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Time Till Open Source Alternative

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Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#101

Post by peeters »

It'd be interesting to follow up each of these entries with what actually superceded the original in terms of market share.

"Original"/OSS/Current:

Office/OpenOffice/Google Docs

WinZip/7-zip/Whatever archive utility is bundled with your OS

Windows Media Player/VLC/Online Streaming

Netscape/Firefox/Chrome

In all but a few of the other cases (e.g. OBS), the original hasn't lost an ounce of market share to the "alternative".

I guess what I'm saying is the data seems to show that the threat to paid software isn't OSS alternatives, it's commercial competition.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#102

Post by nocman »

bsder wrote: post #67
DannyBee wrote: post #40

The chart is interesting because it misses the important part - it covers time, but not adoption. For example, adoption of GIMP has not likely materially increased over time (as a relative percent of total addressable market) IMHO, what the author gets wrong what so many people who claim this (they are not the first, or the last) get wrong - open source as a whole sucks at building products , but is great at building…

> For example, adoption of GIMP has not likely materially increased over time (as a relative percent of total addressable market) This is an interesting question to me because Adobe only recently moved to cloud/subscription fairly recently. Before that, you could get a physical copy of Photoshop and keep it running forever. As that pathway fades, it will be interesting to see if something will finally supplant Photos…

I would not call 9 years ago "recently" (March 2013 is when Adobe announced it would no longer sell boxed copies of the Creative Suite software).

Adobe obviously doesn't care. They treat their customers like crap and actively try to extract as much money out of them as possible. A few years ago (or less) they worded their description of their monthly subscription very carefully, so as to mislead people into thinking they could pay for a month or two when they needed it, and then cancel. The fact was that monthly only allowed you to pay each month, it was still an annual subscription which could not be cancelled without substantial early termination penalty (basically paying the whole remainder of the year if my memory serves me correctly). If they really cared about their customers, they would have made that very clear when you signed up for service. I helped a family member sign up, and there was no explanation, and no warning about cancellation.

I wasn't thrilled about the subscription model in the first place, but this family member needed access to the tool. After the way that went down, I have no intention of doing business with Adobe ever again. I know a lot of other people who feel the same way.

(edited to fix a typo)

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#103

Post by unknownaccount »

bsder wrote: post #67
DannyBee wrote: post #40

The chart is interesting because it misses the important part - it covers time, but not adoption. For example, adoption of GIMP has not likely materially increased over time (as a relative percent of total addressable market) IMHO, what the author gets wrong what so many people who claim this (they are not the first, or the last) get wrong - open source as a whole sucks at building products , but is great at building…

> For example, adoption of GIMP has not likely materially increased over time (as a relative percent of total addressable market) This is an interesting question to me because Adobe only recently moved to cloud/subscription fairly recently. Before that, you could get a physical copy of Photoshop and keep it running forever. As that pathway fades, it will be interesting to see if something will finally supplant Photos…

GIMP is supposed to be a Photoshop alternative? But is missing so many features which don’t even seem that hard to code? I always thought it was supposed to be some weird middle ground between Paint and Photoshop.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#104

Post by nine_k »

eru wrote: post #89
sircastor wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a legit PS install on my wife’s machine and it’s preventing us from making a move to another computer for her. She’s a casual/non-professional user. She knows the app and how to use it. We aren’t interested in renting the app… basically we’re holding out on that machine, but sooner or later it’s going to become a security risk in our network.

Couldn't you run it in a VM?

Likely not, because the installation is linked to the Windows or macOS installation.

In the case of Windows, the machine can be eventually upgraded, one part at a time, into something more powerful.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#105

Post by melagonster »

johnfn wrote: post #65
cowtools wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a self-aggrandizing myth that is common in forums like HN with lots of programmers and designers: - UI's usually do not improve. They "improve" by making subjective changes for the benefit of the maker (often at the cost of the user). - Platforms are constantly shifting when they are owned by corporations. At first, businesses will penetrate the market by creating a competitive platform. Once their pl…

Man, I couldn't disagree more strongly! Programming is like building a house on shifting sand. How many projects that you haven't touched in the last 5 years still run? If you're anything like me, the percentage is vanishingly small - and my old projects aren't even that complicated. If you find that this is a belief "common in forums like HN with lots of programmers", I suspect that's because engineers are the most…

I had found some good new features in Microsoft office 365, I guess the sapce between now and finishing still big.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#106

Post by 3np »

3np wrote: post #90
eru wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anything I think we have moved backwards. We are no longer looking at making copies of grep and dd. If you want to make an actual alternative to Photoshop you'll need thousands of workers spread over a lot of skill sets. You need cloud technology specialists, AI/ML experts, R&D, design experts to do real studies and interviews with users, etc. [...] I'd see that as making progress, not moving backwards! It means…

100%. That the author think it's "backwards" that they can't run a sustainable business by copying what's already been made but need to put in some actual work (and that building profitable software inherently must involves AI/ML experts and cloud specialist) speaks more about OPs bias than about actual requirements. Not meaning to point fingers at them specifically too much; they're most likely in a bubble where the…

Looks like I conflated two different perspectives above. Oh well. Take it for what it is.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#107

Post by nine_k »

bsder wrote: post #67
DannyBee wrote: post #40

The chart is interesting because it misses the important part - it covers time, but not adoption. For example, adoption of GIMP has not likely materially increased over time (as a relative percent of total addressable market) IMHO, what the author gets wrong what so many people who claim this (they are not the first, or the last) get wrong - open source as a whole sucks at building products , but is great at building…

> For example, adoption of GIMP has not likely materially increased over time (as a relative percent of total addressable market) This is an interesting question to me because Adobe only recently moved to cloud/subscription fairly recently. Before that, you could get a physical copy of Photoshop and keep it running forever. As that pathway fades, it will be interesting to see if something will finally supplant Photos…

I think if you want to do digital art, you use Krita, not Gimp.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#108

Post by melagonster »

musicale wrote: post #83
gregmac wrote: post #57

> all software will be open source There's a heck of a lot of "boring business software" out there, often quite niche, solving problems various businesses have. Anything that survives, just by virtue it has survived, has a positive ROI for everyone involved, including the customer. Where is the supposed alternative going to come from? Are people being paid to write that software suddenly going to stop and go build it…

Most app store revenue comes from games. Some games (such as some puzzle games) are easy to clone and replace, but many are not. More energy seems to be put into emulation of proprietary games than creation of new open source games.

game is a artwork, artists don't work like programmers, so currently open source mode don't work for them.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#109

Post by nine_k »

tuatoru wrote: post #39
ethbr0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reliable test for predicting the success of failure of open source software: "Does it directly interact with users?" If the answer is yes, OSS has mostly been an alternative option but not the first choice. (With all due respect and deference to the work put in by OSS GUI teams!) If the answer is no, and especially if it's a shared need but not the primary product (e.g. kernel, web server, intermediate proc…

Not totally, not till Oracle has been tipped into the dustbin of history. (Come the day!) I think Cisco still uses proprietary software too.

With Oracle's strong ties with government structures, it's unlikely that it will be gone in the next 30 years.

I'd say that the cutting point is when no new project considers Oracle as a viable tool. This time has largely come already.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#110

Post by mattkrause »

Gigachad wrote: post #2

>All software will be open source, and no one will make money with software. I'm really not convinced. The chart shows Photoshop having an alternative in with GIMP in 1998. And 24 years later, people are still paying lots of money for Photoshop. Pretty much all of these examples are similar. Yes open source has replaced some categories of paid software like VCS, but in a way it just opened up more paid software in th…

As a counter-example, the Affinity family of Photo, Designer, and Publisher seem to be doing pretty well as a partial commercial replacement for Abobe CC. I don't know how many Serif employs, but I'd be surprised if it were thousands. It's true that Affinity does a lot less, especially preproduction stuff, but a lot of "light" Adobe users seem happy with it.

As for grep, there are plenty of newer attempts, like ripgrep, ack, and ag, too.

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