Re: [linux-audio-dev] protux - another ambitious lad-ish project

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] protux - another ambitious lad-ish project
From: Kai Vehmanen (kaiv_AT_wakkanet.fi)
Date: Thu Feb 08 2001 - 23:32:37 EET


On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:

>>"Protux' goal is to create a definitive solution for audio professionals
> Yep, everyone wants code immediately and no any designs or plans are needed.
> But just look at the existing software: they look exactly like having no
> designs and plans done. I would like to see that we back-off from the
> traditional "this is for fun", "it's just a hobby", etc. attitudes and
> start working just like they work in good, big software companies.

Major deja-vu... I think we had this same discussion on this list not so
long ago. I'm still opposed to the above idea. I happen to work for a big
software company and I have little interest in re-living my daily routine
on the free software side. It's just the opposite. With free software I do
those things I'm not able to do at work.

But there are alternatives. Here's a good quote fron Linux Weekly News:

--cut--
O'Reilly.com has started a new site called ONLamp.com. The term LAMP is
defined as Linux Apache, MySQL, and [Python,Perl,PHP].
[...]
The LAMP concept illustrates one of the great strengths of open-source
software development, the ability to freely pull together component
projects into bigger meta-projects. One can certainly do the same thing
with proprietary software, but the potential for licensing pitfalls is
enormous, especially when more than two components are used.
--cut--

... and this is just one combination. I've been succesfully been using
LRMP (I use Roxen instread of Apache), while many people use similar
combination with Postgres.

Of course these web applications are much easier to integrate, but
nevertheless, I think this is the right concept. I don't think we need a
"GIMP of audio", we need possibilities to combine audio apps. LADSPA was a
very important step, and I don't see any reason why we should stop here.

> complexity and distribute tasks for other volunteers. We also need volunteers
> who are ready for taking the given tasks --- we don't need hackers who are
> only cabable of doing what they like to do.

Uhm, ok, this might work. There are some free software projects which keep
amazing me with their level of organization. Debian and KDE come to mind.
But still, I'm not big believer of this concept. I guess it comes from my
personal views as I believe in strong personalities. And there's plenty of
examples of that here on LAD, and all around the free software world.

The numerous sound editor projects that have failed, have not done so
because of insufficient resources. As I see, the developers have just run
out of motivation. You know, the old complaint "I'm so busy, I just have
no time" is just a friendly way of saying "I prefer to do something else".

> OK, there are plenty of good people here. With hacker's attitude, only a few
> of them finds any use. With software developer's attitude, we would get more
> people involved.

Ok, my suggestion: get more people here. It's worth noticing that most of
these "GIMP of audio" projects have started by people not aware of LAD.
Once you're a LADder :), it's likely that you will not be rewriting
already existing apps from scratch unless you have a very, very good
reason. For instance, once you notice that we've been discussing months
and months about how to properly implement some specific function (disk
i/o subsystem for instance), you'll notice that maybe this "LinSoundForge
over the weekend" project of yours is not such a hot idea after all. ;)

-- 
 . http://www.eca.cx ... [ audio software for linux ] /\ . 
 . http://www.eca.cx/sculpscape [ my armchair-tunes mp3/ra/wav ]


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