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Comment by galkk | Hacker News Reader

> But in the long run open source wins because once an open source alternative exists it is just the better option.

This is just wishful thinking. Anything close to real professional use, not related to IT, and closed source is king: office work, CAD, video editing, music production, and those domains immediately came to mind. Nowhere there open source can seriously challenge commercial, closed sourced competitors.

Yes, in any of those domains one can name open source products, but they are far from "winning" or "the better option".

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I think open source does tend to win, it just does it slowly - often when the big commercial name screws up or changes ownership.

ex - I think Adobe is in the middle of this swing now, Blender is eating marketshare, and Krita is pretty incredible.

Unity is also struggling (I've seen a LOT of folks moving to Godot, or going back to unreal [which is not open, but is source-available - because having access matters]).

CAD hasn't quite tipped yet - but Freecad is getting better constantly. I used to default to Fusion360 and Solidworks, but I haven't had to break those out for personal use in the last 5 years or so (CNC/3d printing needs). It's not ready for professional use yet, but it now feels like how blender felt in 2010 - usable, if not quite up to par.

Office work... is a tough one - to date, Excel still remains king for the folks who actually need Excel. Everything else has moved to free (although not necessarily open source) editors. None of my employers have provided word/powerpoint for more than a decade now - and I haven't missed not having them.

I would argue that PDFs have gone the opensource route though, and that used to be a big name in office work (again - Adobe screwed up).

I don't really do any music production or video editing, so I can't really comment other than to say that ffmpeg is eating the world for commercial solutions under the hood, and it is solidly open. And on the streaming side of "Video" OBS studio is basically the only real player I'm aware of.

So... I don't really think it's wishful thinking. I think opensource is genuinely better most times, it just plays the long and slow game to getting there.

I'm really sceptical that anything will happen in the CAD space bar massive state investment into open source infrastructure. Open CASCADE doesn't look to be catching up [1], while Solidworks continues to release foundational features like G3 continuity constraints, so the capability gap is going to widen over time.

I'd be glad to be proven wrong.

[1]: https://git.dev.opencascade.org/gitweb/?p=occt.git

> I would argue that PDFs have gone the opensource route though, and that used to be a big name in office work (again - Adobe screwed up).

Naw, just try to find a decent PDF editor. You will have a hard time. PDF display is fairly open, but PDF editing is not. PDFs are the dominant format for exchange of signed documents, still a big name in office work, and Adobe still controls the PDF editing app market.

I would love it if open source was winning in the imaging, audio or DCC markets, but it’s just not even close yet. Blender hasn’t touched pro market share, it’s just being used by lots and lots of hobbyists because it’s free to play with. Just did a survey of the film & VFX studios at Siggraph, and they aren’t even looking in Blender’s direction yet, they are good with Houdini, Maya, etc. Some of this has to do with fears and lack of understanding of open source licensing - studios are afraid of the legalities, and Ton has talked about needing to help educate them. Some new & small shops use Blender, but new & small shops come and go all the time, the business is extremely tough.

Office work is moving to Microsoft alternatives like Google Office products. That is not open source, not source available, and for most medium to large companies it’s not free either (though being “free” as in beer is irrelevant to your point). The company just pays behind the scenes and most employees don’t know it, or it’s driven by ad & analytics revenue.

Unix utilities and Linux server software are places where open source has some big “wins”, but unfortunately when it comes to content creation software, it still is wishful thinking. It could change in the future, and I honestly hope it does, but it’s definitely not there yet.

Counter example: blender. It may not be winning in video editing, but it has serious market share in 3d rendering. Different players are investing money in it and extend it with their own stuff.

Agree, blender is a contender.

Have you ever heard the phrase "the exception that proves the rule"?

It is completely ok to use commercial software in a commercial environment. It isn't and shouldn't be the goal of open source to provide the best consumer product.

In the grand scheme of things I believe open source at least provides serious competition and that commercial software has its own work to do.

Also, a lot of not all professional work uses open source components. Research is a field where it shines and there it matters a lot.

Adobe has to work for its money as well as its competitors get more powerful by the day. And everyone hates their creative cloud.

What if Linux itself? The plethora of open programming languages? Tools like OpenSSH?

Commercial, closed source products generally benefit from a monopoly within a specific problem domain or some kind of regulatory capture. I don’t think that means an open source alternative isn’t desirable or viable, just that competing in those contexts is much more difficult without some serious investment—be it political, monetary, or through many volunteered hours of work.

Another comment mentioned Blender which is a great example of a viable competitor in a specific problem domain. There are others if you look at things like PCB circuit design, audio production/editing, and a surprising amount of fantastic computer emulators.

I specifically mentioned not it related, so that rules out “Linux, programming languages, OpenSSh … fantastic computer emulators”.

In general you confirmed my point by saying that competing in domains is much more difficult. And open source isn’t a key to a win.

fucking unreal engine 5 is open source, dawg!

Unreal Engine is source available. It is definitely not open source as you can't use it without a commercial license from Epic.

It’s commercial open source.

Anything else is moving the goalposts.

lmao, okay, idiots

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