On October 7th there was an announcement by the proprietary software giant Adobe to ban al Venezuelan users from using any of its services, not even giving them a refund.1 Such announcement came seemingly out of nowhere, following an executive order that doesn’t really impede them from having business relationships with individual venezuelan citizens but with the “Goverment of Venezuela”.

The implications of such action are absolutely detrimental, as most of the creative workers use or depend on Adobe software. That is to be expected though, as Adobe software is practically an industry standard and using anything that isn’t from Adobe for that kind of work is not as common as it should be.

So, what should a person trying to earn a decent income in the creative world should resort to after getting prema-banned from using the most common, known, and arguably powerful tools in that area? I know what crosses the mind of any individual in that place: Piracy. But that should not be the way.

Legal and moral affairs apart, piracy should never be an option, it doesn’t solve the fundamental flaw that drove the person to it in the first place: the lack of ownership of your software.

Propietary software is owned only by the company that develops it (the proprietor), the copy that resides in your machine or in the browser through yout account is just a leased version of the software, your rights are limited in a way that gives the proprietor absolute power over it and leaves you completely vulnerable to events like this one. Piracy doesn’t magically makes you own the software, it only makes your leased copy work (maybe partially) and nothing more, maybe an update will make your copy stop working again.

The best alternative is libre software, software that respects your freedom to use it as you wish, without discriminating against your nationality or your purchasing power. However, libre software is often overlooked by professionals and inexperienced alike for being free of cost, gratis; as if for being free it means it is subpar software.

There is a certain degree of truth that proprietary software is more polished and more featureful, as any project should be if it has the resources of Adobe to maintain it; nevertheless libre alternatives to Adobe software are very well developed and most would be powerful enough for most creatives out there.

Here is a good list of libre alternatives to the Adobe Creative Suite, the video is targeted to linux users but as with most libre software it is available in both Windows and MacOS also.

The point of libre software is not that it is free of cost, the point is that it respects your freedom to use it as you wish, doesn’t push the interests of the creators of the software over the interests of its users and will always be transparent in its inner workings.

I want to end this with a quote by Linus from LinusTechTips that resumes everything that is wrong with the current state of software:

“So, this sucks for venezuelans but it also kind of has the potential to suck for everyone because this is a reminder of the predicament that we’ve gotten ourselves into by creating a world that is dependant on subscription services.” - Linus techlinked

  1. Only to clarify a few days later that refunds will be offered to venezuelan customers that purchased directly from Adobe and that Behance social media platfrom will continue to be available to them. [return]