20 Oct
2002
20 Oct
'02
12:53 p.m.
I seem to remember a few years back - around 1998 or so, if I recall,
that Electronic Musician magazine
ran an article on Linux. (It was called "The Penguin's Song") I read
the article, and even though there
didn't seem to be too many useful apps at that point, it got me curious.
I started using Linux about
a year later. Dave Phillips's book also helped drum up a little
interest, although I think that was mainly
among people who were already using Linux who may not have been aware
that it was possible to
do much with music/audio on their chosen platform. My point is that
rather than simpy take out ads
in magazines like Sound on Sound, actual articles would probably do a
lot to help. People at all levels,
from rank newbies right on up to multi-platinum producers read those
publications. At this point, I highly
doubt that anyone is going to chuck their ProTools (TM) system in favor
of Linux anytime soon. The people
we might attract are the middle ranks - the people with moderate
technical savvy, decent computer skills, and
professional-level demands, but minimal budgets. This level of customer
has historically been attracted to Linux
in other domains, from IS to scientific computing - (think Beowulf:
"Damn! I wish I had a Cray. Hmmm.... I know!
I stack of Pentiums running Linux!) The other market (and I know this
is niche, but I happen to be in it) is the
world of academic compuiter music, where Linux already has a presence.
(CCRMA, IRCAM, etc.) A lot of
people like to use the same tools they were taught how to use in school,
so if the academic institutions use Linux,
their students will probably want to use it too. (Don't forget that
that's how Unix got established in the first place.)
I don't think you can sell Linux on technical merits alone anymore. At
this point, Mac OSX has many of the same
geeky advantages (protected memory, low-latency, etc.) we love to tout
and the audio apps are beginning to show
up. However, Macs are still quite a bit more expensive than Lintel
hardware and that doesn't even take the cost
of audio warez into consideration. The thing that could do it is to
have some killer apps - 90% of the functionality
of say, Logic would be good enough - with free redistribution. Once that
happens, we get it written up in Sound on Sound,
Electronic Musician, EQ, etc.
I do think we've got some strong potential. Jack is a very good thing,
and once ardour achieves something resembling
stable and truly usable status we'll be close. FreqTweak is brilliant,
especially since it's jack-ified. PD already has
Jack support, and a working version of SC will do wonders.
-dgm
Richard Bown wrote:
On Sunday 20 October 2002 09:37, Patrick Shirkey
wrote:
From a professional perspective we need to show
our prospective
clients that we have sound financial thinking.
As in, we worked on this for years and years for no money and then at
the end of it all we give this stuff away? I'm sure they'll all be
blown away by our sound financial thinking.
It's a choice between being amatuer
enthusiasts or professionals.
This is the whole trick isn't it? But there's more to being
professional then just about bunging a few adverts in a popular
magazine. There is no "we" and there is no "they", not yet - there
are
just some guys and girls, making some stuff and dreamily wondering if
that'll make them music/famous/popular/rich/happy.
B