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

[Gordon JC Pearce]

On Thu, 2007-12-13 at 20:12 +0100, Pieter Palmers wrote:

> The problem with hobby-projects is that users are really dependent on 
> the goodwill of the hobbyist. If the hobbyist doesn't feel like 
> supporting or developing some piece of software anymore, the user is 
> screwed. That's not very professional (<<< !!inflammable term alert!!).

(ahem)

> Some traditional counter-arguments:
> * "When a company stops selling/supporting the user is also screwed". 
> True, but if the 'hobbyist' would have to pay his bills with money from 
> his users, the 'stop support' decision gets a whole new dimension. If a 
> company pulls this off too often, they are out of business in no time.

Or you end up buying an expensive upgrade

> * "The user (or community) has the source and hence development can go 
> on". How realistic is this? I've been lurking on the hydrogen 
> development list for quite some time now, and when Allesandro (Comix) 
> stopped actively developing the complete project stalled. OTOH, I'm also 
> lurking on the Mixxx list, and in that case some new people have 
> continued the work.

Well, Sean Bolton stopped developing Xsynth-DSSI, and I took it to some
pretty strange places after that.  It's pretty easy to get your head
around.

Gordon