Posts Tagged ‘software’
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, January 4th, 2011
As one of the originators of the free software movement, Richard Stallman has an interesting analysis of the current WikiLeaks situation. Since this is very related to my series on Rethinking Ethics in a Digital World, I encourage you to seriously consider some of the points Stallman brings up. While some would write him off as an extremist, I believe it’s hard to argue with the analogy he plays out showing how much privacy, control and freedom we have given up in our society as a result of the move into the digital age. When it comes down to it, these become ethical issues about censorship and human rights in a digital world which have always related directly to our God-given rights and freedoms as an individual creation of God.
What are your thoughts on Stallman’s argument?
Tags: ethics, software, wikileaks
Posted in Philosophy, Ethics and Theology | No Comments »
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 »
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
I’m hoping to do a more in depth review soon, but I couldn’t wait to post that the Blender Foundation’s third open movie project Sintel has been released online. It is just a testament to what is possible with free and open source software. It’s a huge accomplishment for the Blender Foundation and a huge inspiration to me personally to keep learning and expanding my toolset.
The movie is also a way cool business model based on making everything available for sharing, education and remixing via Creative Commons license. Share it with your organization, your friends, your followers. Copy it, download it, use it as your church service countdown video this week, do what you want with it just as long as you attribute it.
Congratulations for a job well done. I am in awe! I look forward to seeing more faith-based organizations taking advantage of the amazing free and open source multimedia tools that are available like Blender, Gimp, Inkscape, MyPaint, Alchemy and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ
Tags: alchemy, blender, creative commons, durian, gimp, inkscape, multimedia, mypaint, open movie, open source, sintel, software
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
![[FSF Associate Member]](http://opensourcechurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/fsfmember.png){kind=small}
