[LAU] Audio Distribution Proposal...

I did not take quotes from the following link because the whole thing deserves a (re)read https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-studio-users/2009-April/004507.html This bummed be out so I had to quote this: The note was a plea for help so I would like to see what we can do. There are so many things to discuss and so many possible directions to go in… Just thinking about it can be overwhelming… Free (not free beer, but “freedom”) is wonderful, but it ironically can be more paralyzing than “confinement”, so let me start with a simple and self limiting proposal: I tried to write this list a few times, and every time it got too long and complicated. At the risk of being flamed here is my “simple” list: - Manual install (like arch Linux) is fine and probably preferred. (manual is fine, but complete default instructions would be needed) - specific hardware (i.e. motherboard, video card and audio interface) is fine - most/all of the “popular” audio apps with a kernel that combined to create a system that was extremely stable and had reasonable latency (less than 10ms? Or maybe less than 7ms? What ever can be done with reasonable and reliable settings?) - I would donate at least $100 per year (If a thousand people joined me that would be $100K… Could one person full time, or several people part-time sign up for that? - I would donate a few years in advance… say three years… (If this would help someone/some-few decide to do this) - I would also help out. This assumes the individual or small core team would dedicate sufficient time to partition the tasks in a way that would facilitate widespread involvement. Questions: Ignoring resources (money, people, etc) is it reasonable to build and maintain such a distribution? Is $100k per year enough? If not how much is needed? Are 1000 users at $100 reasonable to expect? How about 2000 at $50? Or 500 at $200 (I would consider donating $200/year) Strike that… If this existed today I would donate $200. I know that the conventional wisdom is that Linux audio is not for “new Linux users” but I think that is the root of the “chicken/egg” problem that we have here. A predictable, stable, reliable audio distribution may generate the support that the particular distribution (and Linux audio in general) needs to get to the next level. Can we “prime this pump” with a conservative but very useful distribution?