28 Jan
2004
28 Jan
'04
1:08 p.m.
Hi,
I'm thinking the consortium could provide some simple
demographics that provide an indication of the number
of Linux audio users. Maybe start with a simple page
and a link to Joern's mailing list subscription count.
It's easy to imagine the content would become more
useful with time and not to much effort. Maybe we
could ask Demudi, Planet CCRMA, etc for download
stats. Http stats for hits might also be interesting.
The point being, if the cost for company X to port
their products to Linux is $15,000.00 U.S. they will
require a consumer market of X users to justify the
investment.
During the last month, I've had conversations with
several companies that have product for Mac OSX. They
had two basic concerns.
1. "Linux has to small a share of the market to
justify an investment."[1]
2. "we're waiting for a DAW/Sequencer like X and then
we'll port."
It's not difficult to imagine that Linux owns a small
share of market but I think it could be interesting to
know where we stand and to make that information
available to the public.
NOTES
1. Of course anyone can contract a company to port and
then license their product.
Ron
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1:55 p.m.
> 1. "Linux has to small a share of the market
to
> justify an investment."[1]
OS X isn't going to be available for the vast majority of hardware
while Apple avoids confronting Microsoft. They are a pet competitor -
MS even invested US$150m in Apple to keep it afloat a few years back.
So where Intel/AMD or most embedded systems are concerned, OS X isn't
relevant to market share. (Apple has 100% of the OS X market though!)
> 2. "we're waiting for a DAW/Sequencer
like X and then
> we'll port."
I expect proprietary software companies are watching to see if any of
them jump first. My own opinion is that it's a mistake waiting for
the likes of Steinberg to port software like Cubase, because the best
new software will probably follow a different paradigm. Stanton Final
Scratch, for example, was nothing like existing DJ software.
3. "Linux users want everything for free"
That is something I hear from people, and to a certain extent it's
true - free beer software inevitably attracts mean users. (Warez
attracts far more tightwad users, but that's another matter).
Those companies offering non-free-beer applications for Linux, libre
or not, will have to consider if they are trying to sell audio
software to existing Linux users, or Linux software to existing audio
users. At the moment, the former market is more than catered for by
free-beer libre software, so I'm not surprised they don't see a
market.
I think it's probably too early to count a significant number of
users, but the number of developers might be more important at this
stage. Celebrity users are probably more helpful than statistics for
advocacy purposes, especially if the numbers are small.
I'm not convinced we can make a case based on the size of the user
base, but let's not forget that most marketing types are constantly
looking for 'the next big thing'. That's like to be an angle we can
use.
Cheers
Daniel
2:41 p.m.
On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 11:05:17 +0000, Daniel James wrote:
I think it's probably too early to count a
significant number of
users, but the number of developers might be more important at this
stage. Celebrity users are probably more helpful than statistics for
advocacy purposes, especially if the numbers are small.
I think the counter-message ("there aren't enough users to make it worth
it, yet") is also important, and so it might be worth having a counter.
Say cubase release SX for linux tommorow and noone buys it, steinberg will
cancel any more near future linux plans they have, and it will put off
other companies.
- Steve
2:48 p.m.
I think the counter-message ("there aren't
enough users to make it
worth it, yet") is also important, and so it might be worth having
a counter.
Sure - although counters can only record current users, not potential
users of course. It's the potential users that a firm like Steinberg
will be looking towards, since as yet there does not seem to be a
mass market user base. I guess that's what firms like Lindows are
aiming to create.
Cheers
Daniel
5:41 p.m.
R Parker <rtp405(a)yahoo.com> writes:
Hi,
I'm thinking the consortium could provide some simple demographics
that provide an indication of the number of Linux audio users. Maybe
start with a simple page and a link to Joern's mailing list
subscription count. It's easy to imagine the content would become
more useful with time and not to much effort. Maybe we could ask
Demudi, Planet CCRMA, etc for download stats. Http stats for hits
might also be interesting.
We can provide our stats without problems, provided that privacy laws
are respected.
For the record, I'd prefer people use the term "AGNULA" when referring
to the project at large (which works on documentation, libre music
database, as well as on the distributions) and "AGNULA/DeMuDi" when
talking about the debian-based distribution.
There is some confusion on the term "demudi" - the project started by
Guenter Geiger and Marco Trevisani some years ago - and AGNULA. Marco
doesn't work for the project anymore and Guenter is there only as far
as his work at UPF (CLAM) is concerned. [0]
bye,
andrea
[0] Guenter's work in Debian is invaluable for us - but that's a
different story.
5:56 p.m.
Andrea Glorioso wrote:
R Parker <rtp405(a)yahoo.com> writes:
I can provide stats from linux-sound.org and (IIRC) from linuxsound.at.
Kenji would probably
email my stats from the Japanese site.
I'm thinking the consortium could provide
some simple demographics
that provide an indication of the number of Linux audio users. Maybe
start with a simple page and a link to Joern's mailing list
subscription count. It's easy to imagine the content would become
more useful with time and not to much effort. Maybe we could ask
Demudi, Planet CCRMA, etc for download stats. Http stats for hits
might also be interesting.
We can provide our stats without problems, provided that privacy laws
are respected.
For the record, I'd prefer people use the term
"AGNULA" when referring
to the project at large (which works on documentation, libre music
database, as well as on the distributions) and "AGNULA/DeMuDi" when
talking about the debian-based distribution.
There is some confusion on the term "demudi" - the project started by
Guenter Geiger and Marco Trevisani some years ago - and AGNULA. Marco
doesn't work for the project anymore and Guenter is there only as far
as his work at UPF (CLAM) is concerned. [0]
I'll try to be more sensitive about the distinction in my writing, I
think it's good to make the distinction clear.
And yes, Guenter rocks.
Best,
dp
7633
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consortium@lists.linuxaudio.org
6 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Andrea Glorioso -
Daniel James -
Daniel James -
Dave Phillips -
R Parker -
Steve Harris