Re: [linux-audio-dev] KEYBOARDS: Linux is not suited for audio applications ...

how many people do you imagine work for steinberg? how many for digidesign? waves? cakewalk? the numbers are much smaller than you (probably) think. anyway, its not the numbers that matter. anyone who has worked in a commercial software company knows the amount of time spent dealing with stuff that doesn't really move a project forward from the perspective of most users. marketing-driven issues, cosmetic details that consume weeks to get right and are used by almost nobody, etc. at this point in the life of most linux audio/midi apps, we're moving forward with core functionality, and are often able to do this even when it involves complete redesigns of the code because the developers are all part of the "core" team (i.e. there isn't a set of "rookie" programmers who work only on GUI details, for example). otoh, there is the big problem that the software libre world has with everyone wanting their own project, so you have myself, werner (muse) and richard brown (rosegarden) all working on our own sequencer/daw apps rather than together on a single program. are we going to stop? no. does it slow the whole "enterprise" down? yes. is there an upside? probably. agreed. its an easy trap to fall into, particularly with regard to specific features. ardour does lots of things that you can't do with SX, for example, even though the overall "package" isn't at the same level. perhaps. but when i installed RH8 on our house system(s) and some friends' laptops recently, even my family and friends have commented on how simple and straightforward it is to use. its no longer viable to claim that its a command-line operating system - you'd have to stop with a claim like "requires knowledge to setup and maintain", which is true of most OS's if not all. i think our audio/midi apps are moving in the same direction. --p