[Ardour-Dev] Ardour 2.3 released

[Joe Hartley]

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:58:52 +0100
Fons Adriaensen <fons at kokkinizita.net> wrote:
> And none of these features are optional -
> you can't build Ardour without them unless you really
> love a major headache.

It doesn't mean you have to use them.

> What this means is that at some point I'll have to
> abandon Ardour and search for another solution. Or
> build one myself. And that makes me sad, because
> Ardour is a great piece of software. 

Indeed it is, and continues to be so.  As you said, the changes that 
have been made are market-driven.  People have asked, perhaps even
paid, for the features like the rhythm ferret and tempo management.
It might not be useful to all users, but there is nothing to force 
you into using them.

Let's face reality here - Ardour is always going to be compared to
ProTools, which may or may not be the Downfall of Music some claim it
to be.  If Ardour is to get more penetration into professional studios,
it needs to provide the functionality that users are asking (and again,
possibly paying) for.  

As to the order in which desired changes are added, and why the changes
you'd like aren't in the newest release while others are, come down to
a limited number of development resources and a prioritization process
that's likely to be part request generated, in part driven by ease of
implementation, and in part pure developer whim.

Ardour already has a number of features I don't use, and my productions
probably suffer from my lack of understanding of the full toolset 
available to me.  That doesn't mean I think that I should abandon the
tool and try and find something simpler.  If I never drive a Ferrari over
65MPH, I haven't taken advantage of all a Ferarri can offer, but I've still
gotten to where I wanted to go.

Finally, I can think of many things in the world I can take a morally
indignant stand on - Ardour's feature set ain't one of them.

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh at brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa