On Sat, September 1, 2012 1:59 pm, Paul Davis wrote: > On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 9:10 PM, Patrick Shirkey > <pshirkey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> wrote: > >> >> For example people who use firefox or chrome would be a good start. They >> are most likely the ones who will also be using Linux Audio Tools. >> > > patrick, if you haven't noted, firefox and chrome are cross-platform > tools. > perhaps you mean the number of people who use those tools on linux ... if > so, here are some numbers from ardour.org: > > Rank Requests Pages OS > 1 1064670 50842 Windows > 2 1008038 23804 Unix > 1001554 23713 Linux > 5482 77 BSD > 696 10 Other Unix > 306 4 SunOS > 3 3106311 5647 OS unknown > 4 476795 14399 Macintosh > 5 51448 8052 Known robots > 6 14 14 OS/2 > 7 1862 11 Symbian OS > > if you were to use this, you'd note that even on a site about a DAW that > doesn't run on Windows, (apparent) Windows users outnumber Linux users by > more than 2:1. of course, this statistic has all kinds of flaws and > caveats, but the point is that the data that is available to companies > such > as NI strongly argues against supporting Linux. if you have real data that > would convince such companies that their existing decisions are wrong, > then > please do share it. > What this tells me is that the perception that the Linux userbase is almost non existent is seriously flawed to the point where even people running windows are so interested in the software they outnumber the target audience by 2:1 It also tells me that there is a very real userbase for ardour in the Linux community substantially more than non existant. If even a small number of them were interested in purchasing NI products they would be making enough profit to justify a dedicated support resource. Combine that with the users of LS, qtractor, muse, rosegarden, energy XT, etc... and there is a large enough community to completely blow away any discussion of not being able to make a profit. As the community is growing that just makes it even more profitable. And all this is done with no mainstream media coverage, zero glossy advertising, trade show appearances at a minimum. It's pretty much just hard graft from a few dedicated and motivated individuals. There is nothing in these stats that even remotely says the opposite of the Linux Audio community is worth serious investment by serious audio companies. If NI wanted to add an additional 100k customers to its sales targets this is a no brainer. Certainly they would get more bang for their buck than any mass marketing campaign will give them. We could take it further and extrapolate the amount of customers that Harrison receives from the ardour userbase too. > Another example, Behringer ships Audacity with every single product they >> sell. Clearly the global market leader for audio production hardware >> sees >> some value in open source too. > > > for the N-th time, open source is *not* Linux. Audacity is popular because > it is a powerful, useful, cross-platform tool. Linux has (probably) very > little to do with it. > Audacity is a "stepping stone" or bridge product that gives consumers and amateurs the freedom to transition to Linux without the fear of not being able to use their work on other platforms. The fact that it runs on all major platforms gives people the reason to check out Linux. If Behringer also shipped a bootable disk that would blow everything out of the water and reset the game. -- Patrick Shirkey Boost Hardware Ltd _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
