Why Canonical’s move to bring close-sourced applications to Ubuntu is a good thing
A few days ago, there was a post in Ubuntu Forum asking for user’s feedback on what applications they would like to see in Ubuntu. The surprise part was that the list of softwares has close-sourced softwares like Photoshop, iTunes etc. The plan is to make these applications available in the official repository so that users can install them easily. Of course this has created a lot of ruckus as Ubuntu has always been about open source.
If Canonical go ahead and make these applications available in the official Ubuntu repository, it will definitely stir up a hornets nest and make a lot of open source puritans declare war against Ubuntu. (Remember the GNOME episode not long ago.) Some users may even leave Ubuntu. But such a move will eventually pay off for Ubuntu.
First of all, bringing new applications is always a good thing. More choice of applications has always been something that the open source (or Linux) community has preached. So bringing in new applications (close sourced or open source) which can run in an open source environment is not neccessarily a bad thing.
It is simply making more choice available to the user.
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today's howtos
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Photoshop
From the Adobe site, Photoshop is:
Ideal for:
* Professional photographers
* Serious amateur photographers
* Graphic designers
* Web designers
Price $700
I fail to see how this is an application the average user absolutely needs, and I fail to understand all those articles saying that an OS isn't ready for the masses because it cannot run a $700 professional app. It may not be ready for professional photographers, or software pirates dumb enough to use Photoshop to thumbnail their porn - and I've seen some, you know it seems that it automatically links itself to jpegs.