[Consortium] Sounds Expo TODO list?

[Richard Bown]

On Monday 02 February 2004 09:37, Chris Cannam wrote:

> Ah, I dunno.  I had been thinking perhaps of making one of the other
> two be a list of links and the other be something aimed at
> developers, perhaps... not quite sure though.  Either way those two
> could probably balance up the salesiness of the first two by
> concentrating on community and the need for developers.

Hmm, I'd say a no to both of those.  Firstly everyone knows how to use Google 
and people don't actually type in links anymore, do they?  Secondly, why undo 
all the good "it's not just for geeks" image by promoting the geek side of it 
all?  Geeks will know where to look and how to help out - if they don't then 
they're not very good geeks.

I do think there should be a more in depth flier perhaps outlining some core 
apps in more detail (and lifting a few quotes from websites) and also perhaps 
adumbrating an example setup - piece for piece - against a (say) Windows 
setup.  So you could have a tick list of things to do to get you up and 
running with a Linux Audio system.  If I was a musician or music tech looking 
to move over to Linux I'd want to see a list of concrete reasons why I should 
be moving and examples of how I can achieve this.  To know it can be done is 
enough - that's why Ron's (and others) setup is of so much interest to 
people.

Whatever though - I have already nailed my up my colours as a firm believer in 
Linux Audio as a viable commercial platform (at some point or other, on some 
scale or other) so I do tend to veer onto the hopelessly salesmanny pitch.   
I think it's worth shouting about in a commercial sense mainly because that 
is the language that people understand - if you say it's cool and it's free 
people tend to mistrust it.  "What's the catch?  You must have to be a brain 
surgeon to fly it."

An even more paranoid point along the same lines is that if our stand is 
popular then other firms (who've paid full price for their stands) may be 
keen to point out any flaw in our arguments to keep people wary of Linux 
Audio.

I'm mainly playing devil's advocate here of course.

R