Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Free After Effects Replacment

[Fabio Pesari]

On 04/07/2016 09:26 AM, mray wrote:
> In my eyes you perfectly sum up the current situation in that matter.

Thanks, but I'd really like to hear the opinion of video professionals
who use free software for their work.

> Maybe a short version is: There is no free After Effects. Only workarounds.

I really don't think there should be. Imitating another program is a
recipe for running into its limitations, without the same budget to work
around them.

I think people who expect to move to free software and find the same
program but with a different interface present a huge issue.

It's a huge issue for Gimp, which is constantly expected to be a
Photoshop clone; it is an issue for LibreOffice, which has to suffer
complaints like lacking a ribbon interface or having (very minor)
incompatibilities with MS Office; and it's a huge issue in the audio
world, where many producers and musicians are afraid to migrate to
software that isn't Ableton Live or Renoise, even now that we have
excellent free DAWs (LMMS, Ardour, Qtractor and Non) and I'd sure like
more libre LV2 plugins!

I think many people overestimate the initial commitment of getting used
to a new program. In the case of free software, it's pretty much a
zero-cost guaranteed lifetime investment in nearly all cases!

A while ago I proposed organizing crowdfunding campaigns to buy the
rights of proprietary programs to free them. If we really want free
versions of specific programs, perhaps that's what we should do.