[linux-audio-user] Free Software vs. Open Source: Where do *you* stand?

[Brett W. McCoy]

Pete Bessman wrote:

> This email is way, way longer than I intended it to be, and for that I
> apologize.  Remember that I'm not looking to stir up any hostilities, I
> just want to hear where people stand on The Issues and get a sense of
> the community.  I predict that there are people here on a moral mission,
> and there are people here because they get a chubby out of openness and
> collaborative development and such.  But I don't think I'm going to see
> anybody who's primary interest is making music --- although I'd love to
> be proved wrong, and I certainly think that things will be different in
> the future as the tools get better.

I have been using Linux for well over 10 years now, both professionally 
and 'for fun', in both server environments and desktop environments. 
It's my OS of choice for most things, including multimedia. I've even 
produced DVDs with Linux and done 3D animation with Linux, using 
completely free software.

That said, I'm not that political about open source and Linux. I like 
open source software and the community spirit it engenders... I like 
looking at the code of the application I am using, trying to figure out 
how it works, and so on and so on. I like having a choice with window 
managers and widgets sets.

Even when on Windows, I use a lot of open source software -- gaim, 
emacs, CygWin, Perl, Eclipse, and in fact in my professional work, we 
use mostly non-proprietary software (even though our primary product is 
closed source). It helps keep our development costs down -- we recently 
dumped some old commercial CM software for Subversion, and dropped using 
Borland JBuilder in favor of Eclipse, and it saved us loads of cash. And 
there is general agreement that our internal development processes are 
much smoother and easier to maintain now that we dumped the old software 
because it wasn't *extensible*.

My music studio is a hybrid system. I use Linux for all of my 
composing/sequencing and recording/mixing. I have a second machine 
running Windows because there are certain plugins and applications for 
which there just aren't equivalents (yet) on Linux, and they probably 
don't run well under Wine or the various VST plugin support on Linux.

> So let's hear it!
> 
> WHAT is your NAME?

Brett

> WHAT is your QUEST?

An honest man?

> WHAT is your FAVORITE ALBUM?

What do you mean? African or European?


-- 
Brett McCoy: Programmer by Day, Guitarist by Night
http://www.alhazred.com
http://www.cassandrasyndrome.com
http://www.revelmoon.com