Free Software is Great! - inatux.com
Overview:
Free software is great. Almost everyone using a computer will agree. If it's Firefox, AVG, GIMP, Cinelerra, or GNU/Linux as the entire operating system itself. People agree it's great.
Firefox has become a very popular web browser for Windows, used at a similar level on Macs, and, is the default web browser for many popular GNU/Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, and, included with almost all GNU/Linux distributions, even if it's not the default browser.
GIMP has made waves in the image editing world for being -- in our opinion -- the most functional, feature-rich, and powerful free image editor. As in free beer, and as in freedom of speech. Free software.
Cinelerra is the -- again in our opinion -- best, most functional, feature-rich, and powerful free software video editor for GNU/Linux, and possibly better than any free video editors for Windows. Especially the Cinelerra community version.
With these four programs being among the best, and most used. How much would you pay for these programs if they weren't
free? Here is our personal answer to that question.
MOZILLA FIREFOX: $25*
*Firefox is a web browser, there aren't many pay-for web browsers; there are many proprietary web browsers, i.e.
Internet Explorer, but, not many pay-for web browsers.
So, the only good way we think there would be to pay for a web browser, is in addition to a monthly internet bill,
from a provider like Verizon Communications, Inc.. So that would be 25 dollars a month.
AVG: $50 for a one year subscription.
GNU/Linux doesn't have any wide-spread viruses. Many viruses have been written for GNU/Linux, but, have been either made
incompatible do to a patch/update, in both GNU software and the Linux Kernel, or in Firefox, Konqueror, etc.. And many
viruses were just to show that GNU/Linux was vulnerable to viruses, but, none of these viruses were wide-spread or able
to self-install, and some couldn't even be installed on purpose unless installed in "super-user" mode known as root.
In Windows on the other hand. Viruses are a very big problem. AVG is worth a 50 dollar one year subscription. AVG has the
power of other commercial virus scanners such as ESET NOD32 anti-virus. Also, AVG does have a commercial version of their
software, currently priced at $54.99 for a one year subscription, and, $79.99 for a two year subscription.
AVG is proprietary software. So, free as in free beer only.
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program): $350.
Compared to the Adobe Photoshop price tag, this price is lower. For a graphics program nearly capable of the same image
manipulation. With tile based memory management, GIMP has been able to handle editing of images up to sizes only limited
by available disk space, for a very long time.
GIMP is available for Unix, Windows, and Mac, Unix of course meaning UNIX itself, GNU/Linux, BSD, and other
Unix-like operating systems.
CINELERRA: $600-$850-CV*
Compared to the Adobe Premiere Pro price tag, this price is currently low.
*CV stands for "Community Version" and the price we would pay for the Community Version is higher because it is
of higher quality.
Cinelerra is a non-linear video editor. It is designed for GNU/Linux, and has also been successfully ported to Mac OS
X. Making it a *nix only program. Cinelerra is not supported on any version of Microsoft Windows. It is produced by
Heroine Virtual, and is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License. Cinelerra includes a video
compositing engine, allowing the user to perform common compositing operations such as combining visual elements from
separate sources into a single video, and special effects, in real-time.
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