Which FreeBSD-compatible proprietary software would you buy?

[Deleted member 30996]

There have to be smarter ways than this crude DRM crap.

I outlined it already.

 

[Crivens]

Don't they get just 25-30%?..

Didn't you forget the decimal points?

 

[tuxador]

Osirix dicom suite, for medical imaging

 

[hruodr]

Perhaps drivers for special hardware with the hardware? Specialised software?

 

[a6h]

Nothing. But I wish we had Cockos Reaper and Tixati.
Also I missed Focusrite and Digitech drivers, mixer, ....

 

[jmos]

My wishlist for software is empty (although … the return of the Seamonkey port!), so: At the moment I wouldn't buy any software. The main problem on commercial software to me is: It's a block box.

I'm not using free software because of the money, but because of trust. A black box can read all my files (even SSH keys) and send them home. And while it's running (if it's in the background and/or as inactive window) it also can listen to anything I'm doing on my computer. My whole environment is only as secure and/or trustworthy as the crappiest software on my computer is. And there's a lot of software on my computers… ("ps aux | wc -l": 108).

F.e. using Windows 10 means to me: Anything on that machine could be known by a company, and I have no clue where my data is. So I'm handling none relevant data on that VM (only a test environment). Same for Android or Chrome - I expect anything to be known by a company; So, to me "open source" alone is not the game changer - the company itself and its intention has to be trustworthy, too. In my opinion, it's irresponsible to work with customer data on systems from such manufacturers!

I paid for a scanner software on Linux - and I would pay for it again. I don't like the fact that it's closed source, but so far it has real benefits over any other sane frontend I've seen. And: I *want* the developer to continue. (But so far there's no FreeBSD version…)

…but when I see how many trackers some developers and small companies implement even in payed (!) Android apps… My basic attitude towards closed source and/or commercial is: It may meet my requirements, but it's not acting in my interest. Therefore, commercial software has a hard time with me - the companies used up all bonus points long time ago. Their fault.

 

[mickey]

Games of course

 

[Lamia]

MicroLogix/RSlogix software

 

[Lamia]

MicroLogix/RSlogix software

And if as anyone knows a competitive device against Allen-Bradley that has its suite completely available in Unix(*BSD), that would be appreciated.

 

[eternal_noob]

An application with a single button which when pressed forces Stallman to shave his beard.

 

[Deleted member 30996]

I paid for a scanner software on Linux - and I would pay for it again. I don't like the fact that it's closed source, but so far it has real benefits over any other sane frontend I've seen. And: I *want* the developer to continue. (But so far there's no FreeBSD version…)

What does it do that security/nmap does not do for free?

 

[jmos]

What does it do that security/nmap does not do for free?

That scanner doesn't scan networks, but paper

 

[Lamia]

That scanner doesn't scan networks, but paper

I thought xsane/sane-backends/sane-frontends does a good job at that.

 

[ralphbsz]

What do I pay for? Not very much. For compatibility reasons, I used to have a full license for Microsoft Office, because in some cases you have to work with files that are in their formats, and be 100% compatible. I still have that package installed on one Mac that I use, but I'm finding that I need it less and less (probably once or twice a year now), so in the future I wouldn't pay for it.

I would (and do) pay for a good drawing/sketching package. Something much more powerful than the little free sketching stuff you get with any office package, but not as complex as a full mechanical CAD package. I have been traditionally using Visio for this, and I still have dozens of files in Visio format that occasionally get updated (some large and complex). Given that compatibility with the file format is absolutely necessary, this means having a licensed copy of Visio.

If I was doing heavy audio or video editing (some friends of mine are), it seems that the only good software for that requires paid licenses. The kind of thing that can take several hundred audio tracks and mix and synchronize a perfect recording, and take hundreds of video takes and make a movie with heavy compositing. If you look on youtube for recordings of full symphony orchestras made at home, you see what I mean.

US Tax preparation software.

I used to do that. These days I instead do all the tax calculations by hand, and then fill out the (PDF) forms with a simple PDF editor. It takes a bit of time (a dozen long evenings), but it gives me a feeling of control that can't be matched by an automated process.

An office suite, provided that ...

As I said above, I used to have that. But the real reason was file format compatibility. Today, the freely available versions on the web / in the cloud are perfectly adequate for my needs.

(About DRM ...)

Whoever comes up with the solution to this will be a very rich person indeed. Something that guarantees lifetime access but also prevents piracy.

The guy who has the patent on the DRM used for DVDs was a friend of mine. He retired and moved far away. He was not very rich, but comfortably upper middle class, and he'll never be poor. He got a good salary, and when that patent turned out to be one of the most valuable patents in the world, his employer gave him a generous bonus.

 

[roper]

I can't think of anything but it's possible. I have a licensed Winzip.

 

[kpedersen]

I can't think of anything but it's possible. I have a licensed Winzip.

Heh, you are one of the very few!

Actually I must confess, I own a WinRAR license! However, this was for making a Wine based Linux port for the original developer a while back. My name is immortalized here: https://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm

 

[a6h]

If I was doing heavy audio or video editing (some friends of mine are), it seems that the only good software for that requires paid licenses. The kind of thing that can take several hundred audio tracks and mix and synchronize a perfect recording, and take hundreds of video takes and make a movie with heavy compositing. If you look on youtube for recordings of full symphony orchestras made at home, you see what I mean.

I have to comment on this one. It's an important point. I restrict myself to music production. I make the case that the idea of FOSS in Audio/Music production is too futuristic. I'm cynical.

1. Pro Tools is de facto in music studios. If you go to studio you're expecting to see Pro Tools. If they want to hire you, you supposed to know how to use it. There's no work around. On the extreme cases, you may see some Cubase setup too. That's more common in home studios.

2. My knowledge is not up-to-date, but I remember some versions of software was tied to specific hardware (licencing), e.g. M-Audio cards.

3. Over the years, you setup a perfect unit/hardware combination. You just can't swap it for another one to work with new software. It doesn't work like that way. e.g. compressor unit.

4. Music workflow for each project is a combination of Midi, audio, sound (non-digital), Virtual Instruments, and Mixing/Mastering setup. Generally:
* You gather them over the years.
* You use/tweak them on next projects.
* Practically, they un-exporatble. Even between similar softwares on same platform, e.g. Pro Tools <-> Cubase

5. On Virtual Instruments (effects unit, etc) aka VST in Cubase terminology:
* The top ones are emulation of real hardware. e.g. Waves plugins.
* Lots of patents I suppose, and for sure a lot of engineering (audio) works.
* You can't simply export saved knobs/setup from Unit A to Unit B.
* They work in combination with other tracks and units (mixing stage). Ask any sound engineering, they won't swap units, not a single one.

6. On Virtual Instruments aka VSTi in Cubase terminology:
* The top ones are sampling from real instruments. e.g. Vienna Symphonic Library
* Which implies: you need massive amount of capital to record such things (musician, engineer, studio, equipment, etc)

7. Every sound engineer has an artistic signature (I'm not talking of hash function!) -- Natural Talent and experience are dominated factors, but:
* It's a combination of audio, sound (not digital), midi (in related to specific VSTi) recorded/saved settings in workflow, and finally mixing and mastering stage.
* Most of them are tied to some specific software/hardware mixture, which is developed over the years.
* During life time of a studio, massive amount of capital is spendend.

8. On testing new equipment/setup (both software, and hardware):
Most Audio/Music production studio are very conservative on using new things in their setup -- permanently. And they should.
Sound is unforgivable. One mistake, and your reputation is down to the toilet.

[EDIT]/Footnote:

* audio != sound
* VSTi != VST
* I used Cubase terminology to explain my points.
* VST is Steinberg's interface. Avid (Pro tools) was using RTAS, and now AAX DSP.
* Emulating an actual real hardware (audio/sound unit) is not something you could learn in school. There're very few people who are able to do that. It's not just a matter of engineering. And it's not just a one-to-one function between hardware and software. That's why generally speaking most of the available Virtual Instruments (both proprietary, and non-proprietary) are garbage. Only few handful of them are used in large studio. They are very picky, and again they should.

 

[Champion]

I always admired the LTSP project from Linux, I'd probably pay for BSD software that performs the same, but if I looked hard enough I'd probably find out someone has already done this.

The Arduino IDE software on FreeBSD, the last I checked, isn't quite as simple as with Linux, I'd probably pay for that.

I'd probably pay for simple applications that communicate with proprietary peripheral devices such as Iphones, tablets, arduino, LED signs, model railroad control systems, etc.

An automated animal feed, watering, & waste removal control system [rabbits are far more enjoyable when all you have to do is pet them].

BSD software that runs Android apps on x86/amd64 or Arm64 [this would remove an entire list of possible suggestions, borrowing code from qemu might be helpful...although I guess it wouldn't be proprietary then].

Some really good optimization software would be useful also [deterministic optimization/linear programming, probabilistic optimization]. MIT? has something called LP solve, which works, but something more user-friendly and general would be very nice (optimize financial portfolios, scheduling, etc).

 

[sidetone]

7. Every sound engineer has an artistic signature (I'm not talking of hash function!) -- Natural Talent and experience are dominated factors, but:
* It's a combination of audio, sound (not digital), midi (in related to specific VSTi) recorded/saved settings in workflow, and finally mixing and mastering stage.
* Most of them are tied to some specific software/hardware mixture, which is developed over the years.
* During life time of a studio, massive amount of capital is spendend.

8. On testing new equipment/setup (both software, and hardware):
Most Audio/Music production studio are very conservative on using new things in their setup -- permanently. And they should.
Sound is unforgivable. One mistake, and your reputation is down to the toilet.

You know, Wyclef Jean took apart musical equipment and put it back together in a modified way. He figured, everyone doesn't know what a specific model is supposed to sound like, so he made his own variation of sounds from the musical equipment, and made a record that way. To him, it didn't matter that the model was supposed to sound an exact way, just that his variation, which is different than what the model was intended to make, sounds good.

 

[aragats]

These days I instead do all the tax calculations by hand, and then fill out the (PDF) forms with a simple PDF editor. It takes a bit of time (a dozen long evenings), but it gives me a feeling of control that can't be matched by an automated process.

Yes, I do it by hand too, but I hate PDF editing. I use the original PDF form as a background image for spreadsheets (I use LibreOffice). So, once you spend time adding formulas, then next year you just adjust your spreadsheets a little to accommodate a couple of new lines and change its background.

Back to the topic: it seems that more and more financial software vendors switch to online functionality. The same TurboTax lets you do everything online ― no need to have a specific version for FreeBSD.

 

[a6h]

so he made his own variation of sounds from the musical equipment, and made a record that way.

No argument against innovation. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier (Das wohltemperierte Klavier) was unorthodox at his time. Moving away from Meantone to current convention, which is standard for 300 years.

 

[jmos]

If I was doing heavy audio or video editing (some friends of mine are), it seems that the only good software for that requires paid licenses. The kind of thing that can take several hundred audio tracks and mix and synchronize a perfect recording, and take hundreds of video takes and make a movie with heavy compositing.

"kdenlive" is something to look at. Well, I haven't cut a cinema movie, but I document some of my large distant hikes within videos: 1 hour and 350 to 550 video clips are often used, and I'm using 6 to 8 tracks therefore (you can have more, but I cannot imagine anyone actually having to merge more tracks at the same frame beside of music compositions). It splits audio and video by default, you have dozens filters, fadings, etc.; And some people are saying that it can be named in one sentence with the big ones for movies And the last years it even doesn't crash every now and then…

But if your really looking for *professional* video editing: You will need special hardware, too; There's more available than keyboards and mice…

 

[jmos]

I thought xsane/sane-backends/sane-frontends does a good job at that.

Example: First dropdown "text black & white", second "as PDF", press button "scan" - since 10 years always a 100% perfect result, even when the source was low quality printing on low quality paper. Button "scan+", and I've got a second page on my PDF with the next scanned document. Yes!

On xsane I remember that I had - after the scan process - to adjust this and that to get a clean result, and then say "save it". No clue how xsane works today, but as my paid scanner software does *exactly* what I need & want … I wouldn't change back.

xsane was more "dealing with scanner parameters", while the paid software is focused on my use case. And as the scanner is one of my office tools and not my playground…

And beside the fact that my scanner was compatible to sane from the beginning (Canon "Lide 220"), it took some years till the sane frontends did work reliable.

 

[jardows]

I know I'm the minority here, but I have and will pay for Microsoft Office (I currently get it for free with the University I work for). I've tried, I've really tried, to use Open/Libre Office, but it just doesn't get the job done. I've also played around with other programs like Caligra, etc. While they are fine for simple tasks, once you get into some of the more advanced formatting (Word, PP) or complex formulas (Excel), the limitations of the FOSS suites become painfully obvious. Case in point - for my Seminary classes, there is a specific formatting required of papers required, specifically with footnotes and page numbering. It is very simple in Word to setup the formatting as required where it will automatically apply the formatting on each new page. In Libre/Open Office, Clligra, Abi Word, et. al., they refuse to autoformat the way I require it. I have to manually format each page. That's time I cannot afford to waste. Also, there is Publisher, which has no free equivalent program (that I have found). Scribus is similar, but falls far short for usability in more casual publishing cases. This is why I install a Windows VM on my FreeBSD installations, solely for running MS Office. If it were available, and if I had to pay for it instead of me currently getting it for free, I'd gladly pay for MS Office that natively ran on FreeBSD.

In general, I view computers as tools to accomplish a task. If the tool will accomplish that task better, and the price is justified for the benefit that tool gives me, I have no problem paying for it. .

 

[zirias@]

Case in point - for my Seminary classes, there is a specific formatting required of papers required, specifically with footnotes and page numbering. It is very simple in Word to setup the formatting as required where it will automatically apply the formatting on each new page. In Libre/Open Office, Clligra, Abi Word, et. al., they refuse to autoformat the way I require it.

Although I'd always just use LaTeX for any "complex" document, because just about every WYSIWYG text processor sooner or later is a PITA with these *) … applying a page format globally including footnotes and page numbering is definitely something LibreOffice doesn't have any problem with, so I'd assume you somehow failed to try it as intended (which can of course happen, and in the end, I also think all the UI concepts in text processors suck, and which one is good to use for you depends mostly on what you're used to).

edit: adding to that, if you have to typeset any formulas, everything besides LaTeX is crap anyways Doesn't mean MS Office is bad software, it just depends on your specific usecase. But indeed, for most things it provides, there are just-as-good (and for some specific cases: better) alternatives. So, I'm not in the camp of those who would use MS Office if I can avoid it

---
*) yes, especially including MS Word – I was forced to write my diploma thesis with that one and it was a horrible experience. Given this is a long time ago, so probably Microsoft improved one or the other thing since then.