On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 8:43 AM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips@woh.rr.com> wrote:

Greetings,

I've spent this morning reading through the ~200 replies to the topic. IMO the thread has devolved gracefully and I have the information I was looking for.

I'll make a fuller reply after I get into my article, but it's clear that the most pressing need is for more skilled developers. This is in stark contrast to the scene in 2000 - at that time virtually every member of LAU/LAD was a developer and/or technically involved user. Few of us were "just musicians". Now it looks like the musicians outnumber the devs, a not entirely unhappy situation, despite evident problems rising from the imbalance.

It would be great if we could get more students involved in linux audio. 8 years ago, I picked up linux in order to program some DSP audio code that I was thinking about. It really lowered the barrier of entry into audio programming. I think more engineering students could get involved, knowing some of the things you can do with linux.

My university didn't have an audio program--there were maybe just a few engineers I knew that were strongly inclined to work on audio or acoustics. There is a lack of collaboration between engineering and art/music students here and very little direction from professors concerning art and technology--but I see some of that beginning to change.

I think that linux is much more well known and it's easier than ever to get started. So--might I suggest to do something more for student outreach? What do you think would make a difference?

Chuck