The extraordinary menu of computer applications out there amounts to a software bonanza. People who love taking advantage of open source opportunities have a plethora of programs at their fingertips. These range from the genuinely useful and life-enhancing to the positively time-frittering. You could while your life away making 3-D animations, transforming your video files into DVDs then adding soundtracks, compressing audio files and managing the music you play on your iPod. You could be composing music, writing books and film scripts and managing your financial affairs. The question is: have you got the time that it takes to give each of many software applications a tryout?
Photo-editing, 3-D modeling and video-playing can yield hours of fruitful pleasure. Software has still other uses; for every radically multi-featured new creative application or latest version that’s released, there are employment opportunities for freelance developers, consultants and trainers. Software that is created using Open Source facilities, such as the Linux operating system, is mostly available free of charge or as shareware (demo ware).
They have wonderful names like Mumble, Songbird, Python, White Dune and Fruityloops, Trillion and Xerlin. Behind them lie zillions of person-hours, spent by skilled techies pretty much determined not to be outdone and hence driven by a desire to produce something slicker and better than the options that already exist. Patience and a feel for the end-user’s requirements are two of the essential components. But personal recognition needs to be a low priority. The software game is not a celebrity-maker. It is perhaps in keeping that techies tend to be shy, retiring types.
So whether you are attempting an e-learning startup, or breaking into game development or are merely a humble screensaver creator, or any of the above but in amateur form, the only limitations are time and your powers of imagination.