Open Source Software

I have said it before, I am not a writer, I am a visual person. I love photography. I also want to create with the least amount of hassle, but with the most control. That may seem like two opposite ideals, but that is what I want...
I also don't want to be forced into working the way someone else works. I have been using Ubuntu for quite a while now, and I really like the workflow.
In terms of Photography, I download my photos into Digikam and do a quick purge of out of focus, badly exposed, and other failed images. I also give the photos "tags" and a cursory rating so they will be easier to find later. Digikam also has some decent editing/correction tools to give a basic feel to the photo. I use these to get a handle on where I want to take the photo.
Once I have decided to work on a photo, I open it in RawTherapee and tweak the colours and process the raw file. I save a 16 bit png file.
The next program I use is either Cinepaint (still a bit kludgy to work with), Gimp (no 16 bit support...yet) or Krita. Here I do any spotting and dust removal, selective area enhancement and so on. I save a final version as a tif, and a scaled down version as a jpg. I upload the jpg to my website (which uses gallery2).
From this workflow, you will notice a couple of things. First, I use a lot of opensource software. What I like about opensource is the rapid improvement of the software. With a lot of eyes on the program, someone somewhere will fix any niggling problems. With a lot of commercial software, these niggling problems are not always addressed. Often you are told (indirectly) to just deal with it. Now don't get me wrong, Adobe's Photoshop, for example is a great program. In fact, I once taught a college level course on Photoshop, and there are a few things that are much easier to do in Photoshop than in other programs, however, the purchase price is getting astronomical. Recent versions are only marginally better than the previous, but still cost the same. And of course there are still the niggling things, Photoshop needs A LOT of memory, files are huge, some people have trouble with the interface... but these things don't always get addressed.
With a program like gimp (besides the very unfortunate name) things tend to move faster. If the program is not fulfilling the needs of a group, someone can "fork" the program to produce something like cinepaint that does address those needs. Innovation tends to move faster int he open source world. Chances are if something bugs me, it also bugs someone a lot smarter than me who can fix it without worrying about financial return on investment. Never underestimate how much some small annoyance can drive a person...
The second thing you may notice (if you use Linux yourself) is that I use a mix of Gnome and KDE programs. In the commercial world, this is almost like using both Microsoft and Apple programs at the same time on the same computer. I think it is better to be able to use the best tool possible for the job, rather than be tied to what someone else thinks you should do. For example, I use Digikam to organize my photos. There is a similar program called f-spot for Gnome, but it does not quite jive with the way I work with my images.
I guess the whole point to this post is to show that open source software is capable of some outstanding results that easily rivals commercial products. The two images linked had extensive editing before they were finished. And open source products do not try to pigeon hole your work or style into what the designers feel is the "best".
I really hate to admit it, but I seem to have become an open source evangelist..... Damn...
Oh, and I guess I better include a photograph, cause this is a photography blog...