Discussion Topic: Open Source Software

Consider two pieces of software that you use or want to learn to use (you cannot consider Word, PowerPoint, or Excel^® for the purposes of this Assignment). Is the software you chose proprietary, or is it open source? How do you know? If it is proprietary, find an open-source alternative. (For example, if you chose Word, you might choose OpenOffice Writer.) If it is open source, find a proprietary alternative. (For example, if you chose OpenOffice Writer, you would choose Word.) What are the benefits and drawbacks of using proprietary software? What are the benefits and drawbacks of using open-source software? Are there any drawbacks or benefits that are particular to the software you wrote about? Explain your answer.

Just do response each posted # 1 to 3 down below.

Posted 1

One type of software I would like to learn more about is Adobe. Adobe illustrator has always sparked my interest. As a hobby I write children’s books and stories. I was hoping that I can learn how to use the program and be able to illustrate the stories that I have written. Adobe programs are proprietary. You have to buy a subscription to use them. Drawpad graphic Editor is a free alternative to adobe illustrator. It allows you to vector out images and design new ones just like adobe illustrator. Another program I would like to learn how to use is photoshop. It is a constantly growing and changing program that can allows you to do so many things. I used to know how to do many things within the program but that was a couple versions ago. I am sure if I started to use it again, I would have to relearn the whole program. There are many free alternatives to this program such as Photo Editor and Picsart.

The benefit to using proprietary software is that you are the customer. You

paid for the program so you will not have to deal with ads or popups

when using the service. You also get support when you have questions or

the program malfunctions. Businesses normally use proprietary software

so it can benefit you to have experience with the programs. It can also

be beneficial so have the programs so you can save your products in a

file format that other businesses or customers can use.

Posted 2

The two software options that I will be discussing this week is GIMP the

open source version of a powerful photo editor and Adobe Photoshop a

proprietary version of GIMP. The software that I would like to learn is

GIMP which is an open source software. I know this because I have

researched the product information to confirm that the source code is

available and editable by other developers or anyone wanting to

manipulate the code for learning purposes or improvement of the current

code. A proprietary version of GIMP would be the Adobe Photoshop. While

Photoshop may be an industry standard, it is for more difficult to

navigate and use then GIMP, Photoshop takes up a larger amount of space

then GIMP but it also requires more RAM to run. Even though GIMP may be

the preferred editor in the amature world, the people who use photo

editors to make a living usually prefer to use Photoshop. The benefits

to using open source software is that it is modifiable and can be built

to conform to your specific needs, the software is open and updateable

for anyone who can develop and best of all it is free.

posted 3

A proprietary software that I use is Steam. Steam is a game marketplace and game launching client that houses almost every single game available on the PC. There are a few different open-source alternatives to Steam, like itch.io or Lutris or Playnite, but they only manage the games you already own as opposed to also letting you buy games directly from their client.

Steam has the benefit of being a huge name company, and so, game companies feel like they have to offer their games through the Steam service, which makes it a lot more convenient for the consumer. Steam does have its hiccups though, and when there is an issue with a smaller game not working on their platform, there is a decent wait before it gets fixed, due to how big their service is. With open source software, you can go into the code and make the fix yourself, but you need to have the knowledge to be able to do that. If you don’t have that knowledge, then you have to wait for someone else to come up with a fix, which may never happen.