Local Newspapers Use F/OSS For a Day

An anonymous reader writes "The Journal Register Company owns 18 small newspapers, and in honor of the July 4th holiday and Ben Franklin, the company's newsrooms produced their daily papers using only free software. The reporters were quick to note that 'the proprietary software is designed to be efficient, reliable and relatively fast for the task of producing a daily newspaper. The free substitutes, not so much.' I applaud the company for undertaking such a feat, but I hope their readership's impression of free software won't be negatively affected by the newspaper's one-day foray into F/OSS."

Comments

I barely use it

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But I find horrifying problems every time I try.

Make an image with two layers. Set one to 50% transparency and put it top. Now try to move one on top of the other and resize it to line up a few points in the images. I for example was trying to line up the wheels in two car silhouettes.

In the GIMP, the layer you made 50% transparent turns opaque while you try to resize it, so you can't see how to line up the layers. What a mess.

I went home later and did it in Photoshop CS3 (that own, but only at home) and it worked fine, remained transparent during resize.

I know it's free and all, but if you make your living doing image editing, the GIMP is absolutely no substitute for Photoshop. You'll easily waste more money in labor than you saved not by buying Photoshop.