Why use free software?

The obvious answer to this is because it is free. This is the wrong answer. Time is money. Free software that costs you time is expensive. Paid for software that saves you time is cheap. If you use software for something that is critical to your life you should not bat an eyelid at paying for it unless you are so broke that you literally can't afford anything. If this is my philosophy, why have I started a blog on free software? The reason is that there are times when you need some software to do a quick job, or a job that you do infrequently, or a job that you would just like to do but which isn't really that important. And for this situation it is likely that there is a free option around. The classic case is Photoshop. If you are a serious graphic artist you are going to want to have the up to date version of Photoshop to help you create the images that are important to you. If you want to fiddle around a bit and come up with something to brighten up a community newsletter, you don't. In fact you won't even need 90% of the functions of Gimp. But as you don't need to pay for Gimp, in this case it is clearly a better option. It so happens that I am often in the position of wanting to do something as a one off and I have a bit of a weakness for trying out new bits of software. On this blog I intend to share some of my experiences with free software from the point of view of someone who just wants to quickly fiddle with something. I hope you find it useful.