On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 19:01, Juan Linietsky wrote: Generally, musicians don't give a toss whether something is free(Opensource) or not (let the flaming begin). Seriously, I've not met a single non-coder who felt this was an issue. "Opensource? I don't know about that. Does it allow me to make good music?" Yeah, email the guy and tell him the effort wasn't worth it. Or even better, be constructive and let him know about it. Then he might use those technologies. Look, spend your effort giving the guy a pat on the back and stop sh*tting on his efforts to bring a decent music program to the linux community. He probably knows nothing about binary compatibility! Give him a hand if you feel it's an issue. Ok, so I'm guessing you have something to do with cheesetracker and don't like similar programs or something? They are not equivalent. Seriously, people need to be encouraged, not criticised. This guy has literally used SDL to port the platform specific rendering (and probably sound) code and probably knows nothing about Jack or LADSPA. Given the encouragement, his venturing into linux territory may spread to these areas. Saying it's crap because of X,Y and Z will ultimately end up being bad for the linux musicians community not him (he can spend all his time accommodating the windows users who really appreciate his efforts). Just my pennies worth. -Lea.

On Wednesday 26 November 2003 07:35 pm, Billy Biggs wrote: I agree, and I would also like to share a few observations of my own. IMHO, the question is not "will musicians in general care whether this software is open source?", but rather "will the target audience of this release (musicians who use Linux) care whether this software is open source?" As a general rule, musicians who don't care about proprietary vs. open source won't be running Linux to begin with. The Windows-centric world from which the program is coming has a "culture" which is drastically different from the Linux world. Proprietary licenses are the norm in the Windows world, and the term "freeware" still implies closed source. When authors actually release their source code, Windows users say "Wow! How generous!". In my experience of the Linux realm, by contrast, closed source is the exception rather than the rule. Programs which only come in binary form are begrudgingly used only when no reasonable open source alternative exists. It's important for any potential Linux developer to understand that the prevailing Linux "worldview" perceives proprietary software licenses as being useful only to achieve selfish goals. When someone releases proprietary software without charging any money for it, therefore, the Linux mentality is bound to react with thoughts of suspicion: "Why are they keeping the source code a secret, if this is really free? Why should I trust them when they say they will never charge money for it? What does he have up his sleeve?" For me, it's entirely an issue of trust. I've just seen too many freeware products disappear, with no possibility of resurrection. I cared about this even before I started actually using the source code for the applications I use. I felt secure in the knowledge that if the original author dropped it, somebody else would pick it up and keep it going. "Freeware" with closed source is unique in that it creates a situation where the software author has no accountability to anyone. With proprietary retail software, the authors are accountable because if they don't meet the needs of their users, nobody will buy the product (unless you have a monopoly - but that never happens....). With open source software, the authors are accountable because if they don't meet the needs of their users, someone will fork the code and start a new project that does meet those needs. When freeware authors don't meet the needs of their users, the users are the only ones who lose out. I can understand someone new to the Linux realm being hesitant to release their source code, since doing so puts the burden of trust on them instead of on their users, but I'm puzzled by your mention of authors being "unable" to release their code. If it includes proprietary components licensed from a third party, couldn't these be built as a separate library, and the rest of the code released? Even releasing the source code for the GUI would be helpful, and would go a long way toward easing "diplomatic tensions" ;) |) |)enji

On Wednesday 26 November 2003 08:42 pm, Billy Biggs wrote: Sure enough - thanks for the clarification :) |) |)enji

Unfortunately this world runs on money. People need it to survive and I think that there is only so much time in a persons life, so if choosing between having some money and getting paid for one's time, that "need" will drive one into win? I think the biggest problem with open source development is that too many are trying to be the next coding superstar. Everyone wants to build their own version of said software, but applications like Sonar, have teams of programmers. Muse is a complex app, but how many are working on it? At the level it is at, to go any farther, teams are needed. If we want quality, usable alternatives to windows apps, we need to work together. Ken ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Webb" <magusofthedark(a)yahoo.com> To: "The Linux Audio Developers' Mailing List" <linux-audio-dev(a)music.columbia.edu> Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 6:55 PM Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Tracker

On Wednesday 26 November 2003 08:55 pm, Thomas Webb wrote: I must respectfully disagree. I don't think there is anything wrong with the Linux world staying centered on open source technology. Musicians who don't care will be drawn in by the appeal of free software, but I expect that open source software will gradually become very important to most of them, as they begin to understand its implications. This is what happened to me. |) |)enji

I dont really now what you mean, but I guess most of the people on this list are not musicans then. Open source is a methodology of working, both for users and developers. We've already seen cases when software of closed nature goes unmantained and stops working on later versions, and there were discussions of this kind on the list in such cases. That is why most of us musicans or not, have preference for open source instead of free but closed. Skale Tracker has suffered this before (when it was called Fast Tracker 3) and i think to the day, a lot of people still thinks the project is dead because of that. The same thing happened with Fast Tracker2 or Impulse Tracker, when they went unmantained... it was impossible to continue work on it mainly due to it's closed nature, leaving all the users in the dust, unable to make use of the latest advances in audio world. I dont say Jeffrey Lim or the Triton guys are at fault for this, as they are on their own right. But you cant blame me for warning about a program of this nature. I usually mail the authors when I find some piece of software useful for ME congratulating them. It is not the case with Skale Tracker, Why should I do this? Do you congratulate people on every release you see here announced on this list? In any case, if you wish to know, I do have contact ocasionally with people working on the project. Regarding LADSPA support, my concerns were more regarding to license, and JACK support is hard since jack is upgraded too often, making older apps not working, just to sum to the picture of binary compatibility and closedness. It's not that I think it's bad, it just happens. I am the author of CheeseTracker, however, what I dislike is what happens to programs of closed nature when their authors, being a person or a company, dont take responsability on them anymore. Wait a moment, I've never said a word that the program is crap, that is purely your interpretation. He is free to do whathever he wishes with it, althought as far as I am concerned, most linux tracker friends I have talked to feel the same way. Most of us went through enough when we couldnt use their favorite apps anymore because they didnt run anymore or became obsolete regarding to new technologies (And i'm not talking just about trackers here), and they dont want that happening again. They have learned that open source software doesnt die until maybe when it gets replaced by something better. So let those who would rather not use closed source software say "Thanks, but no thanks". Juan Linietsky

Stonekeeper wrote: It's just a skirmish, not even a battle. ;) I'd like to note a few things regarding SkaleTracker, CheeseTracker, et cetera. First, I've used SkaleTracker. I profiled it for the MOD Tracker chapter in the next edition of my book. It's an interesting program and it's definitely worth trying out, with these caveats : 1. The author is very clear that the current release for Linux is incomplete. Many features do not work yet. VST support is not there, for example. 2. The author likes to hear from people using his software, just like open-source developers. The SkaleTracker Web site hosts a very nice forum where users can swap info and get the straight dope. Just like here on the LAD list... 3. For all its GUI bells & whistles it's still behind the current versions of SoundTracker and CheeseTracker. This is to be expected, see note 1. 4. The GUI (designed by H.R. Geiger?) is indeed attractive and could stand as an object lesson for LAD folks on what Windows/Mac users expect to see in an audio application interface. Like it or not, it at least shows a primary concern for GUI issues. LAD folk tend to be performance-centric, with interface considerations a rather distant second concern. There are of course notable exceptions. It would be nice to see the author of SkaleTracker here on LAD, but not all Linux audio developers feel the need to be here. Some feel that the list is too dominated by particular personalities and/or philosophies for them to be comfortable here. Frankly I believe those fears are unbased, and a developer worth his salt should be able to stand some heat anyway. LAD is not a snake pit, but its denizens are proud and sometimes overly defensive, and you've seen that some of them do bite back when bitten. ;) I also believe that it's important for Linux audio people to get outside this system and take a cool look at what's going on in the vastly larger world of Win/Mac music software. There's much to be gained by considering what the "competition" is up to. Second, I've used CheeseTracker, it's also profiled in the new edition of my book. Frankly, IMO it's a great program, just as sweet as SkaleTracker, but as Juan points out it lacks the fancy GUI. Nevertheless, in terms of operating functions it's currently 'way ahead of SkaleTracker. Also, it's worth pointing out that some fine Linux audio projects that are currently closed-source do in fact have plans to eventually open-source their work. It may seem strange to some developers here, but some coders do not want input from others until such a time that they feel their code is presentable. I say there's nothing wrong with that attitude: not everyone has the personality for managing a project with a lot of input, we can't all be like Paul Davis or Linus Torvalds. Some authors simply like working on their own too, again until such a time as they feel more confident about exposing their work publicly. Others are less shy about exposing themselves... ;) Whether you acknowledge it or not, open-source software is politically a very hot topic. Especially here in the States, where M$ is doing everything in its power to eradicate Linux and other open-source endeavors. Those of us who keep track of what that company *does* (as opposed to what it's flacks *say*) know perfectly well that Linux is a very real and powerful threat to their hegemony. You might prefer to not engage in this kind of dialog: fine, that's your choice, but it doesn't change the fact that this issue is of profound importance, even to those who "want no part of politics". You can get away with that attitude in Windows, because you effectively give all your power to the company. Of course you won't care about that while you're composing in Cubase. But like the owners of StudioVision, maybe you'll start thinking about it if Steinberg goes out of business or decides to discontinue support for your software (which isn't really yours anyway: read your licenses for clarification). The statement that people here who might use SkaleTracker are focused only on "Is it open-source ?" is either badly informed or poorly worded. I've met many of the members of this list, and almost all of them are musicians. Joern Nettingsmeier, Matthias Nagorni, Frank Barknecht, Jan Depner, and many others are players as well as coders. Open-source is indeed *one* item of great importance for them but it is not the only such item. Sorry, but "Yawn, heavy sigh". This issue has been yakked about many times over the years here. We're well along the way towards a technically superior platform for audio and MIDI work, but I see no signs that Sonar or Nuendo are on the way towards Linux. Nor should they bother at this point. They'll *really* start to concern themselves with us when Ardour starts popping up in a major studio or two and when Mix magazine runs a story about a name producer who used Ardour and Linux to create his latest sensation. Until then this domain is largely populated by developers and the rare musicians/users who have the confidence and time to work the system towards a more perfect condition. You should take note that *no* commercial audio software for Linux has succeeded, and there have actually been a few nice apps for sale (Jazz and the Ultramaster RS101 come to mind). Perhaps your question really ought to be "If Sonar or Cubase were available for Linux would anyone buy it if Ardour + MusE did exactly the same things at a fraction of the cost ?". Interesting. You seem to be saying that the public equates closed-source with big-time. There was a day in my youth when musicians were perceived as radical people. Alas, they seem mostly now to be happy toeing corporate lines. Perhaps Linux is a motivating influence for those musicians who still perceive themselves as truly radical, denying that public equation in favor of something better ? Just a thought... So you accept a poor situation and make a virtue of it ? I left the Win/Mac world precisely because I found that kind of rollover to be uncomfortable and ultimately unnecessary. Are you implying that it's not likely that anything open-source could be saleable ? I believe that's merely historical accident, i.e., we haven't had anything to compete with closed-source commercial offerings so there have been few open-source commercial offerings and those have not been competitive-capable. All that is changing now, which is perhaps why this discussion is worth having now. Btw, are you making a living as a musician or a coder or both ? Personally I'd be happy to see those ports, but I wouldn't go out of my way to support them unless the manufacturers bring something more to the party. Otherwise they'll be just some more hangers on for the ride, benefiting from the work done by many of the people who populate this list. To each his own though, and I can easily understand why a user would want those apps on this platform. OTOH, if Steiberg et al. give something back then I'm better inclined to support their products. Linux is definitely one of the most successful "take & give" projects ever conceived, and if the guys at Sonar want my dollars then they'll have to get involved in the open-source world too. I don't say they have to make their product open-source, they could do as 4Front Technologies does by supporting an open-source project (4Front supports XMMS development). So there are ways for them to sell their product _and_ make a real contribution back to the community that's made it possible for them to have a superior platform to run on. Yes, it is. <OldManMutteringMode> I'm reminded of the time I worked in a management collective for a food co-operative. One of the most important sections of our charter involved raising the political awareness of the membership because the politics of food are important (it's why the co-ops appeared in the first place). However, most members found that aspect to be tedious and uninteresting. They simply wanted lower prices for better quality food, they did not want to exert themselves in any political direction, and they were happy to deny that political implications even existed (or they were simply happy to let others concern themselves with the issues). This would have been fine, except the point of a co-op is co-operation, and the business could not succeed if its members were uninvolved in the political domain. I learned that some co-ops had excellent political involvement: they were most often co-ops in locations where people really needed them and were politically motivated out of necessity. Some of us here are like those people, we feel the necessity even if others do not. </OldManMutteringMode> Okay, that's my two drachmas. Most of the folks here have heard all this from me before, sorry about your luck. ;) Best regards, Dave Phillips

Hallo, Peter Bessman hat gesagt: // Peter Bessman wrote: And I had heard much of this before (even said many things like that myself) but Dave, you've found new, convincing and often very beautiful words for it (again ;) Thanks. ciao -- Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__

On Friday 28 November 2003 00.29, Stonekeeper wrote: [...] Me to. I bet there are a few commercial lurkers around that would like to know as well. [...] Not quite, I think. They would probably investigate why this company did the port (good: they might learn about Linux), but then they'd most probably just sit back and see what happens. Let the early adopters break new ground and make the big, expensive mistakes. Then go in and make the money the early adopters are morally entitled to. //David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate .- Audiality -----------------------------------------------. | Free/Open Source audio engine for games and multimedia. | | MIDI, modular synthesis, real time effects, scripting,... | `-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -' --- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---

Hi Dave :) On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 14:04, Dave Phillips wrote: Yes, my thoughts exactly. Its the chicken and egg situation. I'll stay semi-anon then :) It was indeed. It was much simpler than that: The Open source philosophy (or lack of) wouldn't be the primary concern for musicians "jumping ship". Most (IMHO) would simply move out of cost (I hate to think how much all those LADSPA plugins would cost if Steinberg had sold them). Dave, I really couldn't have put it better myself. This is *exactly* what I was saying. Companies who make money from 'products' would have a real hard time open sourcing their code. Their main revenue stream would take a pretty fatal dent. Organisation who sorts out royalty payments. I retract my comment. If companies are serious about gaining linux market share then you are quite right, they would get the communications channels open. I would be VERY interested to know that. Yes, and my comment was pure Devil's Advocate :) Actually, it was slightly based on the fiasco of RedHat when they created a theme for KDE and Gnome that were identical, removed all references to KDE (including the credits) to make a fluid desktop environment. Both parties went bananas. But the fact is, the licence they used completely permitted that. If the code was never intended to be used like that then the licence should have said so. I know all about the community and being good and returning things, I fully agree with this, but many companies with big bucks wont. I think it's a lesson in learning exactly what your licence states before you start. I believe some licences are too slack and benefit big companies more than the small guy (think BSD and Apple). If KHTML had been BSD licence too i wonder how much apple would have contributed back through the development of safari. I don't know. Maybe they would. Maybe their really nice and good like that. I'm just a bit cynical and would rather not take the chance of having the community robbed by some faceless organisation (I told you that sentence you wrote would be a perfect picture of irony :) ). Hmm.. this makes me think: What if Ardour was so good, it put steinberg and cakewalk out of business? Would that be a good thing? For musicians, perhaps? For music program innovation, maybe not. As much as i hate microsoft, they do know the benefit of spending money on research. And they reap the benefits of that. But so do we (especially in the areas of HCI and usability). If that were translated into the music software industry then perhaps a lack of research would be detrimental to future features. At the end of the day research must be paid for one way or another, because that's the economy we live in. Now I don't know the answers to these questions. It's merely a thought. Oh, thanks. I'm sure you're the only one with that sentiment :) Juan, I wanted to try cheesetracker but it was almost impossible for me to install. I got the source, and it said i needed a build tool. So i got the build tool and then that moaned that pkg-config wasn't working right. I hope less technical people wont be turned off by this. I'll try again tonight. I'm more of a graphics coder than a dsp coder so i was going to knock up a "sexy" gui but once i saw the current ui screenshots, i started wandering where this "bad UI" was. Looks fine to me! <offtopic> Which leads me onto another rant: with todays hard disk sizes, memory capacities and internet speeds, why do we need to distribute things with dependencies? Why not statically compile? My recent example of this was with skaletracker (this is not a flame!!). But i unzipped the file, ran it and it just worked (Im not sure if it was statically linked with SDL or not). In it's current form it IS inferior to cheesetracker but people are going to use what works for them. I think people should distribute "developer" versions and "user" versions. developer is what we are used to, user is the statically linked (read no brainer, no options) version. The amount of times I would have preferred to download a "non-bleeding edge" version that was statically compiled and took 10 times as long to download is countless. Anything but dependency hell!!! :) I hope this isn't seen as a flame towards anyone, it's intended as constructive criticism in a hope to better the linux experience as this problem is rife community-wide. </offtopic> Cheers, and peace :) -Lea.

... If you ever ran a program in Windows XP that looked like 95 or worse? The purpose of dynamic linking isn't just to save disk space. Commercial Linux apps usually give you the option of static or dynamic and comes with the libs necessary for dynamic. There's no reason binaries for open source apps can't be distributed the same way. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/

On Friday 28 November 2003 11:54 am, David Olofson wrote: [...] For the benefit of Linux newcomers like me, could someone explain the historical reasons why we even have a /usr/local directory to begin with? |) |)enji

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 12:39:31 -0600 Billy Biggs &lt;vektor(a)dumbterm.net&gt; wrote: I acyually like it this way. In debian, at least, no package will ever install anything to /usr/local, so installing stuff to /usr/local will at least garantee to not confuse the package management system. Flo -- music: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/9/florianschmidt.htm

i don't think its a fine solution. i never saw anything useful about /opt at all. it just created a *third* possible install location. --p

it goes back before NFS. the original *nix backup utilities (dump/restore) worked at the filesystem level. it was much easier as a sysadmin to have backups of /, /usr and /usr/local so that if you did a system upgrade or reinstall, you simply installed the OS on / and /usr, then did a full restore of /usr/local, and you'd instantly get all the site-installed stuff back. if you didn't do this, system upgrades/reinstalls could get nightmarish very quickly (and they weren't easy to begin with). NFS just reinforced the usefulness of this approach. later, solaris introduced the idea of /opt for the local stuff, but it never really took off in any other *nix systems AFAIK. you might be wondering why we have / and /usr ... this so that the system can boot with just a single filesystem, then come up to a multiuser state by mounting /usr. putting them in different filesystems lets you allocate space and administrative controls more easily. /usr tends to be fairly static in size, and / tends to have log files and other stuff that grow and are resized fairly often. --p (once known as &lt;pauld%scr.slb.com(a)bitnet.net&gt;)

On Fri, 2003-11-28 at 19:26, Benjamin Flaming wrote: Think NFS or AFS (Networking or Andrew File System.) /usr/bin can be mounted globally for all machines /usr/local/bin can be unique for each machine (or department ..) mvh // Jens M Andreasen

On Thursday 27 November 2003 03:04 am, Stonekeeper wrote: No. Personally, I would be very surprised if it communicated with any of the existing Linux audio systems. These companies like having control - it's good for business. This is why Digi Design doesn't support VST in Windows, nor can you run Pro Tools with hardware from any other company. Most other audio software companies aren't quite so ruthless, but it is still in their best commercial interest to push things as far in this direction as they can without making users angry. The way I see it, there are 4 ways for Linux to become an accepted part of the pro audio industry: A. Engineers accept Ardour/Linux as another useful combination of tools, alongside similar programs for Windows and Mac OS B. Major audio software companies port their products to Linux C. The audio industry embraces open source technology D. Something else I've overlooked A is probably the most realistic. B might follow close behind it, leading to a parallel of what is happening in the film industry. C is what I'm hoping for, and actively working to encourage. D is the most likely ;) This is, admittedly, getting into subjective territory, but I don't think coders should be motivated by making money. I think they should be motivated by wanting to make the *tools* which they use to make money. Think of a blacksmith making a hammer or anvil - he's not concerned with whether he can sell it, he's concerned with whether he can use it in his day-to-day work. It's based partly on philosophy, but it's also based largely on experience. I've seen proprietary audio software up-close-and-personal. Just for the record, I'm an Avid 135 and 235 certified Pro Tools operator. My experience has led me to the conclusion that proprietary software is harmful to the audio industry. Your experience, and therefore your opinion, differ from mine. Please don't assert that my opinion is not grounded in reality. Regards, |) |)enji

--Lea: Exactly. I think programmers need to stop being elitists. It is hurting the adoption of Linux. To most people I know that don't code, free as in beer and free as in speech are indistinguishable. Their attraction to OpenOffice is their naive free ride complex and nothing else. --Stonekeeper: Truth be told, this is one of the most usable Linux audio apps I've seen in a long time... coming from a novice to Linux audio coding and sadly, it is probably because he didn't try to make it compatible with the many Linux audio standards (just one more thing to discourage him from making Linux apps) --Stonekeeper: That's a problem with the distros of Linux and not with his codemanship. No one but a programmer should be required to compile an app from scratch. --Lea: agreed. I think if someone told him that he'd be scorned for not letting us peer into the code and making it JACK and LADSPA and ABCD and LMNOP and the new, experimental ZNABCD (ZNABCD is not ABCD) compatible, he would be scared away for sure. Good thing he knew of none of this! Let's start a misinformation campaign: "make audio programs for Linux! It's easy! Fewer audio standards to worry about! supportive developers that will applaud you for making a good try! No open-source zelouts to speak of!" Hmmm.. I don't know what programmer would be dumb enough to buy this nonsense.. --Stonekeeper: I think you are grossly underestimating the importance of aethetics! and the gui is part aesthetics, part usability. -Thomas J. Webb __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/

On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 00:24, Stonekeeper wrote: OK ;) -<snip> Does it allow me to make good music?" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is the core question: Is it useful? This also goes for most of the people on this list: We are so much into constructing/dreaming up the impossible/inevitable The guy has a point here: I spend an unreasonably amount of time getting GTK.1.2 to deliver approximately what most people (programmers) would have had expecteded. Recompiling for GTK.2.0 was a NO NO! because of all the kludges I invented. My source for the userinterface was practically _as_ unreadable as you can get. ( It is cleaned up now though, but had I gone elsewhere, then nobody would have cared! ). It is still so that gtk2 has higher demands on cpu than gtk1.x -<snip>-- Just my "Niclaus Wirth" :) cheers ( ) c[] // Jens M Andreasen