Consider the insanity of dishing out thousands of dollars for software that you don't even get to own. That's right! You've purchased a license for a software package, for instance, Adobe Creative Suite. Its really great and has a ton of bells and whistles. The layout is nice to work with and the workflow is fluid. Why would you not want to use it?
What happens when I decide that I want to work at home using the same software as I use at work? How do I feel when I come to find out that I paid several hundred (or maybe over $1000) dollars for my design and development suite and the licensing legally requires me to use it only for one single machine? You might ask "what kind of cheap agency wouldn't pay for it?" You might be surprised!
Then there is this. What if you are a freelancer? Then it becomes much more difficult to afford a single CSx license, let alone multiple ones.
Is the price that Adobe charges insane? No, because that price is relative to your own pocketbook and budget. However, what is insane is to willingly lock yourself into a prison in which a standard will always be used with which you will never have an opportunity to negotiate with othersvto improve upon. Adobes developers don't even have that liberty. Only the board of directors get to decide which direction the software development goes. We are talking about a small number here.
In a world of open development, the developers themselves are at liberty to develop and negotiate with others to commit improvements into the software. This is a much more sustainable model and when you look at this perspective, it is also much more sensible. Perhaps you cite Tue fact that you are not a developer. That's okay! Under a free model, Youvare free to hire a developer to modify liberty oriented software to fit your specific needs. You can even sell it if you want to! Liberty does not mean free from obligation. It means free from slavery. Please understand the difference.
The goal of the free software movement must ALWAYS be to create and sustain open standards. The software with which it is used and or manipulated is secondary to the standard itself. The standard will always be the rock and the foundation for which any free software uses it.
The community of developers and users are on the same team. In fact, many times users will eventually become developers themselves. They will have a need and they will learn and use examples from other developers to fill that need.
So why doesn't every user already utilize this open model? It is mainly a matter of ignorance and convenience. A young designer is used to designing in Photoshop and then slicing to tables in Dreamweaver because that is his education. He learned it that way in college and thus, that is his standard. If he were to suddenly be forced to use a GNU software like Gimp, many of his Photoshopping tricks would need to be relearned. He is terribly afraid of disrupting and or modifying his workflow. On top of that, his professor has brainwashed him with propaganda not only promoting his favored proprietary product, but has also chastised liberty oriented alternatives.
The dirty little secret is that no tool will make you a BETTER designer or developer and truthfully, some tools can actually make you worse. A design will always only be as good as the DESIGNER IS ABLE TO make it. Good code is not reliant upon any particular software, but open standards, based upon the consensus of the world which the presentation will be responsible to render properly. A decent example of this is Microsoft Internet Explorer. Until recently, versions of this browser was not in adherence to open standards with presentations of xhtml and CSS. What was the consequence? They lost their marketshare! The users decided what was best! What a concept; liberty prevailed!
