Joining the open-source community?

On of my (many!) items on my “To Do” list for When I Finish My Dissertation (TM) is to shoot some music videos for some of our songs, and maybe a few film shorts -- maybe a really bad zombie movie.

As I mentioned just a moment ago, I plan to switch over to Linux for my recording and video editing work. For video editing, I have two directions I can go:

One is to buy a video editing software package called Main Actor -- version 5.5, costs $199 (U.S.?) to download it. It’s supposed to be good, although not completely intuitive for some of the more advanced features.

The other option is to use the no-cost software called Kino. Like most Linux software, it’s produced by a team of hobbyists, doing it for the challenge, the glory, and the GeekPoints(TM).

Supposedly, MainActor has a few features that Kino does not: for example, Kino only has one audio track (or something like that), so you can’t crossfade the soundtrack between scenes. So, for a while I thought I’d use my spending power to signal my support for Linux, and purchase the software.

But today, I realized that I enjoy suggesting new features for one of the survey-structuring software packages we use at work. And these sorts of software projects are always in need of beta-testin’, bug-flaggin’, feature-suggestin’ user-type folks. And they also often need people to help with the documentation: I’m pretty good at writing instruction manuals.

Plus, it’s been a while since I’ve done video editing, and it was old school, non-software editing. Instead of plunking down two hundred bucks at the get-go, maybe I should use the free software first -- see if it fits my needs -- and go from there?

Ayep!


--GG