[LAU] [LAD] Kontakt sampler format (and others like EXS24)

Patrick Shirkey pshirkey at boosthardware.com
Sat Sep 1 04:25:03 UTC 2012


On Sat, September 1, 2012 1:59 pm, Paul Davis wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Patrick Shirkey
> <pshirkey at boosthardware.com
>> wrote:
>
>>
>> For example people who use firefox or chrome would be a good start. They
>> are most likely the ones who will also be using Linux Audio Tools.
>>
>
> patrick, if you haven't noted, firefox and chrome are cross-platform
> tools.
> perhaps you mean the number of people who use those tools on linux ... if
> so, here are some numbers from ardour.org:
>
> Rank Requests Pages OS
> 1       1064670 50842   Windows
> 2       1008038  23804   Unix
>          1001554  23713   Linux
>          5482               77  BSD
>          696                 10  Other Unix
>          306                   4  SunOS
> 3       3106311     5647  OS unknown
> 4       476795    14399   Macintosh
> 5       51448         8052  Known robots
> 6       14                   14  OS/2
> 7       1862               11   Symbian OS
>
> if you were to use this, you'd note that even on a site about a DAW that
> doesn't run on Windows, (apparent) Windows users outnumber Linux users by
> more than 2:1. of course, this statistic has all kinds of flaws and
> caveats, but the point is that the data that is available to companies
> such
> as NI strongly argues against supporting Linux. if you have real data that
> would convince such companies that their existing decisions are wrong,
> then
> please do share it.
>

What this tells me is that the perception that the Linux userbase is
almost non existent is seriously flawed to the point where even people
running windows are so interested in the software they outnumber the
target audience by 2:1

It also tells me that there is a very real userbase for ardour in the
Linux community substantially more than non existant. If even a small
number of them were interested in purchasing NI products they would be
making enough profit to justify a dedicated support resource.

Combine that with the users of LS, qtractor, muse, rosegarden, energy XT,
etc... and there is a large enough community to completely blow away any
discussion of  not being able to make a profit. As the community is
growing that just makes it even more profitable.

And all this is done with no mainstream media coverage, zero glossy
advertising, trade show appearances at a minimum. It's pretty much just
hard graft from a few dedicated and motivated individuals.

There is nothing in these stats that even remotely says the opposite of
the Linux Audio community is worth serious investment by serious audio
companies.

If NI wanted to add an additional 100k customers to its sales targets this
is a no brainer. Certainly they would get more bang for their buck than
any mass marketing campaign will give them.

We could take it further and extrapolate the amount of customers that
Harrison receives from the ardour userbase too.



> Another example, Behringer ships Audacity with every single product they
>> sell. Clearly the global market leader for audio production hardware
>> sees
>> some value in open source too.
>
>
> for the N-th time, open source is *not* Linux. Audacity is popular because
> it is a powerful, useful, cross-platform tool. Linux has (probably) very
> little to do with it.
>

Audacity is a "stepping stone" or bridge product that gives consumers and
amateurs the freedom to transition to Linux without the fear of not being
able to use their work on other platforms. The fact that it runs on all
major platforms gives people the reason to check out Linux. If Behringer
also shipped a bootable disk that would blow everything out of the water
and reset the game.



--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd


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