Review: Well written but not well researched.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 12, 2012
The author hits the high points in this very short book, but leaves out an enormous amount. There's no mention of gimpphoto, just to name one example, which anyone with Photoshop experience would want to know about (rather than GIMP.) Only the best-known programs in a relative handful of categories get any mention but the author's judgement and choices are usually quite good. Still, it's not really something you should be paying for; it would make more sense as a blog entry. You should be able to Google for an equivalent magazine or blog article. Nonetheless, because it's useful for rank beginners and well-written and formatted, I'm going to bump my review up from two stars.To add an argument in favor of open source programs (even if you're rich): Open Source programs are very stable over the years, that is, they will be available on newer operating systems in the future and will evolve fairly slowly. That makes them perfect for tasks you don't do all that often. Your familiarity with a program won't become obsolete any time soon and you can quickly download it again a few years from now if a similar task pops up and get right to work. They are also usually available in portable form, which takes a bit of a load of your OS, they say, and allows you to take them with you easily if you need to.