Hi Davy, I'm not sure how many people would want to purchase it but if it fills a specific niche then you may have a market in the cross platform arena. ie anyone can use it and share their sessions on multiple platforms without having to export tracks. You may also find that there will be some assistance from the more professional developers to port it if you are not able to justify the time to do it all by yourself. Cheers. Davy Wentzler wrote: -- Patrick Shirkey - Boost Hardware Ltd. Http://www.boosthardware.com Http://lau.linuxaudio.org - The Linux Audio Users guide ======================================== "Anything your mind can see you can manifest physically, then it will become reality" - Macka B

On Sat August 19 2006 05:16, Davy Wentzler wrote: Though I left the Amiga world over 12 years ago, I'm glad to see developers with Amiga roots still around. I think you would see more interest in a Linux version of your app than the reactions of people on this list (who are already using free softare) might lead you to believe. For example, MainConcept has been publishing a Linux version of their proprietary video editor for almost a decade, which they wouldn't be doing if it were a money loser. Here is what I would do if I were in your position: 1. Develop your app to be as user-friendly and well-documented as possible. 2. Test and test and test until it's stable as anything, since your users won't be able to debug it themselves (and users who can debug code aren't your target market anyway.) People posting in Linux forums for help on proprietary software are seldom given a lot of help, and will more often hear "Dump that crap and switch to _________". In this case, that would be Ardour. 3. Make a deal with Linspire to be featured prominently in their "click-n-run warehouse". This will require making a clean .deb package, though I guess it's possible Linspire might handle that for you... I've never tried to sell prepackaged Linux software. If your program is as stable as Ardour but more user friendly, yet has the same pro-level features, some Linspire users will buy it for $39.99. Not many of them, but I'm guessing enough to make back your time investment and give you a bullet point ("crossplatform") on your list of features. Then there will be a ton of shrieking on this list and others about how Linspire is pitching some proprietary software instead of Ardour and "why don't these users know any better?" But you'll have users and a business relationship by then. I personally can't see myself using it, but again, I'm not your target market. That would be (a) non-technical users, (b) people who dislike Ardour's rather unique interface, (c) people who want easy crossplatform HDR, and (d) musicians buying on impulse, as many of us do. The only way to reach them with proprietary software under Linux is through Linspire, since I've never been in any retail store that sold shrinkwrapped Linux DAW software of any kind and any software sold electronically to non-technical users that requires them to open a console to install it is probably doomed to fail. (Linspire plans on offering their "warehouse" to Ubuntu users in the future as well, though I can barely imagine the screaming that will entail.) I would encourage you to target OS X since there are more audio users on there by far, but due to GarageBand you'd be like Netscape trying to sell a browser to people used to getting IE preinstalled on their computers. It doesn't matter if your program is way more powerful, you're at a huge disadvantage coming out of the gate. Rob