Re: [LAU] An appeal to famous artists?

There are already several famous artists using open source tools. Get them to produce and release the music publicly and with a reasonable license and I will be happy to include it in the "Best of mix". Getting these people to admit that they use open source and then having that information presented in any "credible" news source is a completely different matter. The reason is that Avid basically control all the print and online media in the music and multimedia production industries. They do that essentially by buying up as much advertising space as possible. That way the publishers are reliant on Avid and associated companies and tie in products/manufacturers/etc... to pay their bills. So hence they are reluctant to publish anything that upsets the status quo and affects their bank balances. There is actually a lot of professional production done with Linux and open source software. Harrison consoles are used in Hollywood and many large motion pictures were mixed on their hardware/software running JACK + ARDOUR. The Weta studio in NZ produces Peter Jackson films entirely on Linux based systems using their own custom built MAYA competitor. At one point a couple of years back they actually had one of the most powerful super computers in the world. Considering that both the Lord of the Rings and Avatar were produced on those systems that is a pretty powerful statement for Linux as professional multimedia production platform. Anyway it is really just a matter of time before more musicians realise the power of free software on the Linux platform. Given the state of the global economy, more and more people are looking for ways to save cash and cutting down on expensive software and hardware purchases is one thing that will be prioritised by larger numbers of people. Given the choice between pirated software and libre software most people will choose the latter if they have the option available to them. So in that case it is really about SEO. Making sure that we are publishing and linking as much information about the state of the art and getting it highly ranked so that people actually find it when they are searching online. Advocacy on forums plays a significant role too. However it is hard to advocate on the Avid forums and there is a concerted effort by Avid and it's dependant companies to shutdown anything that competes with their bottom line. They have more vested interest in doing so and can afford to spend money on the design aspect to make their products stand out. If you really want to help Linux Audio you could find a way to fund a design team to spend a couple of months on making our online presence more palatable to the same people that are targeted by AVID et al. Then find a way to fund them to continually update there work and keep it competitive with the marketing presence of Avid. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd