[linux-audio-dev] The Image (usablity) problem from a Musicians point of view

[Kai Vehmanen]

On 21 Oct 2002, Lea Anthony wrote:

> Sure, there is probably a lot more but I'm just gathering my thoughts
> here. What I'm afraid of is that LAD will end up with the same problems
> as most Linux distros suffer from: Bloat. Choice is good, but do I
> really need 7 text editors on my system? No. What I believe would
> benefit LAD, and correct me if I'm wrong, is to create a 'big picture',
> a complete DAW system. It should consist of AN audio editor, AN audio
> recorder, A sample editor, etc. Like I said, choice is great but
> musicians don't give a hoot about choice, they want something that
> works, not 7 things that are half done. If all effort was pushed in this
> direction, I believe we would end up with a quality system that the
> world would take seriously.

This is something that has been proposed quite a few times here. 
Who's the "we" here? I'd say this is something that has to be
done by a volunteer group (think of debian), company (think of redhat) or 
a mixture of two. Currently the best example of this concept is Planet 
CCRMA.

If this kind of project is succesful, it will motivate individual 
development projects to improve their offerings so that their project
get included in the "promo-projects". If a company would do this, it 
could allocate resources to those areas of development that are lacking. 

Of course, one possibility is that this kind of group is formed
here on linux-audio-dev and linux-audio-user, but you shouldn't
expect too much help from the individual projects. In the end,
the reason why so much (high-quality) development is happening
here is that people are scratching their itches, not because developers 
are trying to create a marketable whole. And I think this is
good for all involved. The other option is to have a group 
of not-so-motivated developers aiming at a marketable whole... hmm,
sounds awfully lot like traditional commercial development. ;)

But of course, for any kind of promo, or Linux audio interest group,
it would be silly not to participate on linux-audio-{dev,user},
alsa-lists, and other central lists. I think this is why PlanetCCRMA has
been so popular. On the other hand, Demudi and Agnula seem, at least to 
me, more like ivory-tower type of projects. They don't have much of 
a presence on any of the mentioned lists.

And btw; it's good to note that participants in free/open-sw projects
are not just volunteers and/or enthusiasts. There can also be companies 
involved that just want to scratch their itches, and don't have
a huge interest in marketing Linux audio. I think it's good to keep 
these two interests separate.

--
 http://www.eca.cx
 Audio software for Linux!