[ardour-dev] project status change

[Paul Davis]

Some members of the mailing list will already know about this, most of
you do not.

I think most of you are aware that I have worked on Ardour essentially
full-time for the last five years or so. Total income from Ardour
during that time has totalled about US$6000, of which US$3000 was a
single payment from Frank Carmickle to pay for the development of
ardour/ksi. 

At the same time, my monthly living expenses typically come to about
US$3-4000 a month (this is with 3 children and a spouse). Clearly, not
a cash flow that can be sustained indefinitely :) A few months ago, I
began to feel extremely uncomfortable with the prospect of spending
everything that was left of the money I made from Amazon.com. I have
also become uncomfortable with how reluctant I have been to spend
money on stuff, especially for my kids, largely as a result of it
bringing "zero day" ever close. So, I started looking for work.

About a month ago, an old friend of mine who is VP of Product
Development at a company called Silver Spring Networks offered me a
job with them. The job is well paid, can be done via telecommuting,
offers me variable part-to-full time hours, health care benefits and
stock options. It has nothing to do with audio or music, but there are
some interesting technical challenges to be faced. It seemed a better
deal for my family that I do this, at least for a while. I am
initially signed up as a 75% time employee, and we will review this
every 30-90 days. I start this Monday, May 16th.

**********************************************************************
	       I DO NOT PLAN TO STOP WORKING ON ARDOUR.
**********************************************************************

I had hoped to get Ardour to at least 0.99 before beginning work with
SSN. Sadly, as a result of subtle but major issues with alignment of
recorded material, this has not happened. We will see a 0.9beta30
release this weekend, and after that, it becomes less clear. If the
work I've done on recording alignment is OK, 0.99 should happen in the
middle of next week, with 1.0rc1 coming out as soon as the
translations are complete and the packaging is 100%.

Clearly I will not be able to put the time into it that I
have done to date. I am optimistic that we are still extremely close
to a 0.99 release, followed rapidly by 1.0 and then the port to GTK2
that will lead to 2.0. 

My real hope is that the emergence of 1.0 will lead Ardour into
situations where it can and will start to generate revenue. Further,
that Linux as a pro-audio platform will spread, and that this too will
offer more chances for semi-reliable income. If and when that starts
to happen, I will transition out of work for SSN back into more full
time work on audio software. Obviously, if you know of projects in
this area, please let me know. Until then, Ardour will become a
part-time effort for me. I can't predict how part-time, because I
really don't know how this is all going to work.

Those of you who interact with me daily on #ardour will see "las" more
intermittently. This change of status is not the end of Ardour at all,
but its clearly a change in the status of my role in the project. I
think that it still has a great future ahead of it, and I am still
just as passionate about it as the rest of you. However, starting
Monday, Ardour will be a part-time affair for me, just as it is for
most of you.

regards,
--p

ps. if for some reason you feel a need to respond to this, please
don't Cc: the list.