3 Aug
2011
3 Aug
'11
4:32 a.m.
On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 4:59 AM, S. Massy wrote:
Yeah, well, too many people have already responded
with very valid
points for me to add much. However, I'd like to bring up a certain
analogy. About ten years ago, I remember a lot of similar discussion
going on around The Linux Desktop: "How can we make it better?", "How
can we make it better known?", "Why are people and businesses sticking
to MS Office?" It was a bit of an obsession in the early 21st century.
Now, The Linux Desktop isn't exactly used by an overwhelming majority,
but it has made its way on many common wo/man's computer and is even in
some schools and small businesses, and a lot of people in the street
have at least heard of "that Ubuntu thing" and are intrigued.
Well, what _actually_ happened is that Windows ports of various open
source applications matured and stabilized, and since people were
scared re moving to a new OS, we are now in a situation where vast
majority of users of crossplatform free software such as Audacity and
GIMP are on Windows. I don't have stats for
OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice, but I bet the situation is the same.
With MIDI/audio software we don't have that much of a problem *cough*
ALSA* cough* JACK *cough*, so it's a stalemate: without Windows we
never get as many users as we want, yet _with_ Windows ports we never
get people to use Linux.
I don't think there is a simple solution to this. But I think that
this point of yours:
So, based on that experience, I'd venture to think
that making/improving
software for our own benefit and creating quality content produced with the
aforementioned software is really what counts in the end.
makes a hell of a sense.
Just one minor addition, if you don't mind. We have to finish with
the, IMNSHO, nonsensical notion of our users being geeks who are into
protocols and whatnot. I work for a Linux vendor who is right now into
another bidding process re Linux at schools in my country. Part of the
specification of requirements is on multimedia production software,
and while on details level a lot of that is ridiculous stuff that
boils down to give-us-something-like-garageband/imovie, in general the
requirements make a lot of sense.
It's the second bidding process like that (i.e. with similar spec of
reqs) we've been through, and one thing I can tell you is that while
some people still say "oh, but I love my complicated routing and I
don't really mind both JS and ladish co-existing, and I hate you
ardour developers for adding MIDI tracks, and don't you even start
talking about video tracks", the kids get macs with propietary
software that is easier to get started with. What they will grow to
like -- you can easily guess. I'm talking about some 2K workstations,
btw.
Oh, and it's one of the reasons why I still keep an eye on MusE,
hoping that one day they will revamp UI. Because it's, once again, the
second bidding process where the spec says "It should be possible to
select virtual instruments from a library that is part of the
software". So in the future it's either MusE with revamped UI that
doesn't scare kids away, or Qtractor that finally gets a developer to
merge changes from QArranger (I'm referring to native LS client
mostly). But right now it looks more like Rosegarden with modified
default studio and hooks to FluidSynth/QSynth that would load
something like FluidR3_GM.SF2.
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org