

The Linux Alternative Project  - known
http://www.linuxalt.com/software-table.html

======
dchest
I like this one better: <http://www.osalt.com/>

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gaius
I have to wonder how much serious photo retouching anyone who thinks GIMP is
an alternative to Photoshop really does. Without 48-bit colour, Pantone and
gamma, GIMP isn't even on the table. Similar points can be made about many of
the "alternatives". Superficially they may look the same, but they're written
by people trying to replicate existing software without understanding the
users first.

~~~
windsurfer
Gimp does have 48-bit colour, ever since they added GEGL support.

And really, Pantone? You can't even accurately display Pantone on monitors, as
Photoshop tells you if you've even used that feature. You only use Pantone
colours for the printer.

Lastly, gamma? You can apply a gamma layer if you'd really like to. I don't
see what the big deal is. I guess I should conclude this by saying "Stop
spreading the FUD" but you likely just heard those buzz-phrases from a friend
and are repeating them here. Gimp is a wonderful and professional program that
performs quite well for most people's needs. It most certainly is "on the
table".

~~~
gaius
_I don't see what the big deal is._

Evidently not. Whereas I am a photographer and I speak from having evaluated
GIMP for my own use (and I'm hardly a high-end fashion or advertising pro, I
do a few weddings a year) and found it lacking. It's hysterical claims that
free-X is a perfect substitute for commercial-Y when it's simply not true that
do the most harm to free software's credibility.

~~~
kaens
Could I inquire as to how much time you put into "evaluating" the GIMP?

~~~
gaius
I ran my wedding workflow through it.

Don't get me wrong, GIMP is not a bad program. I particularly appreciate it
being scriptable in Python, which is my day-to-day bread-and-butter language.
But for professional (i.e. stuff that people pay money for) photography
targetting print output, it's nowhere near Photoshop - and it's very clear
that the authors of GIMP don't understand _why_. At Adobe, they listen to
photographers and designers and the programmers understand that they're not
the domain experts. In the GIMP camp they suffer from the same problem as most
open-source projects; people who can't code aren't really taken seriously.

~~~
kaens
Makes sense.

There's definitely a focus on feedback from coders in most open-source apps -
and that makes sense as well, although I'm sure it can be frustrating.

As a coder, I've found that it can be very hard to communicate with non-coders
about coding or design issues - and this seems to be mostly a case of one of
us not understanding the domain-specific language of the other.

At Adobe, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the design and goals for abilities
are found and decided by people who aren't programmers at all - or who are,
but are also very involved with professional-style photo-editing, and that by
the time it hits the people coding, the decisions that don't have to do with
implementation have been made. (This is only one possibility, but I'm sure
there's some sort of "translation" layer there)

I would be somewhat surprised (but not to a large degree) if the GIMP camp
wouldn't be open to suggestions from professionals in the field, but
communication might be difficult as the users don't understand the coders
language, and the coders often don't understand the users language. People in
both camps are rare - and in the case of the GIMP (and a lot of OSS), people
in both camps are really comfortable using (for instance) interfaces that
aren't really up to par, or having the ability to create the extra features
they need instead of having those features by default.

There's also the problem with some groups of developers ending up being
elitist cocks towards users that want there input heard (There are also
elitist cock users, but whatever). There's not much that can be done about
that, but it seems to be a decreasing trend as (high-level) programming
becomes more mainstream.

------
Zak
A couple problems come to mind with this. The first is that the page failes to
mention a couple cases where a Linux-native version of the named program
exists (Acrobat Reader and Limewire. The second is that they're using a pretty
loose definition of an alternative; I can't see a Dreamweaver user being happy
with Bluefish, for example.

~~~
lallysingh
Indeed. The raw list is nice, but it'd be better to be honest about what each
program does. A simple description line for many could cover that comparison,
and/or a table where the featureset is more discrete.

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omnipath
There is no alternative for Microsoft Access. It's sad, but true.

~~~
alecco
SQLite with any high level language, maybe with an ORM.

~~~
gaius
Ermm, no. Not even close. Access is a tool for building simple GUI database
applications that also happens to contain an embedded database for said
applications. This is what I meant in my GIMP comment; the Linux community
doesn't understand what the users of any of this stuff are trying to _do_. So
they just make something that looks a bit like it, and wonder why no-one seems
interested in switching.

~~~
hexis
Not so long ago, free software barely had browsers that were acceptable to the
mainstream. Now it does. It'll get to Access, it just takes time. Free
Software still has a lot of ground to make up, but it is gaining ground on
proprietary software.

~~~
gaius
You might be right, but claiming that SQLite (a fine piece of software that I
often use) is a substitute for Access in the here and now is unreasonable.

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yef
Nice list, but this really needs to be dumped into a Reddit implementation so
we can vote and comment.

Side project, anyone?

~~~
dotan
It actually has comments, which you can see by clicking the app links, but no
voting. The whole app-to-app mapping is a silly idea, though. Is powerpoint an
alternative for Visio? depends on what your trying to do. Gimp is a fine
alternative for Photoshop if you're making a web logo, animated gif or lolcat,
but maybe not if you're a printshop.

------
hboon
Is there an OS X equivalent?

~~~
yef
<http://www.osalt.com/> includes Mac, thanks dchest.

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newt0311
Another great music players for terminal hackers: mocp

Also, I resent the non-inclusion of emacs at least in the notepad, mIRC, and
TeXnic center replacement sections.

~~~
dan00
Only in these three sections?

~~~
newt0311
Thus the use of "at least"

