[LAU] A year of Linux Audio revisited - would like to know your oppinion

Pieter Palmers pieterp at joow.be
Thu Dec 13 04:53:20 EST 2007


Paul Davis wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-12-12 at 12:49 +0100, Pieter Palmers wrote:
> 
>> The only project that seems to be able to break this circle is Ardour. 
> 
> Lets give some props to Rosegarden here. Chris and the rest of the RG
> gang have followed a totally different path in every sense, yet RG seems
> to be developing quite well and meeting its design goals pretty well.
> They didn't do it with any dotcom funds or other "independent wealth" -
> just hard work and devotion. Even so, yes, RG is probably moving a
> little less slowly than Ardour and is probably (though not certainly)
> receiving less attention from the industry. Its still a great project
> and it should not be overlooked when discussing "success stories". 
> 
> There are others too, that have been 100% successful in terms of their
> design goals: Hydrogen, FreqTweak, Freewheeling, Jamin to name just 4.
> Again, this developed under very different models than Ardour, so I
> think its dangerous to over-generalize here.

I did not meant to devalue any of the LAD programs. I personally think 
we have an incredible set of tools that can provide you with everything 
you need. In some cases tt's not as polished as in the commercial world, 
which IMHO is not a bad thing by definition. Not having a bunch of 
pre-made presets encourages you to learn what you're doing, which in 
it's turn can lead to a better ability to implement your musical ideas. 
But that's another discussion.

The point I was trying to make is that apparently only one project seems 
to be able to create some sort of revenue for it's developer(s). At 
least as far as I know the stories (please indulge me). If I'm not wrong 
, again please correct me if so, all programs you mention have been 
developed either in spare time, or in some sort of research environment.

I think they have a large 'value' and could be able to be 
self-supportive. The question is "why aren't they?".

As a though experiment on the side, possible pouring a jar of petrol here...

I wonder what would happen if we would port these applications to the 
Windows platform. It's not something new, e.g. Mixxx, Hydrogen, recently 
LinuxSampler. Considering the fact that Qt4 GPL is available for 
windows, and that jackdmp is also ported to windows one could argue that 
technically it's not that hard. The userbase is potentially much larger, 
increasing both the potential developers, but more important, increasing 
the base for a service based business model.
After all, FruityLoops started out as a pretty simple $20 shareware app 
(hydrogen can do more), with a perfectly working crack circulating (I 
assume :). But still people paid for it, allowing it to grow into what 
it now is.
Another thought is "why is the almost equally closed OSX more accepted 
than Windows?"

Note that I'm not advocating anything, I'm simply exercising my creative 
thinking here. I'm very interested in the responses...

Greets,

Pieter



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