Libre Arts - 2023 in preview
When I started interviewing FOSS developers some 18 years ago, 7 out the 18 projects covered in this recap did not even exist, 1 was still distributed as proprietary software only, and most of the other projects were so far from their proprietary counterparts that it took a really boneheaded person to stick around in the hope to watch them flourish.
It is 2023 now. The struggle to keep feature and UX parity with proprietary counterparts is far from over for free/libre software projects. But the boneheaded people among us also have something to celebrate. We are witnessing that moment in time when, despite its many shortcomings, free software is good enough to help us do our job. Not in every use case, but increasingly often and pretty darn efficiently.
This is the moment where you can do an architectural design for a client with BlenderBIM, use OBS to screencast the process, then use Kdenlive to cut raw footage of that house being actually built, compose the background music with MuseScore, record a voiceover with Audacity, mix and master the entire soundtrack with Ardour, then publish the video to YouTube. And, for the most part, this will be business as usual.
Without further ado, I’m giving you the annual recap/preview of FOSS projects across the ecosystem: image editing, painting, photography, 3D, special effects, CAD, animation, video, and audio.