[Ardour-Dev] Funding: Build and Sell Hardware

[Patrick Shirkey]

Quentin Harley wrote:
>
> Nice thing about DAW hardware is that most of it is developed already, 
> and you just need to find the winning combination.  At least we know 
> where to get the software for it
>
This is really dependent on whether we are providing a custom solution 
or a retail product.

Making Ardour run on existing products is an interesting idea but I 
don't see much money coming from it.

Making Ardour run on new solutions is much more valuable. But this takes 
a lot of effort and requires efficient infrastructure and significant 
funding.

It might make Ardour as a platform a more cost effective solution for 
companies to build on knowing they get access to a whole stable of well 
organized and efficient developers and testers.

To be clear I don't know enough about the behind the scenes structure 
that was applied to the various hardware projects that Ardour has 
already been used for. I'm assuming that the bulk if not all of the work 
was done by Paul and integrated back into SVN as time permitted. When I 
say work I mean all of the things that have to be done to get a project 
from a to z Including the communications, accounts, development and QA.

Maybe there is room for more people to be involved at the dev and 
organisational level so Paul can have more time to ensure that Ardour 
continues to progress on several different fronts.

I'm not sure what Paul would require for this to be viable though. I 
suspect if we give him some options in this thread he will let us know 
how he feels.

Maybe others can give us more details about the logistical issues 
uncovered during the previous projects and why they have not been as 
successful as we all would have liked. That might help to fine tune the 
platform and dev process before reinitiating contact with previous clients.

We already have at least three companies that have built hardware with 
Ardour. It's worth following up with them to find out if there is 
anything new that we can do for them but this time tackle it as a dev 
team working for Linux Audio Systems under Pauls direction.




Cheers.



-- 
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd.