Digital Artist's Handbook and FLOSS and Art

October 26, 2009 4:41 AM

Digital Artist's Handbook and FLOSS and Art
posted by yegga (9 comments total)

Heh, I just did a FLOSS advocacy post elsewhere this morning. Maybe because I'm excited about 9.10 this week.

It's nice to have information on all these video editors in one place. I know almost nothing about video editing, so when I need one I have no basis on which to choose one.
posted by DU at 6:11 AM on October 26

Why do all the open source video editors seem to only run on Linux? There is plenty of other good open source applications that run on Windows and Mac, like Audacity and GIMP. Meanwhile, I'm stuck using Windows Movie Maker to edit my screen captured animation demos.
posted by demiurge at 8:27 AM on October 26

oh this is awesome. I've been wondering about open source video editing software for years, and now I have a fantastic resource for learning about it. thanks muchly.
posted by shmegegge at 8:46 AM on October 26

demiurge, would it be worth it to install linux on a virtual machine running in windows just for that, or would that be difficult and/or slow?
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:11 AM on October 26

Paragraph by paragraph summary of the Graphics page:

Expensive closed-source graphics software is bad. Open source is good!

Vector images are different from raster images.

Gimp is open source! Inkscape is open source and can make SVG! By the way, open source is good, and proprietary software is bad.

2D graphics are different from 3D graphics. Blender is open source! Processing is also open source. All of these open source programs can be automated!

In addition to these great open source tools, there is an open source clip art library, which contains a lot of clip art, and an open source font library, which contains one good font. It was made by a famous blogger!

Sometimes the people who write all this great open source software get together and talk with each other!

You can't be a true artist if you use closed source software. By using open source software, you can file bugs and show off how cool you are.

You know, hooray for open source and all that, but this more closely resembles a political manifesto -- and a badly written, unconvincing, and vaguely insulting one at that -- than an "artists handbook."

*note to the author: if you want to convince me of something, maybe don't lead off by insulting me based on my choice of tools: "The major difference to closed source proprietary drawing apps is that you can't reign supreme over images. You can't become a true pixel pusher." Bull.
posted by ook at 9:20 AM on October 26 [3 favorites]

note to the author: if you want to convince me of something, maybe don't lead off by insulting me based on my choice of tools: "The major difference to closed source proprietary drawing apps is that you can't reign supreme over images. You can't become a true pixel pusher." Bull.

When I make something, I'm proud of it. When I make something using tools that I also built myself, I'm even more proud.

Granted, the author did not personally program these tools from scratch. But they may feel they contributed to doing so in some way, either by participating in forums, contributing patches, etc. "Look at what my people hath wrought" sort of thing.
posted by DU at 10:43 AM on October 26

Yeek. "...and showing off how much you reign supreme over images pixel pusher."

ook's summary is bang-on. If Photoshop isn't doing something I need it to, I can write a plugin. Same for FCP. So what exactly are they saying, other than "here's some software that costs nothing"?
posted by sixswitch at 10:55 AM on October 26

DU: Well, sure. But if this document's primary purpose is open source advocacy -- and other than cheerleading and a list of OSS bookmarks, there's very little actual information contained in it -- then I'm not sure starting out by being misleading about your intent, and then pissing off your potential converts ('you're not real artists, because you're using tools we don't approve of') is the best way to go about it.
posted by ook at 11:54 AM on October 26

I think their contribution page says it all. This is a project that is not open, you can not contribute as you see fit. It is essentially invitation only. It is a walled garden. It is a pretty thing filled with little practical information, guarded by some people who are self-identified open source advocates.

I don't like their approach very much. I wish these sorts of outfits would spend more time showing the amazing things that are possible with open source (read:generating tutorials), instead of whatever this is. Tutorials, which get artists to use your tools, are a much better way to bring people together.
posted by fake at 2:06 PM on October 26