23 Feb
2011
23 Feb
'11
11:29 a.m.
Unless you're interested on somewhat more 'user-oriented' reflections
triggered by David's long-winded rant... :) also skip.
Not a real developer here, so some reflections from a more user-oriented
point of view maybe.
Excerpts from David Robillard's message:
Maybe not true with blinders on, pretending that this
community is
actually a significant portion of musicdom and not the tiny niche of
nerdery that is really is.
How many music events have you been to? At how many did you see Linux
being used?
How many albums have you listened to? How many were produced with Linux?
How many music producers do you know? How many use Linux?
For the vaaaaaast majority of music people out there the answers to each
of these are "lots" and "almost none" (or "what's
Linux?").
So what. Really. I don't think the point here is to conquer the
world.
Having switched to Linux for me was the best move I made for my musical,
technical and I should say personal experience. Is it a bit harder and
challenging than other environments at times? Maybe but who cares really.
Sure, people here obviously care - but people here are
an insignificant
shred of musicdom, and designing tech exclusively for that insigificant
shred of musicdom is... well, insignificant.
Maybe you'd consider LAD a success because some bedroom nerd made a bonk
he thinks is neat. Fair enough - most of us, myself included, are such
bedroom dorks. If, however, you're going to invest a LOT of time into
this (like, "dedicate my life to" kind of time), the bar needs to be set
a little higher to justify it:
I will consider LAD a success when going to a show and seeing it being
used isn't an extremely unlikely and noteworthy occurrence like it is
now.
I personally consider this and the LAU communities great communities and
feel thankful to the hard work every developer puts in FLOSS audio
software each day. Sorry if it sounds rhetoric but I really think it.
The first 'full project' I did entirely in Linux was a big satisfaction
for me, and by the way the workflow *was* better than in windows (which
I used before) for me, all the credit for this cool software goes to the
developers and users communities. IMHO.
Also, from the perspective of a developer trying to
actually support
themselves doing this, a handful of bedroom Linux audio nerds do not
donate enough to pay the rent ;).
That's a tough and sensitive point to comment
on.. Let me just say that
for many musicians trying to do something 'different' the situation is
very similar and their day-jobs, which pay bills, often don't involve
music at all.
...
Shouldn't we be working to make people care? Shouldn't we be working to
make the above a reality, replacing those closed and limiting
technologies with open alternatives, liberating artists?
Yes I personally think we
should... I try to advocate about FLOSS more
in practice by showing what can be done, than with words... It's not
easy, but slowly we'll get there I think. (and yes, I often do turn
compiz with all the cool desktop effects on at times when showing off)
All I know is that we now have real, actual, working
plugins with MIDI
in/out, GUIs, waveforms, etc. and soon we'll have plugins doing things
VST couldn't dream of.
At a more basic level, imagining myself working without
JACK, with those
monolithic 'do it all' windows VST-clogged applications seems to me a
nightmare and I regret not having got into this sooner, especially when
I was a student-only and had much more free time than now.
We'll get there, sooner or later. Help, or -
please - get out of the
way.
He he :) yes
Apologies for taking things a bit meta and personal
here, but at least
it's not a big pathetic ego war :) A little optimism and hope sure as
hell isn't going to hurt this place anyway. Anyway, talk is cheap, and
at the end of the day the ratio between actual decent work done and
amount of time spent irritating people on mailing lists says a lot about
any given developer. Mine has taken enough of a dent for one day; I'll
get back to that doing thing now.
People can skip the email if they don't want
to read it, and you even
put a disclaimer so.. ;)
Lorenzo.