A few thoughts come to mind immediately: 1. The GNU/Linux user base consists more wholly of technically inclined people than found in other user bases (IMHO). Linux users don't typically think with the end of their mouse and are often quite accustomed to solving their own problems. Furthermore, the OSS community in and of itself is very supportive and it's unlikely a vendor will have to create a sophisticated support infrastructure for their product (afterall, we've managed this far often with little or no help from vendors... look how far alsa has come). Do they really think we are going to go one-click two, "oops call support?"
2. It's all about time to market, and now is the time. If these guys wait too long, their playing field is only going to shrink, with many more open source products that will waste any proprietery solution they could hope to offer. Right now the game is open and there really aren't any standards like VST around. LADSPA and JACK are developing nicely though, and sooner than later someone is going to step up to the plate with the full unified audio spec (hmmm splunge anyone?). The virgin is just waiting to be spanked, so who's up to the job? 3. It's all about partnering. There are tons of pro studios out there that wouldn't mind ditching a couple hundred licenses of MacOS or Windows for a nice stable and integrated solution. These guys need to be thinking about partnering with hardware developers because the largest benefit of Linux from a business standpoint (again IMHO) is that it sells hardware. It runs on nearly anything without having to scratch a nutt. 4. Performance. Is there anything to compare to XFS realtime for the desktop environments? I believe OSX is still on UFS. Linux has been on journalled filesystems for a while now. Preempt patches have been available for some time, and 2.6 will include these as standard. The story just keeps getting better. Linux is now an extremely responsive OS, and if you're complaining about not having any standard apis available then why don't you step forward and write some? You've got the lovely kernel source right in front of you and a ton of developers out there that would love to help you along. Look at how successful Apple engaged the community with it's OS X development. Final comments... people such as I tend to be in Linux because it offers an alternative. The GUI for me is a floating element, not an encasing one. This idea is certainly a departure for those desktop based OSes. But just look at all the CSound crazies at it. You'll never hear these guys complain about not having a pretty gui because part of the idea of such a system is grainular control. Linux in many ways offers this where no other can. My advise to those contemplating designing professional audio software for linux is this: leave as much application and feature set control in the hands of users as possible, keep it as open as feasible (no patents on recursive algorithms for calculating comb filter coefficients please :) ), and use the resources of your community. Peace, love and prosperity will follow in due course. Any ideas on what Creamware has been up to? They've been really quiet about Linux lately, perhaps they don't want anyone to know about their integrated audio dsp workstation based on... who knows? But apparently something off is in the works. In any case, I don't intend to spend 20k on my audio station when my 5k one works just fine. By the way, bayviewproaudio.com has half decent prices on the RME HDSP cards I noted for those in the US (sfb.net for Europe). I had to go and get me one of these as I just don't have the time to reverse engineer a card that a company doesn't want to release specs for, apparently even under NDA. Good bye beloved PowerPulsar and sblive. Let me know if anyone finds the RME cards for cheaper, I will buy more! http://www.rme-audio.com/english/hdsp/hdsp9652.htm And thanks to Thomas! http://www.undata.org/~thomas/ Regards, Shane On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 03:13, Uwe Koloska wrote: > Hello, > > the german magazine KEYBOARDS has answered a readers question > about audio and linux with tremendous ignorance. I think this > is a good chance to push linux to the attention of "the masses". > > Here is the full text of question and answer (first in german, > so anyone can correct my errors ;-). > > --- KEYBOARDS -------------------------------------------------- > Leserbrief: > Habe mir schon ein paar Mal KEYBOARDS am Kiosk geholt, weil mich > gerade das Thema Recording und Computer interessiert. Einige > Artikel waren für mich recht interessant. Nur vermisse ich > gänzlich Vergleiche mit Linux. Ist es Absicht, dass dieses > aufsteigende System nicht erwähnt wird, oder traut sich keiner ran? > Seit einigen Monaten steige ich auf Linux um, nur meine > Musik-Geschichte hängt hinterher. Dabei gibt es in SuSE eine > Menge Musik-Software und Synthesizer, und ich habe gelesen, dass > einige Programme bald zur Marktreife gelangen. Von Verkäufern > höre ich, dass sie nicht am Linux interessiert seien, weil man > da nix mehr verdiene. Von anderen höre ich, Linux sei kein > Multimedia-System. Desinformation auf der ganzen Linie ... > > Rainer Hain (KEYBOARDS): > Das Ganze ist ein recht kompliziertes Thema. Linus Thorvald > selbst hält Linux nicht für Audio oder generell für > Multimedia-Anwendungen geeignet. Low-Latency ist mit den > aktuellen Kerneln schlicht nicht zu machen, schon gar nicht > Multichannel. > Dazu kommt dann, dass ein Setup von Linux heute zwar simpel > ist, aber nur, solange man nicht von einem Standard-SuSE > abweicht. Und das muss man, wenn man Audio und MIDI betreiben > will. Deshalb springt kaum ein Sequenzer-Hersteller drau an, die > fürchten den ungeheuren Support-Aufwand. (Man erkläre dem User > mal am Telefon, dass er ein Make-File ändern muß und wie er dann > die Sources neu kompiliert ...) > Deshalb gibt es auch kein Package, was auch nur entfernt an > Cubase oder Logik herankäme. > An der Treiberunterstützung hapert es halt auch. Ich habe > hier zwar eine gute Auswahl an gängigen Interfaces (Audio und > MIDI), aber für keines davon gibt es Linux-Treiber. > > --- english translation ---------------------------------------- > > Reader: > Sometimes I have bought Keyboards cause I'm especially > interested recording and computer. Some articles seemed to me > very interesting. But I deeply missed any comparisons with > linux. Is it intended that this rising system is not mentioned > or does noone felt able to do it? > Since some month I'm migrating to linux -- only my musical > things are left behind. Despite SuSE having a lot of music > software and synthesizers; and I read about some programs coming > to end-user stability soon. From dealers I hear, that they are > not interested in linux cause there is nothing to earn. Other > people say, linux is not a multimedia system. Desinformation > all along the line. > > Rainer Hain (Keyboards): > This is a very complex matter. Linus Thorvald himself considers > linux not to be suited for audio or universally multimedia > applications. Low-latency cannot be achieved with current > kernels especially not multi-channel. > On top of that comes the fact, that a setup of linux is quite > simple today, but only if you don't leave the standard SuSE. > But this must be done to work with audio and midi. Therefore > hardly any sequencer manufacturer uses linux -- they fear the > tremendous support effort. (try to explain a user on the phone, > that he has to change a makefile and how he must compile the > sources ...) > Therefore there is no package that can hardly reach the level > of Cubase or Logic. > The driver support also is a problem. I have a great variety > of popular interfaces (audio and midi) but there is no linux > driver for one of them. > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > > I hope we are able to shape a convincing answer! > > Yours > Uwe Koloska > > -- > voiceINTERconnect www.voiceinterconnect.de > ... smart speech applications from germany >