on to ask the original authors question: what should we be elevating? When you ask and answer those questions, my guess would be that more Christians and churches would be using (and creating too) more open source software and sharing more of their content with Creative Commons licensing. But that’s just a guess. 
Tags: church, ethics, open source, philosophy, software, theology
Posted in Culture and Community, Philosophy, Ethics and Theology | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Just saw this pointer to a couple video compilations showing some of what is possible these days with Blender 2.55, the open source animation, compositing, and many-other-things-multimedia software. If you’ve been wanting to do some more advanced stuff, but can’t take the financial hit of After Effects or Cinema 4D (or anything else really) it would be worth it to try out the latest Blender. It’s not for the faint of heart though, it’s a serious program with serious power. Take a look!
Tags: blender, multimedia, open source, software, video, visual effects
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
I just wanted to welcome Lightworks into the open source family of software. It is still in process of being fully open-sourced, but the first step has happened and you may now freely download the same application used to edit Pulp Fiction, The Departed, Centurion and Shutter Island. Not a bad resume, I think. Right now, Lightworks is Windows-only, but since there isn’t an easy to use non-linear video editor on Windows in the open source world, it’ll be great to add that support.
Let me know your thoughts if you end up checking it out. I will be waiting until Linux is supported which will hopefully end up on their road map eventually. But, still a really great addition to the suite of tools of pro video editing. Thanks, Lightworks!
Pulp Fiction, The Departed, Centurion and Shutter Island
Tags: editing, free, multimedia, non-linear, open source, opensource, video, windows
Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
I enjoyed this short post entitled, “As We Worship, So We Believe.” I thought it encapsulated why I encourage the use of open source software verses proprietary software. It’s not about the details of feature set or which software is really better. It’s about the concepts of sharing, inclusion, and helping others that the use of free and open source software embodies that show as a tangible example that we support those positive values. Of course, the opposite is also true whether people would like to admit it or not. When we use closed, exclusive, expensive software that only serves our own needs, it says something about the type of Christians we are: exclusive and selfish. Our choices in worship, in personal interactions, in the software we support show things about our beliefs. It’s just that simple.
Tags: ethics, open source, opensource, software, theology
Posted in Philosophy, Ethics and Theology | No Comments »
Friday, October 22nd, 2010
As I was reading a review of the latest Ubuntu, I noticed a reference to Jokosher.
Jokosher is a simple and powerful multi-track studio. Jokosher provides a complete application for recording, editing, mixing and exporting audio, and has been specifically designed with usability in mind. The developers behind Jokosher have re-thought audio production at every level, and created something devilishly simple to use.
I haven’t had a chance to check it out myself, but if it’s included in Ubuntu then it’s normally pretty stable and ready to go. The good news is that it also supports Windows (I can’t tell about Mac support) for those that haven’t started drinking the Linux kool-aid yet.
For those that try it out, please let me know what you think good and/or bad, so we can help make the project better or let people know about a great cross-platform, free and open source audio application.
Over the next few months, I’ll try to carve out some time to pull it down and look at it to do a more detailed review.
Tags: audio, free, linux, multimedia, open source, production, software, ubuntu, windows
Posted in Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, October 4th, 2010
Just a quick post to let you know about 10 free desktop productivity apps that aren’t OpenOffice. Most of them are open source and have been mentioned here, but all of them are free as in $$$ (not free as in freedom). Hope it helps you see what great tools are out there for you.
Tags: desktop, free, open source, productivity, software
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, October 2nd, 2010
Over the past few years, I’ve learned that one of the biggest hurdles that open source software has is just the fact that it isn’t the well-known commercial software. There will always be things that each software does better or worse or just different and in these conversations the incumbent (i.e. the commercial software that everyone already uses) is always right no matter what is good, bad, or ugly. The Gimp vs Photoshop comparison is no different.
So, as much as possible, I try to find ways that make moving to the open source alternative as comfortable as possible. So, if you are a Photoshop user thinking about trying out Gimp, I just ran across this article about several things you can do to make the transition a little easier. I hope it’s helpful.
Tags: gimp, image editing, open source, photo editing, photoshop, raster, software
Posted in Tutorials | 1 Comment »
![[FSF Associate Member]](http://opensourcechurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/fsfmember.png){kind=small}
