On Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:11:13 +0100 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > And about the scary part, news like this brings up questions for me. > What kind of users will it attract? How many users will switch and > drop software like Ardour and Qtractor? The Linux audio is a very > small niche and even though it's a very hypothetical thought, > software like Bitwig could damage the Linux audio ecosystem. It seems an unjustified fear to me this - as I see it in the bazaar way of making things, diversity and change is allways something to strive for. Sure, propietary software doesn't really stay in the bazaar, but near to it. It doesn't directly give back to the community through source code, but still it brings more users to approach the linux audio environment. I personally like using free software - not for a philosophical stance, but because it suits me better. I like to be able to talk directly to the devs, see a widespread collaboration, and sometimes be competent enough to give a hand. In particulare I like very much the linux audio environment: you can do very very particular stuff that you can't with propietary software (because of course for max revenue they target main stream music) and I love this flexibility. I don't know if I'll be using bitwig beyond some toying with it (I certainly won't even touch it if it doesn't support JACK ;) ), but I wouldn't see anything bad with people starting to use it. It's not like if a mass of people starts using bitwig I won't be able to use seq24, qtractor, freewheeling etc.; I'll keep using those, and I know there are many passionate users on this list who will do the same, and more will come - not because they can't afford mixbus or bitwig, but because they simply like better free software. So IMHO our small niche totally won't be blasted away: there are too many passionate people in it, both dev and users, who have invested their free time in this (i.e. they really care about it). best wishes, renato _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
