7 Jan
2005
7 Jan
'05
4:52 p.m.
There exists a rapidly growing market of digital home audio devices. That is a
huge market and it makes sense to help Linux to grow there.
While the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum to some extent includes audio devices
it has somewhat different objectives.
I therefore would like to suggest to add "home audio" to the scope of
LinuxAudio.org.
Cheers,
Andreas
8 Jan
8 Jan
1:37 p.m.
Hi Andreas,
There exists a rapidly growing market of digital home
audio
devices. That is a huge market and it makes sense to help Linux to
grow there.
While the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum to some extent includes
audio devices it has somewhat different objectives.
I therefore would like to suggest to add "home audio" to the scope
of LinuxAudio.org.
Of course, there's nothing to stop members collaborating on 'home
audio' projects. The first clause of the policy is:
'The aim of the Linuxaudio.org consortium is to promote and enable the
use of Linux kernel based systems for professional audio use.'
http://www.linuxaudio.org/en/policy.html
Now, if you are a product designer or software engineer, creating a
home audio device for the consumer market, then arguably the design
and integration process counts as professional use.
With libre software, there is no firm line between programs that
professionals use and programs that amateurs (in the best sense of
the word) use, since the usual barriers to entry don't exist - except
perhaps in application scope and complexity. And content creators
also need playback tools.
Do you think there are any specific projects that should be members of
linuxaudio.org in order to better address the 'home audio' market? We
already have members working in relevant areas, including ALSA,
Gstreamer, MandrakeSoft and Xiph.org. An embedded system developer,
maybe?
Cheers
Daniel
11 Jan
11 Jan
10:50 a.m.
Daniel James wrote:
Do you think there are any specific projects that
should be members of
linuxaudio.org in order to better address the 'home audio' market? We
already have members working in relevant areas, including ALSA,
Gstreamer, MandrakeSoft and Xiph.org. An embedded system developer,
maybe?
Home audio is not included in this phrase of the "About"-text: "emphasis
on
professional tools for the music, recording and broadcast industries." My
suggestion is to explicitely add "home audio" to this list. As far as I see it
one of the main issues in digital home audio is to promote the use and
development of open standards which are useable for Linux- and Open Source-based
home audio systems. A standard is not really open if you have to pay thousands
of Dollars to be able to read and use it or if a company can
"embrace-and-extend" it to monopolise it's position.
I think that quite a few of the companies which could be interested can be found
on these two lists:
Members of the UPnP Forum
http://upnp.org/membership/members.asp
Members of the "Digital Living Network Alliance"
http://www.dlna.org/about/roster
The list of UPnP Forum members is especially broad because there are no
membership fees (membership in the DLNA costs a lot).
Companies like AMD, BridgeCo or Transmeta could be asked. Also quite a few
consumer electronics-companies (such as Phillips or Samsung) for obvious reasons
are not happy with the current dominance of Microsoft in home audio and video.
That is why they created their own organisation:
Universal Home API
http://www.uhapi.org/home
Those companies are not on any of these lists:
Slim Devices
(not using Linux in their current devices but has grown an Open Source community
around their SlimServer software - which is implemented in Perl. They might be
interested in closer connections to the Linux Audio community)
http://slimdevices.com
Sonos
(using Linux in their devices)
http://www.sonos.com
PONTIS digital entertainment
(using Linux in their MediaServer MS300)
http://pontis.de/site_e/home_e.htm
Cheers,
Andreas
12:54 p.m.
Hi Andreas,
Home audio is not included in this phrase of the
"About"-text:
"emphasis on professional tools for the music, recording and
broadcast industries."
Except that professional tools are needed in order to create 'home
audio' devices, as I pointed out.
My suggestion is to explicitely add "home
audio" to this list.
You're welcome to suggest a policy revision to the Management Board,
via its mailing list:
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/management
It would be best if you could suggest a specific wording that you
would like to see in the Policy, such as:
'The aim of the Linuxaudio.org consortium is to promote and enable the
use of Linux kernel based systems for both professional and consumer
audio use.'
Personally, I'm not too keen on the word 'consumer' but I can't think
of a better one for this context.
When I originally drafted the policy document, together with other
consortium members, the intention was to promote media creation
tools, rather than just playback tools - the latter being what most
people think of as 'multimedia software'.
As far as I see it one of the main issues in
digital home audio is to promote the use and development of open
standards which are useable for Linux- and Open Source-based home
audio systems.
Quite - but then we have already amended our policy document to read:
'The Linuxaudio.org consortium prefers open standards and file
formats.'
Cheers
Daniel
7038
days inactive
7042
days old
consortium@lists.linuxaudio.org
3 comments
2 participants
participants (2)
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Andreas Kuckartz -
Daniel James