[LAD] [LAU] Linux Audio 2012: Is Linux Audio moving forward?

[Jörn Nettingsmeier]

On 10/10/2012 11:00 PM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>
> On Thu, October 11, 2012 7:25 am, Louigi Verona wrote:
>> @Patrick:
>>
>> "The problem with that approach is that it tends to feed the negative
>> attitude towards Linux and that is exactly what the "competition" want."
>>
>> There is no competition, Patrick. Windows Audio does not compete with
>> Linux Audio. Only if in our minds. And thus they do not want anything.
>>
>
> There are plenty of competitors to Linux Audio as a platform. AVID is the
> most obvious competitor.

that's a bit like saying NASA is competing with the RC model helicopter 
community. i'm pretty sure the whole professional *non-embedded* linux 
audio market is a fraction of the size of AVID's _marketing_ budget.

now under the hood, things look quite different, but that doesn't have 
much impact on the public opinion towards or perception of linux.

>> There is no Windows Audio community, there is a Linux Audio community.
>> We try to compete with them. They do not compete with us.
>>
>
> Look at things from a professional business point of view and try again
> please. I'm not talking about Linux Multimedia for amateur users or even
> necessarily for artists/producers. I'm talking about businesses that use
> Linux as their revenue generating platform.

i'm one such business, and despite my healthy illusions of grandeur i 
don't consider myself part of a relevant market for any major equipment 
or software manufacturer.

besides the obvious technical benefits of using linux (for my particular 
kind of workflow), the main advantage to me is to be able to _ignore_ 
the rat race of the mainstream pro audio software market.

> Don't you mean that because "insert favorite application/plugin" is not
> ported they will have to learn how to do something differently and that is
> too much to ask?

that's not how marketing works, and that's not how the market works. the 
goal is to get kids to buy dsp cards with emulations of old UREIs that 
are great for snares and female vocals, and another emulation of an old 
fairchild which is great for male voices and kick drums, and the way to 
do it is to get fat old mixing gurus to advertise that kind of gear on 
youtube.

the linux community doesn't have those dsp cards to sell, our plugins 
don't have the kind of bling, and people who give their stuff away are 
less inclined to bullshit kids out of their money. we have a few 
limiters with a bunch of parameters that give useful results on all 
kinds of program material, all they lack is the instant rocknroll 
credibility thing of a fat bearded guy with a metallica t-shirt at a 
96-channel ssl who compares them to his obsolete analog treasures and 
praises them to high heaven.

hence, in my view, the absence of a "market" like this is a good thing.

the only time it hurts is when i cannot get hardware support for gear 
that i need. but these days, i can get linux drivers for everything from 
2 to 128 channels of i/o (more if i'm prepared to gang cards), so what's 
the problem?

intel and amd thankfully make dsp cards that will also deal with my 
email and run my browser (word processing on a sharc, anyone?), and they 
are well-supported by linux :)

>> I like it and I am
>> doing it,
>> but I would not advertise Linux Audio as comparable to Windows Audio since
>> it is
>> simply not true.
>>
> And it's a good thing too.

here i whole-heartedly agree!



-- 
Jörn Nettingsmeier
Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487

Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio)
Tonmeister VDT

http://stackingdwarves.net