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By Karen Rustad and Nelson Pavlosky
The topic of the Saturday noon peer production stream session was "Why don't artists use open source software?" However, as was quickly established by the panel, there was also an important companion question: "Why don't developers make free art?"
Artists feel pressured to use open software for ideological reasons, but when they try it typically the user interface is unfamiliar and difficult and some features they are used to are are missing. Thus, they switch back to Final Cut Pro/Acid/Photoshop and that is that.
Meanwhile, developers are pressured by artists to give them a better free alternative--to write an open program on the level of Final Cut Pro. Developers may see these feature requests as whiny (since few artists contribute to code) and, since they themselves are not usually artists, have no personal incentive to make those features happen. Developers have built free artistic software, but it is written by developers for developers with just the functionality that they need. Example: while GIMP/Inkscape work fine in Linux (which open source developers use), they are subject to the fickle whims of X11 on the top artistic platform, the Mac.
Other explanations for why artists do not adopt free software en masse were proposed.
First, most artists will continue to use whatever tools they are already used to using. One panelist stated that he's been using Adobe tools for 10 years, and it's really too late to convert him to anything else. He has become accustomed to the Adobe workflow, and it would require too much time for him to learn a different system regardless of how good a given free tool is. One way to combat this problem is to gain mindshare early on by getting free tools into schools and educational institutions, so that students learn to use the tools when they are young and perhaps more willing and able to try new things. Apple, Microsoft and other companies have long understood this, and that is why they offer educational discounts (or use strongarm tactics) to get their software into the hands of students. Educational initiatives like OLPC and student activists like FreeCulture.org have their work cut out for them, it seems!
Second, few artists feel any paranoia about the near-monopoly of Adobe in some artistic applications ironically because its standards are "open"--since other companies than read and write .psd, .ai, etc. they don't feel particularly worried about the possibility of Adobe going belly-up and leaving their art unreadable. However, this is also a plus because it reduces the transaction costs in switching to GIMP, etc. because open source programs would be able to read their old Photoshop files too.
Third, the open formats that the open source movement has created are in practice less accessible than proprietary ones. One videomaker remarked that she put her film online in Ogg Theora, the free video format, but her audience complained that they couldn't watch it. If the point of open formats and open software is universal usability, they have largely failed in practice because for non-Linux users they require special effort to read that other formats do not.
However, the differing needs of and small overlap between artists and open source developers seems to be the most fundamental problem.
One way to move past this deadlock is for more artists to become coders and more coders to become artists. There is precedent for this. Many artists historically have been hackers; video art in the 1950s, for instance, was dominated by art that hacked the electronics of cameras and television sets (c.f.: Nam June Paik). One panelist expressed concern that artists don't make their own tools the way that many used to, that they are using too many mainstream tools, whether those are proprietary or not. There are plenty of opportunities for creativity that can only be pursued if you know how to play with the underlying principles and workings of your medium--in the case of digital art, computer code. For a modern example, see the (sadly proprietary) rotoscoping software used to produce the visually stunning "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly." Developers already know how these things work, and should be encouraged to "get creative" and express themselves using them. Too much specialization can be a bad thing, and if there is no overlap between artists and programmers, then it will be difficult for them to help each other out. And just as artists need programmers to make tools for them, developers need artists to make their programs pretty and pleasant to use.
However, the main complaint is not the lack of creative tools; obviously some programmers had a but the lack of *professional-grade* creative tools, and few people are lucky enough to have jobs (and developed talents) that involve both art and code. In order to draw from the best of both worlds, it is necessary to get the two demographics to collaborate. Even if more people develop both artistic and programming skills, there will be a need for more artists and programmers to talk with one another and work together.
tags: dc united states media-events summit07 art opensource floss
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Hi all,
I was one of the iSummit air artists and made the point that I've been using Adobe software for a decade and it would be very unproductive (for my own work) for me to switch.
One other point, which I think is very important, is that artist's have their own agendas. There are many valuable activist issues in the world today. The free software movement is very important, but so is the anti-war movement, the environmental movement, general progressive activism, etc, etc, etc. What should I choose to promote? Where should my priorities lie?
If artists feel compelled to support every worthy activist agenda what you'll get is really bad, dogmatic art. Allow artists to set their own agendas, that's the only way you'll get good art. And good art is what I'm most interested in.
twhid · New York City (United States) · Jun 21st, 2007 11:10 pm
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Great article Karen & Nelson--I wish I could have made it to the workshop. I understand your point about more artists needing to become coders and vice-versa, but I, like many other artists, have very little background in programming and, more importantly, pretty much no time to learn. I've been trying to learn PureData for my VJing, but it is soooooo much more confusing and complex than the proprietary solutions (modul8 & resolume) that I'm not sure I'll ever have the time to invest to learn it. I would also love to start doing video editing with Cinelerra, but since I do a lot of collaborative work with other video editors, Final Cut Pro and Premiere end up being my only options, as I need to often work on their machines as well as my own.
This is mainly just echoing what has already been said though...
One point that I would like to make though is that as an artist who does believe and support very much in theory the free software movement, I would like to get involved in some sort of supportive role. The best contribution that I think I could make at this point would be trying out video software and making suggestions about usability and features that are important. However, I'm not really sure if this type of help is needed or wanted by coders.
If someone were to ask me to test out and comment on a specific piece of software, I'd be more than willing to do it. However, it is simply impossible for me to imagine learning to become a programmer myself in my spare time and to continue supporting myself and doing my art thing.
So I'm here as an artist excited to collaborate with coders, but I need an invitation or a statement of what I can do to be supportive of the movement short of learning to program. With wikipedia, it's easy--I just click edit and fix or add to an article. I know that software development is much more complicated, but I would like to be involved in a way that I can realistically manage!
David Evan Harris · São Paulo (Brazil) · Jun 28th, 2007 6:51 am
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