Mark Knecht wrote: > For me, my little project studio is now 2 Windows boxes and 1 Linux box. >The Linux box is the only one that's on 100% of the time. Nothing gets done >without it anymore. That's a lot more Linux than I used a year ago. > > I like hearing that. :) > In the last year I've probably spent $1K-$2K on software. It's all been >Windows software. As a user, I'd buy Linux apps if they existed and did what >I needed them to do. As a user I have very few options in this area. > > Sadly (?), all attempts at commercial Linux audio software have failed, with the sole exception of 4Front (and I believe they're still here because they wisely diversified to provide audio drivers for a variety of *NIX platforms). IMO it's a classic double bind: few users mean little commercial potential, while lack of commercial apps (especially the existing powerhouses) stifles any potential for an existing user community to move to the new platform. The bells have tolled for the Ceres soundfile editor (*not* the Ceres of NoTAM fame), the Jazz++ MIDI sequencer (now GPL'd but perhaps too late for a strong development interest), and the Ultramaster RS101. The TAON soundfile editor was a promising piece back in 1999, but the authors' insistence on closed sources inhibited community involvement, and when they graduated from school the project went belly-up, with no possible life-support from its users. And God knows how long I cajoled Boris Nagels about releasing the sources for his Multitrack, to no avail. Sometimes I worry about things like Stefan Nitschke's very cool RTSynth (free, but closed-source) or the Bros. Hayward's STEEM project (though they plan on going GPL sometime in the future). Those projects are wonderful, but if their maintainers disappear or simply lose interest, we lose some very nice software. I know, we don't really lose it completely, but it dies the death as far as development is concerned. Given the dependency hell that is Linux, you never know when the next kernel release will break binary compatibility with such apps, leaving the user with the uncomfortable choice of remaining behind the OS curve or abandoning the tools. Lose/lose. But not to worry much. We have ecasound, we have Ardour, and these are fantastic tools, 'way beyond what I had any right to expect back in 1999. And things are getting better here all the time. Recently I sync'd SoundTracker, ecasound, and Hydrogen via the JACK transport. Yeh, it's got some problems, but fundamentally the scheme works, and the particular developers are all dedicated to making it *really* work. I'm getting happier... One of my favorite cautionary tales re: closed sources regards the beautiful version of M produced by Voyetra in the late 80s. Apparently the original coder simply walked off with the sources, so even Voyetra no longer has access to the code. And has anyone else ever wondered what happened to the code base for Opcode's Studio Vision ? Btw, I've been testing some Windows apps for WINE compatibility. I have Buzz working now, and the WINE AppDB lists at least one user who claims to have run Reaktor under some version of WINE. Just FYI... I'll have to check for a Reaktor demo to test... Maybe we need to lobby the folks at Crossover or WineX to consider versions of their products optimized for running Windows audio/MIDI apps ? Obviously I'd prefer users to simply switch to the Linux equivalents, but at least you wouldn't have to write off your considerable investment in Windows software. Best, == dp
