Linux will be grown up when its users can spend their money on it... »
PHILIP STORRY - JUL 11, 2008 (07:47:04 AM)
If there's one thing I've found tedious in the Linux community, it's the odd assertion that if it ain't free, it must be worthless.
But that's slowly changing. Partly because more software is supporting Linux as a platform, and partly because the first wave of people that grew up with Linux as their primary choice of platform - often at universities, where they were poor - now have money to spend.
(Yes, yes, global recession and all that. Heck, that can only help Linux. Quit distracting from my point!)
As evidence, I submit this review from the Ubuntu Productivity blog, in which they look for software for RAW conversion for photographers.
Two commercial programs are evaluated alongside three free applications (only one of which is open source though!), and they're both received positively.
And given that the initial hypothesis is that he can't do photo editing on Linux - a reasonable assumption given its niche nature - it's nice to know that Linux came up trumps.
But it's nicer to know that Linux both has non-free software targeting it for development, and that the community is starting to understand that when you hit niches sometimes you have to get your wallet out.
This is important for the uptake of Linux in the future. If the attitude of "it must be free" is taken too far, it will actually scare some businesses and harm the uptake of Linux.
Like every other department, IT departments have budgets, which are carefully tended things. A lower software budget is good - it allows you to spend the money elsewhere, raising profiles and pleasing your colleagues and customers. But no software budget is bad, because it can encourage a lack of investment into IT solutions and services.
There's obviously a fine line to be walked there...
The odd idea that only free software has worth must die in the Linux community, to be replaced by the idea that free software is merely preferable in the long term.
But luckily, that's what seems to be happening already...
