3D artist End Vertex released a video on For-Profit (Creative) Software last month. The whole video is worth your time if you've ever touched programs like Flash, ZBrush, or anything Adobe.

The style of the video itself is fascinating. It moves seamlessly between history of the web, SaaS pricing model critique, and full blown CG animated art piece. You have the sense of being in a conversation with the way the tone shifts between presentational and intentionally meandering.

There are a few takeaways:

This will be familiar to software folks: Avoid coupling with outside vendors. Favor Open Source where possible and decouple the implementation details enough to make migration less painful.

That's one thing for a codebase to handle. It's another for an individual artist to take into account, especially when industry standard software is an expected requirement for finding employment. Paying for software is good and we should do that. Being expected to pay enterprise level price points for individual accounts, though?

The salient message is to support Open Source projects and communities.

We live in a bonkers time. In the 90s, Bryce 3D would have run for $299. Photoshop for $895. Yet, today, you have terrific Open Source alternatives available for free thanks to the work of talented devs, volunteers, patrons, and advocates.

Every paid product that you are using is bolstered by numerous Open Source projects. Everything from ffmpeg to SQLite. Chances are that an app you are using is just a thin layer of custom logic on top of an iceberg of OSS. If you are using a computer to read this, you have benefited from the Open Source community.

So it's worth giving back when you can.

The first thought that comes to mind would be to do so through a pull request. That's great if you have the time! Many of us are busy, though. Contributing needs to be in the same lane as our own work for this to be sustainable.

It doesn't take being a developer to contribute, though. Docs need writing. Tutorials need creating. Projects need advocates and proud supporters. If you are a user of the software, you can proudly bang the drum and/or write guides for newcomers as End Vertex recommends.

And, of course, you can donate. Plenty of options abound, my personal favorites: KDE, Blender, and Internet Archive.

I love seeing this on a corporate level. Chad Whitacre spoke on Syntax about his time stewarding large donations towards Open Source projects. It's often times not a large some of money for the company donating, but makes a large difference for the maintainers receiving it.

There's no shortage of criticism around big tech. Even so, there are people and technologies that are looking to give. Help out when you can!