I hate, hate, hate feeling beholden to one entity. That feeling of helplessness; ugh! When it comes to tech tools for the business world, Microsoft and Adobe created great tools. However we’re stuck with whatever price they want charge. Take a look at the current shift to a subscription model. Anyway, I feel a need to find alternatives. I like the thought of open source as well. Software built free of the constrains of corporate agenda. Or, more specifically, the agenda of ONE specific company. Competition is a key element for capitalism to be successful. Breaking free from proprietary technologies is important. Then we’re paying for superior quality and/or innovation, not just to maintain access to our files.
Open-source has some challenges. Many of the tools are hardly “plug-and-play”, and pretty much inaccessible to the average user. Compiling code is outside the skill-set of many users, even power-users. If the goal is to facilitate wholesale adoption, these issues must be dealt with.
So I’ve been building out a list of open-based tools. I’ve tried to find ones that are ready to go for the average user (come as a .exe that you can install like any software you’d buy at Costco or Office Depot/Max/Staples). Hopefully, we can slowly build a suite of affordable yet innovative tools, creating a more accessible marketplace. An ambitious goal, perhaps.
