 When is it right to choose proprietary software over free software? You know, is it ever okay to choose proprietary software over free software? This is our topic for today because this Needs some explaining because I often get people that watch my channel watch my videos that know that I'm a big proponent Of free and open source software, but I've admitted many times that I have to use proprietary software on occasion I know most of the people watching this video have to use proprietary software on occasion, so we all Have a certain comfort level that there is a threshold We're willing to go to a certain point with free software But at what point is it right for us to go ahead and accept the fact that you know what? I do need a piece of proprietary software, so I'm gonna go ahead and choose it in this instance I think the first thing we need to acknowledge all of us We need to acknowledge is the fact that you can't really run only free software in life Even Richard Stallman can't be 100% free as in freedom Even Richard Stallman has to interact with proprietary software now not necessarily on his personal equipment But what about the bank ATM, right? What about the entire financial industry the banking industry all the back-end stuff? It is all 100% proprietary software. There's no open source Banks right that doesn't exist if you have credit cards and debit cards You know if you've got your money in a bank, right? You're interacting with a proprietary closed-source system What about doing things like going to an airport getting on a plane getting a passport you know, that's obviously against the free software movement anything that has to Identify you in some way so things like drivers license IDs passports You know these are kind of against the whole idea of free software as well Even though they're not necessarily software related But the idea that we have to identify ourselves in some way right one of the things about free software is also the fact that you know, you should have the right to be anonymous When you choose to interact with a piece of software or a online service So obviously if you've ever gone to a bank had a bank account If you've ever been on a plane had to get a passport be ever even hotels now renting cars And you have to interact with proprietary systems and obviously you have to identify yourself in some way and It's you can't be 100% free as in freedom in this world I wish I wish I could and I wish you could but it's just not possible people often ask me Yeah, hey, you're a free software zealot. You love the free software movement but you put videos on YouTube which obviously is a proprietary platform and I do I Agree that I put videos on YouTube as it's a proprietary platform But I do that for mainly two reasons and why I make the exception one YouTube is by far the biggest video platform if I'm making videos about free and open-source software And I want to spread the message about free and open-source software I actually need to spread that message on a proprietary platform Or to make sense right if I'm trying to convert people from proprietary software to free and open-source software It doesn't make sense for me to put videos on a purely free platform Where most of the people there will know about free software, right? I'm preaching to the wrong crowd and if I only put my videos on a free platform So that's why I'm on YouTube. I get more eyeballs on my videos, right? I'm able to make a bigger difference by being on YouTube another reason I don't mind being on YouTube that is kind of against the whole idea of free software is you know You should be anonymous. You shouldn't have to have an account and identify yourself in some way So having a Google account and YouTube account kind of goes against the whole idea of free software I make it an exception for this because obviously I'm making videos and I put my face on camera, right? So I can't really be anonymous and make videos. I mean, I guess you could there's certainly some people that do make videos And they have some anonymity like the vTubers, you know, the people that do the weird 13 year old Japanese anime character, but it's really some you know 40 year old dude making the video, right? I think those kinds of videos I think those kinds of channels are absolutely ridiculous If you're actually gonna make a video and you want your message to be spread and you want people to take you Seriously, you should put a face on camera. So my face is obviously on camera and the minute you put a face to a video You're already identified people are gonna recognize you especially if you have the kind of views that I get on my channel, right? I think I've had like 50 million people watch my videos. I can't be anonymous So I don't mind the fact that I have to have a Google account a YouTube account and and they know who I am Because pretty much everybody that's watched my videos you guys know who I am you see a face I tell you guys my name most of you that have been following the channel know pretty much where I live So I don't have much anonymity these days. That said generally speaking I don't have that many online accounts as far as proprietary services that I'm a member of I Generally avoid things like social media. I have a mastodon account now That's a free platform, but I no longer use Facebook or Twitter I briefly had a Facebook account in the Twitter account years ago I got rid of them rather quickly because I just don't like social media in general and those particular platforms are Obviously really bad as far as privacy. That said there are some proprietary online services, right that I do have an account for for example, obviously YouTube which You guys understand why I have a YouTube account. I also have a reddit account And some people probably wonder about that the reason I have a reddit account is reddit actually some of the Linux related Subreddits especially like the Linux support subreddits are actually really good and really helpful And they actually greatly benefit the free and open source community because they're spreading the message of free and open source software Yes, it's on a proprietary platform But there's some good communities there and sometimes I like to read the messages there Sometimes I even will post on reddit, although I don't really do that much these days So I do have a reddit account because it makes sense one other proprietary account I have I have a steam account which you know if you want to play games You there are free and open source games. I play a lot of free and open source games I've done dozens of videos on my channel Highlighting some of the great free and open source games that are available, but that said Sometimes you want to play a proprietary game and 99% of the games out there Well 99.9% of the games out there are proprietary software and because of that It's hard to be free software only and also to be a avid gamer because you're Limiting yourself to such an extent That I think it's not worth it at that point So those are some of the online services some of the online platforms that I've made a an exception for For my personal needs and I'm sure pretty much everyone watching this video has similar stories. Some of you guys have Accounts membership subscriptions to various online Proprietary platforms that you know serve you in some way so you've made those exceptions But let's talk about actual software computer software on your desktops laptops mobile devices phones tablets things like that servers even What about running free software only on your computers? Is that possible? It is almost impossible It takes an extreme amount of dedication to be free software only on your computers for one thing You can't just go buy a computer from Best Buy or Walmart or wherever it happens to be and think it's going to be a Free software only computer because non-free firmware Yeah, you've got to have free firmware, which that is a huge barrier to entry But let's say you're okay with that then what operating system are you gonna run that's fully free as in freedom? So obviously you can't run Windows Mac Chrome OS, you know the Linux You can run Linux, but the Linux kernel has proprietary software in it. It has those proprietary blobs for Device drivers some of the device drivers that are in the kernel that actually one of the things that the reason the kernel is Such a great kernel why Linux runs pretty much on everything It's because that kernel has a lot of proprietary drivers baked into it Where if those drivers weren't there certain pieces of hardware would not work on Linux so that's a great thing but To actually run a fully free Linux distribution You have to run the Linux Libre kernel which has all the binary blobs stripped out of it So you're missing drivers for a lot of stuff If you run a fully freed Linux kernel the Linux Libre kernel You're not going to have Wi-Fi drivers for most Wi-Fi chips and most laptops because most of them only have proprietary Drivers you're never going to have Wi-Fi on that laptop if you try to run a fully free Linux distribution It's just not possible same thing with your graphics cards Nvidia right if you have an Nvidia card you pretty much have to use the proprietary Drivers that there are open-source drivers for Nvidia cards the open-source drivers are really bad And you're not going to get a lot of the encoding features and in pink and things like that if you're gonna pay hundreds or in some cases Thousands of dollars for an Nvidia graphics card Then you want the proprietary drivers that will actually make that thing work properly with all the features the open-source driver It's horrible and you would never go and pay, you know $1,500 for a graphics card and then run the open-source Nuvo drivers for your Nvidia card because you're gonna be missing all of the features that you paid all of that money for that Graphics card to actually perform so despite the fact that so many of us in the Linux community preach about The value of free and open-source software very very very few of us are actually running a fully free Linux distribution there are some FSF approved distros free software foundation approved distros They have about a dozen or so distributions that they have verified are 100% completely free They were all run the Linux Libre kernel and they have no Proprietary software at all on them out of the box. They also have no proprietary software at all in their repositories So you would really have to jump through some hoops to go get proprietary software on those distributions But here's the thing a lot of the people that go to the trouble of running those FSF approved fully freed Distributions a lot of those guys then turn around and put proprietary software on it anyway because I know a lot of people that run good new geeks Enable a third-party non-free repository for things like the NVIDIA drivers and you know other proprietary software That a lot of desktop computer users actually need and I won't do that. I would never I Just think it's disingenuous to run a free software foundation approved distro and then turn around and enable Proprietary software on it anyway like what were you doing even installing that distribution then why didn't you just run a Distribution that would make it a lot easier for you to get the proprietary software. You were gonna install on it anyway So that's why I don't run any of the free software foundation approved distros for one thing I actually don't have a computer that any of them will run properly on because I have tried to install them on my workstation Here at the office most of them I can't even get them to boot on this machine now the computer at my house has an NVIDIA card That's a problem all of my laptops Wi-Fi none of them have a chip a Wi-Fi chip that will work with the Linux Libre kernel So I'm just You know, I can't run them on my equipment. So when I say to be fully free software only On a computer these days requires extreme dedication It does it means I would actually have to either replace some of the parts in my computers Or replace the computers entirely and you know go and build Custom computers order specialty parts myself that I know have free drivers and would work with the Linux Libre kernel For example, and that kind of dedication very few of us even Free software zealots and very few of us have that kind of dedication. I admit it I certainly don't now getting back to the question that I asked at the very beginning of this video When is it okay to use proprietary software over free software? When is it right or at least when is it? Acceptable to choose proprietary software over free software and in my opinion I think there are at least three use cases where I think it's acceptable for you to use proprietary software over free software in these cases the first one is if Your work or your school requires you to use a piece of proprietary software You should use that proprietary software You should never jeopardize a job or your grades at school Because you don't want to use a piece of proprietary software due to ideological reasons, right? Now I don't mind if you tell your boss or you tell your teacher or a professor or whatever it happens to be That hey the free software movement it exists Yeah, let them know what free software is let them know that you prefer to use free software and that there's free Software alternatives to whatever proprietary software. They're trying to make you use you can let them know about that But be nice about it Don't be too pushy and don't be surprised if they still tell you know, right? You can't use the free alternatives You have to use this proprietary software because our university has standardized on this everybody uses this one piece of software You have to use it or our workplace this corporation you work at all requires everybody to use this particular piece of software You know Microsoft one drive for example or whatever it happens to be Microsoft teams and you have to use it And if that's the case use that piece of software, right again, don't get fired You know, don't get flunked in your university course or whatever it happens to be just because of Ideological reasons about free software versus proprietary software, right? That's that's a that's too big a step The second case where I think it's acceptable to use proprietary software over free software is if there are actually no free Alternatives available for what you're trying to accomplish because there are some Areas of software where it's pretty much all proprietary software. There's no free software at all Well, I can give you some examples in my computer use. I love Trading stocks and options and futures. I do a lot of day trading I have for a number of years and there are no applications on Any computing platform when does Mac Linux? It doesn't matter all that stuff is proprietary software The trading platforms are all proprietary software the back end the brokerages. It's all proprietary software. There's no open-source, you know Brokerages that doesn't exist the same thing with the stock markets and the feeds and everything that it's coming from the new New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ and all of that. Oh close-source software Zero open-source software as far as we've already talked about the banking industry the financial markets pretty much the global financial Industry as a whole 100% Proprietary software. So if I actually want to like have an IRA account and occasionally Actively trade, you know stocks or options or whatever it happens to be I'm going to have to do that on a proprietary Desktop client if they have a desktop trading client if they don't have a desktop trading client pretty much every brokerage has an online Way to trade stocks and but of course all of that is also going to be proprietary on the back end so What are you going to do? Are you just never going to take part in? trying to achieve Financial freedom because you you're trying to also achieve software freedom. No that that would be Ridiculous actually in the long run that would seriously harm you. I mean, what do you want to do? You want to die broke because you refused to actually interact with like the financial markets? No, you can't do that So I think it's okay to use proprietary software Obviously when there's no free software available in that area at all And I think the third use case for proprietary software over free software and this one's going to be a little Controversial, but I think it's okay to choose proprietary software over free software if the free alternatives are Really really bad compared to the proprietary alternatives, right? So you hear a lot of people claim that they can't use GIMP or inkscape and Critter and things like that because they're used to Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is just better Maybe it is I've never used Photoshop But I will accept the fact that people that know people that are actually graphic designers Prefer to use Adobe Photoshop compared to the free alternatives because a lot of these people Tell me they've tried the free alternatives and the free alternatives are just not good. I Accept that video editors professional video editors will often tell you that Obviously our free video editors are not good. I admit that Caden live is probably the best friend open source software Video editor we have Caden lines pretty good. It's not a great video editor though not compared to the proprietary alternatives like DaVinci and Lightworks and Premiere Pro and all of that stuff. I get it, right? I understand that even though I Choose to use things like Caden live and GIMP. I understand that especially those that are professionals that rely on some of those Professional proprietary tools, I get it and even I have made an exception at least in one area earlier I was talking about NVIDIA drivers, right? There is open source NVIDIA drivers I refuse to use them because they're so bad, right? So even I make an exception for hey, there are free alternatives to the proprietary software But it's so bad in comparison to the proprietary software, you know at some point I just got a I just got to go with the proprietary software in that case So those are the three exceptions that I think, you know, most reasonable people make is It's okay to use the proprietary software if you require to use it at work or at school Or if there are no free software alternatives available or if the free alternatives are just very very bad in Comparison to the proprietary software. So that's just some of my thoughts on this because people Ask me these kinds of questions all the time about proprietary software versus free software And what proprietary software do I use and when I use proprietary software? Why do I choose to use proprietary software in this case? But I I only use free software in these other areas. I know this is kind of a lengthy video I went on kind of a bit of a rant here, but I hope I gave you some insight at the end of the day though Everyone even if you're a free software zealot like I claim to be right We all still have to have some level of pragmatism, right? You can't Be such a staunch supporter of free software That at the end of the day you're actually doing more harm to yourself than good because for example if you're Getting behind at your job or at school or in my case, you know What I'm doing with making videos and things like that like I was trying to use the free Drivers for an Nvidia card for example, and I'm doing video editing and encoding and things like that That's costing me a lot of time where if I'd actually installed the proprietary Nvidia drivers I'd get done a lot quicker doing some of my work So that's the kind of things that you know, we all have a certain comfort level, you know We set the bar as far as you know I can go with free software up to a point But once it reaches a certain pain threshold, all right, that's the point Where then it's okay to use proprietary software. We all have that certain threshold now It's different, you know for some people for me is probably higher than most people some people They go quite a bit higher than me But you know a lot of people are kind of down here They'll say well, I'll use free software But you know what if all of my buddies are on discord and they want me to jump on a discord call I'll jump on a discord call. I like I get it. I like some people are a little more relaxed Ultimately though you make your own decisions on this and if you're comfortable with your decision It's probably the right decision now before I go. I need to think a few special people I need to think the producers of this episode and of course, I'm talking about these guys here Gabe James Maxim homies to bald Matt mimic Mitchell Paul Royal West armor dragon bash potato Chuck commander angry George Lee Mars drum met those Nate early on Paul peace watch from Adore Palatate realities for less red-profit rolling tools Devlin Williams in a bit these guys they're my highest tiered patrons over on patreon without these guys This little rant about proprietary software would not have been possible The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen all these names You're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on patreon. I don't have any corporate sponsors I'm sponsored by you guys on a proprietary platform called patreon If you'd like to see more videos about free and open source software though subscribe to distro tube over on patreon All right guys peace