Re: [LAU] [LAD] Linux Audio 2012: Is Linux Audio moving forward?

On Thu, October 11, 2012 9:53 am, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 1:51 AM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>
>>> Since you are in marketing, you should very well know that a landing
>>> page is something that has a call to action button.
>>
>> Only if you are seeking to sell a specific product.
>>
>>> What will be the call to action button, Patrick? Where will it lead?
>>> How will you handle "shut up and take my money" impulses?
>>
>> We can provide specific landing pages with that facility. Feel free to
>> build one if you want to go down that path.
>
> Let me put it this way. I'm a musician who was drawn by some magic
> force to your landing page. I've looked at your pretty pictures or
> maybe listened to some music samples. What's my next step? Judging by
> what you said the next step for me would be to visit my Facebook page
> to see if
> any friends uploaded new cat pictures :)
>

I don't see how you get to that conclusion.

>>> Publishing awesome inspiring content is what I'd do. In fact it's what
>>> I already do, just in my primary field. Because, you see, I don't
>>> believe in a thousand of people pointing their little fluffy blogs at
>>> a content that few people deeply care about. We've been there already.
>>> It doesn't work all that well.
>>>
>>
>> It works pretty well and we wouldn't be where we are now without it.
>
> And where are we exactly? Lemme see. We get this kind of discussions
> every third month or so. Is that a sure sign that we are anywhere? :)
>

It's an ongoing discussion. So is Linux Kernel development. Are you
implying that kernel development is stalled too?

>> As a community of people posting information all over the world we can
>> do
>> both without a large financial investment required by any one person.
>>
>> It's the kind of spread and resource that big evil corporations are
>> paying
>> very handsomely for and we have it for free.
>
> We don't have it for free :) For instance, the time I'm spending on
> this discussion I could be spending on fleshing out another post in
> the Showroom section at LGW. And the time I'll spend on fleshing out
> that post I could spend on a commissioned project that I won't take,
> because there are only 24 hours a day. See? :)
>
> (And the reason Dave hasn't posted anything in this thread is probably
> because he's writing another post for some Linux magazine or teaches
> someone playing instruments for money as we speak, so he's sure wiser
> than me :))
>
> Everything comes at a cost, one way or another.
>

Did anyone pay you for your time? How much income are you relinquishing by
taking part in this discussion? Perhaps you are actually investing your
time and resources so you can get a payback at a later date.

>> IMO the only thing stopping
>> us from maximising it is internal resistance against the possibility
>> that
>> we might actually have something worthwhile to promote. That is exactly
>> what the "competition" wants.
>
> I'm not sure what exactly you mean by placing the word "competition"
> into quotes, but we are nowhere near to compete (with few exceptions).
>

Speak for yourself. As a community Linux Audio has been competing for the
past 15-20 years.

> Hence thinking in terms of competition at this point is simply
> ridiculous. Sorry, but I had to say that.
>

You have a very closed view of the community if you think that a few
people making some music in their spare time represents the Linux Audio
Community.

>> If we as a community keep believing and
>> reinforcing the ridiculous notion that we have nothing of value to
>> really
>> promote or talk about and we are not moving forward or making any
>> significant progress then we are just fulfilling a negative agenda.
>
> Jeez, Patrick, it's not about us believing or not. It's about being
> able to show a professional-quality record here and now. And to show
> that producing it doesn't take any longer than producing it on Mac or
> Windows with proprietary software.
>

We already have that. The number of people releasing work done with Linux
Multimedia tools is constantly expanding. Almost all major motion pictures
are made with Linux these days. I've heard music on the BBC that was made
with Linux Audio tools. We have several audio and multimedia companies
that are very publicly making money from Linux software and hardware
running the Linux platform.

> The first question you get when you mention Ardour in a professional
> community is "OK, can you show me who's using it and what they do with
> it?" I like that you are trying to meet that demand, but I'm not sure
> that it's going to work the way you want it to.
>

The questions I have received are

- q. What are the physical limitations ? a. very few.
- q. Does it support VST ? a. yes.
- q. What are Pauls rates for custom work and is he available ? a. I'll
ask him, he's generally a very responsive :-)
- q. Is Ardour the right solution for our goal? a. Maybe, what is it you
are tying to achieve?

> So all I'm asking you in this case is a bit of an internal quality
> filter when you upload stuff.
>
>> Businesses want to see a serious sales prospect when they back a
>> product.
>> They need to know that backing a Linux port is going to make them money.
>
> And for that they need to know how many people are capable of paying
> for the software. Which doesn't quite equal to the amount of musicians
> who use Linux.
>
> Probably I will never know what made MOTU so angry about Linux, but
> I'm quite prepared to believe that some fanatics had called them a big
> evil corporation, because they didn't see a market in Linux at the
> time. And seeing how often this kind of characteristic turns up even
> here, I'd say that part of the community needs a DNA fix.
>

Most likely they got bribed more money not to release their drivers and
support Linux than they expected to received from sales. Of course this
just works in RME's favour so MOTU loose out in the long run by looking
like dicks to the global Linux Community which numbers in the millions and
loosing customers to RME as everyone knows that RME products are high
quality and tend to work very well on Linux.

They also loose out on the association with Linux as a high end solution
which may not matter to their core market but definitely matters to the
Linux market.

--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd
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