The Prestige of Proprietary Software

Off the Beat: Bruce Byfield's Blog

I spent the weekend at the graduation for an art school. I had an overwhelmingly wonderful time -- except for one scenario that kept playing and replaying all weekend.

As usual, telling people what I do for a living required some explanation of free and open source software (FOSS). Since I haven't met a student yet who had enough money, I supposed that the availability of professional tools at no cost would interest my audience. Gradually, though, I realized that my audience wasn't interested for a reason that I had never previously imagined: They wanted the prestige of using name brand products.

Software and Professionals

I suppose that part of this reaction had to do with branding. If you're an artist who works with software, you know all about Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator. They've been the standard design tools for two decades. By contrast, who's heard of Inkscape or Krita? And The GIMP sounds simply comical at best, or politically incorrect at worst.

But my impression is that the lack of interest goes deeper than that. For one thing, many students were probably either using illegal copies of proprietary software, or had undergone some hardship to save for legal copies. A lucky few may have used a bursary or an award to buy. Those who used illegal copies looked forward to a time when they could afford to buy legal ones, while those who had managed to afford legal copies remained well aware of the effort required.

Either way, the students had invested in proprietary software -- and I am not just talking about money spent now or expected to be spent in the future. Owning proprietary software was a major milestone in their careers, and they were not immediately willing to forget about it for other intangibles such as user empowerment or cost-free productivity. Buying the standard proprietary software was a sign of commitment for them, a sign that they were serious in their goals. Being able to afford the software was (or would be) that they were progressing along their chosen career path.

Or to put it another way: professionals own these pieces of proprietary software, so owning this software was (or would be) proof that they were professionals, too.

Naturally, when I suggested this equation, those that I talked to denied that it applied to them. They would laugh and say that tools don't make the artist -- and, of course, they would be right.

All the same, I observed that this equation operated in other ways. Students who received awards or gifts of cash from their family would inevitably go out and buy the most expensive tools possible. Giant screen laptops or dozens of brushes or carving tools -- things that they had got along perfectly well without -- suddenly seemed absolutely essential for them to have. On some level, many of the students seemed to be operating on the level of sympathetic magic, half-believing that having the tools of a professional would transform them into professionals, too.

By contrast, none of them know of any professional artists who were using FOSS. There are some; contrary to the claims you sometimes hear, The GIMP is a perfectly adequate tool for professional publication (I know, because I have frequently sent PDFs and postscript files created in The GIMP to print shops, and never had any trouble producing work acceptable to my clients). But artists who use FOSS are still relatively rare, and, like any working artists, more likely to talk about results than the tools used to produce those results. Their preferred software is invisible, so students never aspire to use it.

Moreover, even had the students heard about FOSS, for them it would carry none of the sense of prestige, or of having arrived as professionals. Not only can anyone use FOSS, but no prestige is to be had from using FOSS because it is generally unknown. So why would an art school student -- much less a professional artist?

FOSS and Consumerism

What this observation amounts to is saying that, in the struggle to gain acceptance, FOSS has to struggle against the consumer mind set. Unlike its proprietary counterparts, FOSS has no coherent brand.

Nor is using it a proof of status. In fact, the whole point of FOSS is that it is available for anyone.

Needless to say, this situation is arbitrary and, to anyone who is results-oriented, completely missing the point. These days, the functional difference between FOSS and proprietary software is generally slight, at least among basic productivity tools, and in some cases, the FOSS offerings are superior in some ways to their proprietary counterparts. Moreover, the political, ethical, and practical advantages of FOSS can make it a clear choice.

Yet this logic is irrelevant to the consumer society. Where consumerism rules, what matters is status through possession. FOSS lacks such status, so many people are going to ignore it.

I don't have any solution to this problem. But, having seen it at the art school, I realize that it is common in other settings as well -- for instance, in offices that buy Microsoft Office because it is the industry standard. Eventually, FOSS will need to find ways around this attitude, but the first step is recognizing that the problem exists.

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