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Warez: Do you pirate software or just use FOSS? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In the past, most software I used was paid and proprietary and would have some sort of limitation that I would try to get around by any means possible. Sometimes that would be resetting the clock on my computer, disabling the internet, and other times downloading a patch.

But in the past few years I've stopped using those things and have focused only on free and open source software (FOSS) to fulfill my needs. I hardly have to worry about privacy problems or trying to lock down a program that calls home. I might be missing out on some things that commercial software delivers, but I'm hardly aware of what they are anymore. It seems like the trend is for commercial software providers to migrate toward online or service models that have the company doing all the computing. I'm opposed to that, since they can take away your service at any time.

What do you do?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Edit: I don't pirate the mentioned software.

I'd love to use FOSS exclusively, but it's frankly impossible under certain conditions.

Acrobat is a must. Alternatives such as Evince or their back-end library can't handle the following situations:

Formulars, such as calculating a sum based on the preceding fields.
Field formatting, such as appending .00 to a currency amount conditionally upon field unfocus.
Everything related to government forms due to the above.
Large password protected PDF files.

Besides, if anything is wrong, you're on the hook for not using Acrobat.

Microsoft Office is a must.

OnlyOffice, WPS free as in free beer, and especially LibreOffice can't handle anything beyond intermediate documents.
OnlyOffice and WPS struggle with more advanced features, such as forms.
LibreOffice notoriously renders Microsoft Office documents incorrectly in my experience.
Everything in LibreOffice except LibreOffice Writer feels unpolished to me, particularly LibreOffice Calc.
OnlyOffice supports only few fields.
OnlyOffice permits free form input for fields that aren't.

Adobe is a must.

Alternatives don't integrate as well with each other as Adobe apps.
Rendering whatever you have to import that into another app is a slow workflow, compared to Adobe Premiere that embeds Adobe After Effects sequences, for example.
Alternatives don't support scripting sometimes. Scripting is necessary to speed up slow and error-prone manual processes.
Adobe has a rich plugin ecosystem, whereas alternatives don't support plugins at all, or don't have any notable plugins.
Alternatives don't support Adobe file formats as well as Adobe.

You face similar problems to Adobe with alternatives, such as:

Inconsistent keyboard shortcuts.
Inconsistent file format support.

Overall, I'd love to, but can't. FOSS isn't good enough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

While I personally haven't run into the same roadblocks as you when using alternatives, I appreciate the counter-point and reality check.

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