[linux-audio-dev] Re: Behringer

[Dave Robillard]

On Thu, 2004-02-12 at 09:14 -0600, Jan Depner wrote:
> > If things keep going the way you seem to think is perfectly fine, the
> > whole damn kernel will be proprietary.  I've said it before and I'll say
> > it again - we already have a totally closed, single architechture, buggy
> > POS operating system.  Why must you advocate turning Linux into one too?
> > 
>     Obviously losing your grasp on reality here - Linux is GPLed.  You
> can't make it proprietary.

I'd rather not have to put "in practise" at the end of every sentence in
my email, assuming any even remotely intelligent person (such as
yourself) would be able to figure out what I mean without a 400 word
explanatory paragraph.

A free operating system isn't very useful if you can't run it.

> > In a couple years, when those 200 linux systems are absolutely useless
> > because Nvidia doesn't care about you anymore, maybe then you'll learn.
> > 
>     In a couple of years those Linux systems will be obsolete as all
> computer systems are in a couple of years.  Don't worry, as Linux
> continues to gain ground you'll see more and more companies jumping on
> the bandwagon.  I think you just want everything now - you must be
> fairly young. 

How can you be so sure?  What makes you think Linux will become more
popular?  If everything starts going proprietary it will have all the
same problems as Windows (architechture specific, vendor lock-in, no way
to fix problems, at the mercy of some other company, etc).  In which
case a lot of the reasons for using Linux in the first place are gone,
and it's popularity will fade accordingly.

And in 5 years those computers will be capable of doing the same things
they are now.  Are they useless now?  No.  Then they won't be useless in
5 years.  Not all of us have infinite resources of money to buy shiny
new computers for every task.  I don't want to spend $3000 for a gateway
when I already have a machine that is (far) more than adequate for the
job.

My computer right now can record a whole lot of tracks simultaneously in
realtime.  That's a pretty useful task, and a better computer isn't
needed for it.. I don't recall recording a session with 38,000,000
musicians, and I'd say it's a pretty safe bet I won't ever have to.
"Obsolete" is a useless term in this context.


-DR-