On Wednesday 12 December 2007 10:13:16 plutek-infinity wrote: > >From: drew Roberts <zotz@xxxxxxxxxxx> > > > >Payment In Kind Experiment or Funding Musical Free Software Development > > > >Was: Re: A year of Linux Audio revisited - would like to know your > >oppinion > > > >New ideas at the bottom, quote for context. > > > >On Wednesday 12 December 2007 06:49:08 Pieter Palmers wrote: > >> Chris Cannam wrote: > >> > On Wednesday 12 December 2007 05:50, Robert Persson wrote: > >> >> Here is a good explanation of how groove quantise works in protools: > >> >> http://www.audiomidi.com/classroom/protools_corner/ptcorner_63.cfm > >> >> > >> >> For some really fancy midi stuff going way further than groove > >> >> quantise, you could take a look at some of Ntonyx's products, such as > >> >> StyleEnhancer and StyleMorpher. If Rosegarden could implement some of > >> >> those features that would be very useful for composers. > >> > > >> > Groove quantization is one of the oldest outstanding feature requests > >> > in the Rosegarden tracker, submitted by me in 2002: > >> > > >> > http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=633259&group_ > >> >id= 4932&atid=354932 > >> > > >> > Unfortunately, as for so many features, this has simply never > >> > percolated to the top of my priority queue, or stack, or whatever my > >> > brain uses, and nobody else has ever shown much interest in coding it. > >> > And sadly I only have eight hands and three heads and there are only > >> > 132 hours in the day. > >> > >> IMHO this remark gets to the heart of the problem. As a human being we > >> have limited resources. I personally have to settle with one head, 2 > >> fingers and 24hrs in a day. The fact that humans also have to eat, and > >> that food is seldom available 'for free' makes that some part of our > >> resources are allocated to surviving. Oh, and having 'a life' also > >> consumes an astonishing amount of these resources. > >> > >> There is no way around the fact that one has to eat, and that that > >> doesn't go well with writing free software in the 'free beer' > >> interpretation. Which seems to be the main reason why people turn to > >> Linux. I've done a quick check on the cheapest offer from Cakewalk > >> (Project 5) that might have all functionality that came up in this > >> thread, and it is 100euro here. If all Rosegarden users were to pay > >> Chris 100euro, I think Rosegarden would have more features than 'Project > >> 5', or maybe even Sonar. > >> > >> The catch 22 seems to be that we currently attract a lot of 'free beer' > >> attention. But in order to get really professional software, you need > >> time, and time = money. So in order for the programs to become more > >> professional, we need people that are willing to pay for them. Which we > >> don't seem to have. > >> > >> You could think of it this way: suppose you have a Linux tool that has > >> 20% of the functionality of an the equivalent Win/Mac tool, you could > >> argue that it's worth 20% of the money. Now add all tools you use on > >> Linux and try to estimate this '20%' value of your software collection. > >> IMHO that's what you would have to be prepared to pay. Of course I know > >> that this is a rude extrapolation, and that 20% of the functionality > >> usually doesn't get you anywhere. But to be honest, I think most of the > >> tools are more near 80% of the 'competing software's functionality. > >> > >> To give you another idea, from my personal pet project (FFADO): > >> we are registered on the ohloh site > >> (http://www.ohloh.net/projects/8040?p=FFADO), and one of the things they > >> do is scan your code repository and use some industry standard way of > >> value-ing the code (COCOMO). In the FFADO case they end up with a value > >> > >> > $1.000.000. In other words, if you were to have a commercial company > >> > >> develop the code, it would cost you 1M$. But hey, pick me, I'll do it > >> 'for free'... Rosegarden is also present on ohloh, and is valued more > >> than $2M. > >> > >> I admit that these numbers are large extrapolations and have limited > >> applicability, but they do provide some reference. > >> > >> The only project that seems to be able to break this circle is Ardour. > >> I'd say that that is due to the fact that Paul didn't have to worry > >> about his survival for the time it took to bring Ardour to a critical > >> level. I.e. a level that was high enough for people to start paying for > >> Ardour as soon as Paul's self-funding approached it's limits. > >> > >> For myself I can say that I'm spending an incredible amount of time and > >> energy into coding open source, and that there is not that much in > >> return. Well, there is the respect from fellow coders, gratitude from > >> users, even free hardware (lucky me). But that doesn't pay the bills. So > >> I have to go out and spend time at 'something that someone actually pays > >> for'. And hence it takes 3 years to reach the functionality that comes > >> 'out of the box' on another OS. If I would be sure I can earn a decent > >> living with writing 'free' software, I would seriously consider it. But > >> alas... > >> > >> Note that this is not really a reaction to the original blog giving an > >> overview of the current Linux audio status, but more an attempt at > >> expressing my view on why this is as it is, and why it's IMHO not very > >> likely to change soon. It's like the Ableton guy said at LAC07: "I'm > >> pretty happy with the we-sell-shrinkwrapped-boxed-software model, and I > >> don't see a reason to change that.". Read: "why would we give it away if > >> people seem to be willing to pay for it?". > >> > >> 2 cents for discussion, > >> > >> Pieter Palmers > > > >Nice write up. > > > >I have had this or a very similar thought recently in another context. So > > here is my first attempt to develop it some for this context. > > > >We have people writing music making software and people using the same > >software to make music. > > > >So. What can we do? > > > >1. Every software project that wants to could offer a version for sale > > that is basically identical to the one available gratis. Hey, perhaps > > with an autographed manual or a certificate of support to hang on the > > wall, or perhaps to get your name in a "funders" list in the code. > > > >2. Request for coding help. > > > >3. Request for support in the form of Free Music. > > > >3.a. Please send us music using a Free License that you made using our > > stuff. If you don't have any originals of your own, here is where you can > > find some to do your own take of and send in. We can include this as a > > showcase of our stuff. > > > >3.b. Help us put together a CD of such Free Music that we can sell and let > > the proceeds support the project. *** > > > >*** This may just be the key idea. Now we get funding not just from the > >limited number of people who use Free Software to make music, but from the > >much wider number of people who are willing to buy music. > > > >If anyone wants to discuss these possibilities further, I would be most > > happy to do so. A brainstorm in making 3.b. effective would be welcome. > > a very interesting idea, drew. indeed, it is probably necessary to leverage > resources outside of the software users, since our user base is so small. a > key question, to my mind, is how to make something like this look desirable > for folks at large -- the simple fact that it has been made using free > software doesn't in any way make it music that anyone might be interested > in purchasing. Perhaps a little, but certainly not for most and I agree. However, Free Music made with Free Software might be a bit more interesting. Good music at a good price that also fits in the above mold might be even more interesting. So, assuming we have the music already (haha - I am in serious danger now...) what are some good ways to "sell" it? I was looking at CD Baby, yesterday. Somewhat interesting, but they want physical CDs. Anyone know how to get music into the itunes store? Other possibilities: lulu.com cafepress.com - seem to sell CDs but I see no way to make one in my account. Would magnatune be willing to handle music with Free licenses? (Do they already? - I can't tell now, something is busted with search on their site at the moment.) opsound.org - may work. They want CC BY-SA music. Would Fading Ways be willing to handle Free licenses? (Do they already?) Other ideas? > > another thought which i've been entertaining is to direct a certain > percentage of any personal profits made using free software back to the > software authours. it seems to me only reasonable that, if i am making > money with these tools, some of that money is a result of the work of the > respective coders. it's difficult to come up with any sort of rigourous > algorithm to assess how much each application contributed to the final > profits, but i think it's time (for me, personally) to implement some fuzzy > instance of that principle, anyway. unfortunately, as alluded to above, > even if we ALL did that, the user base is probably not large enough to > fully support the coders. > > best. all the best, drew _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
