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

[Chris Cannam]

On Monday 02 Feb 2004 8:32 pm, Marek Peteraj wrote:
> I'm not suggesting an end-user portal at all. And it shouldn't be
> about 'pro-audio'. It should be about audio in general.

So not about music and sound in general?

All I'm saying is (as has been said before several times) "Linux 
Audio" is not such an obvious name for a mixed bag of music stuff as 
you think it is.  Indeed, a lot of people interested in the sort of 
thing you appear to be talking about wanting to promote would be 
actively put off by the fact that the name suggests something 
exclusively about audio -- just as I didn't subscribe to LAD until a 
couple of years ago because I wasn't working on audio software, 
despite working actively on music and MIDI applications.  I am 
equally reticent about recommending that friends with an interest in 
music composition or recording should check out LAU.

Linuxaudio.org as the current consortium does not have a problem with 
this, because it's targeting the same mixed bag of stuff specifically 
at the audio industry, not at an equally mixed bag of end users.  I 
think it's a good name, not least because of the suggestion of 
serious engineering -- the same reason as there are so many sound 
hardware companies called this-and-that-audio as you pointed out.

Anyway, this is not particularly germane.  Most of the people here are 
indeed interested in audio -- as am I, just not to the exclusion of 
everything else.  And audio is a useful generic word when you want to 
distinguish yourself from e.g. music swapping apps (although less 
useful when you want to distinguish yourself from e.g. game sound 
engines).  I just don't believe that the word has the same ringing 
rightness to the rest of the world that it has to you.


Chris