On importance of using GPL/BSD software.

[iamVFX]

They lied to you.

There's a lot of parasites on Earth that can't be noticed by their victims, mind parasites. They force you to think that you have beneficial relationships with them. By the end of the day you're dead, they're continue to functioning, like Rabies virus or Autodesk.

It's up to you make a choice. What means to be alive is to make choices. I'm not here to make one for you, I'm not Autodesk. As an artist, just think about all the compounds and plugins for Softimage which will be useless starting from 2016. As a TD, your knowledge of Softimage SDK will mean nothing at that time. All your hard work is dismissed now. It's gone. You're lost your time, your health.

The damage has been done and it is irreversible. Softimage is discontinued, you can't do anything about it. But you can make choices which are not lead to irreversible damages.

These are possible choices:

For artists: Blender (GPL license) comprises so many features that you can do everything in it without spending money on extra software. Having a steep learning curve doesn't mean it's not usable, of course it may lack some Softimage's usability fluidness, but at the end of the learning process you will benefit by not paying any extra costs for mythical bug fixes and lousy implemented features.

For TDs: Cortex and Gaffer projects (BSD license) are here to help you build VFX software quickly. If you are lead TD, building your pipeline on their framework means accepting all the hard work guys put into it for years, using it in real world production scenarios. If you have problems compiling it, email me and we figure out what go wrong and how to make it work for you.

For everyone: Linux is usable on desktops now, don't be a victim of stereotypes. Finding that every distro have central repository which you can use to install software instantly without long licensing process or paying at all is mind blowing. Add free access to libraries without figuring out how to compile them and you're a step closer to start programming stuff more quickly and easily then on any other system. Basically what you should do is to remember one script line to install a package (su -c 'apt-get install package_name' on Ubuntu, su -c 'yum install package_name' on Fedora or su -c 'pacman -S package_name' on Arch Linux) and you're ready to start doing stuff.

Don't be sold on ideal experience, you'll never experience it. There no such thing as "ideal", look at the mother of nature, have you been in forest? It's rough as shit, but it serves it's purpose for plants and animals. Open Source world is rough as shit, but it serves so many purposes that everyone can find what they need and use it for his own benefit.