[LAU] An appeal to famous artists?

[pshirkey at boosthardware.com]

> On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 4:59 AM, S. Massy wrote:
>
>> Yeah, well, too many people have already responded with very valid
>> points for me to add much. However, I'd like to bring up a certain
>> analogy. About ten years ago, I remember a lot of similar discussion
>> going on around The Linux Desktop: "How can we make it better?", "How
>> can we make it better known?", "Why are people and businesses sticking
>> to MS Office?" It was a bit of an obsession in the early 21st century.
>> Now, The Linux Desktop isn't exactly used by an overwhelming majority,
>> but it has made its way on many common wo/man's computer and is even in
>> some schools and small businesses, and a lot of people in the street
>> have at least heard of "that Ubuntu thing" and are intrigued.
>
> Well, what _actually_ happened is that Windows ports of various open
> source applications matured and stabilized, and since people were
> scared re moving to a new OS, we are now in a situation where vast
> majority of users of crossplatform free software such as Audacity and
> GIMP are on Windows. I don't have stats for
> OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice, but I bet the situation is the same.
>
> With MIDI/audio software we don't have that much of a problem *cough*
> ALSA* cough* JACK *cough*, so it's a stalemate: without Windows we
> never get as many users as we want, yet _with_ Windows ports we never
> get people to use Linux.
>
> I don't think there is a simple solution to this. But I think that
> this point of yours:
>
>> So, based on that experience, I'd venture to think that making/improving
>> software for our own benefit and creating quality content produced with
>> the
>> aforementioned software is really what counts in the end.
>
> makes a hell of a sense.
>
> Just one minor addition, if you don't mind. We have to finish with
> the, IMNSHO, nonsensical notion of our users being geeks who are into
> protocols and whatnot. I work for a Linux vendor who is right now into
> another bidding process re Linux at schools in my country. Part of the
> specification of requirements is on multimedia production software,
> and while on details level a lot of that is ridiculous stuff that
> boils down to give-us-something-like-garageband/imovie, in general the
> requirements make a lot of sense.
>
> It's the second bidding process like that (i.e. with similar spec of
> reqs) we've been through, and one thing I can tell you is that while
> some people still say "oh, but I love my complicated routing and I
> don't really mind both JS and ladish co-existing, and I hate you
> ardour developers for adding MIDI tracks, and don't you even start
> talking about video tracks", the kids get macs with propietary
> software that is easier to get started with. What they will grow to
> like -- you can easily guess. I'm talking about some 2K workstations,
> btw.
>
> Oh, and it's one of the reasons why I still keep an eye on MusE,
> hoping that one day they will revamp UI. Because it's, once again, the
> second bidding process where the spec says "It should be possible to
> select virtual instruments from a library that is part of the
> software". So in the future it's either MusE with revamped UI that
> doesn't scare kids away, or Qtractor that finally gets a developer to
> merge changes from QArranger (I'm referring to native LS client
> mostly). But right now it looks more like Rosegarden with modified
> default studio and hooks to FluidSynth/QSynth that would load
> something like FluidR3_GM.SF2.
>


This is the kind of feedback that we can only get when companies make the
effort to use Linux tools as part of a solution.

Chicken vs egg.



--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd