[linux-audio-user] Re: prebuilt tools (long!)

[Jonathan Segel]

	thanks to all who read that missive and responded, very 
interesting. lest you all think that i was complaining about the 
state of linux audio, i assure you i was not. i had interpreted 
earlier posts to be asking why more people weren't using linux audio 
tools, so i gave an example of somebody who had been working in 
another world and was moving into linux.
	i love the process of learning new things, gotta keep the old 
dog young, so for me learning more about how the hardware really 
interacts with the software is an interesting puzzle to work through 
--i feel the same way about writing code for supercollider. i don't 
come from a background of writing code so the process of learning how 
to do it is both frustrating and exciting --logic puzzles.

	though not necessary, i should clarify my statements about 
film and music industry media moving through macs, i meant mostly in 
terms of recording (audio), editing and mixing (both video and 
audio). certainly all the major visual-effect rendering has been cgi 
-moving to almost all linux now. (though my friends at pixar imply 
that there's some "upper management" pressure to sell renderman for 
mac g5s...but then they'd actually have to man the phones for tech 
support.. heh.)

	the one thing that i can't reconcile yet is mr shirkey's post 
about the other perspective: if you can't hack the pace then you 
shouldn't be in the driver's seat.
	i am definitely of two minds on this. one side says that, 
yes, no compromise should be made by those who know how to make a 
thing do what they want it to do simply to allow others do it as 
well. in this way there can be major forward momentum in the growth 
of a system, but it also makes an elite group of experts that must be 
deferred to in order to be able to use their wisdom. this can have 
deleterious effects upon the culture of the users, besides just 
making some cache of coolness that comes with being "in the know" 
(while appearing to be snobs from those that wish they could be in 
the know themselves!) that is completely irrelevant to the real 
situations, yet completely within human nature, wherein the 
development must take long and winding routes to reach the majority 
of the users who cannot "hack the pace", pun intended.
  	for myself, i see the allure of learning to stay on the 
bleeding edge of technology and to make music from software that is 
coming into being daily from a group of people who are likewise 
inclined. i am one of those people who has to take a preset apart to 
make something of their own before thinking that they are making 
their own music. and while i would love to believe i am special 
somehow for being that way, politically i think i am far too populist 
to allow it to become elitism. so that part of me wants to make the 
hard things get easier, perhaps.

ok, enough of this -

-- 
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Jonathan Segel  -- MAGNETIC -- PO Box 460816 S.F. CA. 94146-0816
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