[Consortium] linux audio base djcj linux-sound apps and midi page etc...

[Chris Cannam]

On Monday 02 Feb 2004 2:02 am, Marek Peteraj wrote:
> Linux Audio.
>
> You can't have a better promotion than having a domain name with
> exactly that name - Linux Audio.

Well, you see, I'm not so convinced that it is such an obvious name as 
you think.

I think the apparent obviousness of it is a projection of the fact 
that as developers or engineers we mostly seem to think of what we do 
as "audio".  I'm not so sure that "audio" is going to be the obvious 
defining word to any user who is not an audio engineer by trade.

For example, look at the website for the Sounds Expo trade show:

  http://www.sounds-expo.co.uk/index2.php

To us this is obviously an audio industry trade show, but the word 
"audio" does not feature in the description on that site at all.  
Similarly I have copies of the latest Sound on Sound and Future Music 
magazines in front of me, and the word "audio" is nowhere on the 
cover of either.  All of these exclusively use words like "sound", 
"recording", "music".  "Audio" describes a particular domain that has 
to do with frequencies and samples: it's something that engineers use 
to make music products, not something that musicians use.  (The 
crossover between studio engineers and home studio users does muddy 
this one, of course.)

Still, to me this seems like a pretty obvious distinction -- I've been 
developing Linux music software for nearly a decade now, but I'm only 
tangentially a Linux audio developer.  And I see the "linuxaudio.org" 
consortium as having a name that suggests it's targeted at the audio 
industry, or at least to developers and sound engineers, not so much 
the average end user.  I'm not persuaded that the musician with an 
interest in music software for Linux would ever think of going to 
linuxaudio.org at all.

(Caveat: it's possible that the word "audio" gets more general use in 
the US?)


Chris