[Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Wed Jan 7 10:28:42 PST 2009


On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 10:06 AM, John Emmas <johne53 at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Knecht"
> Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?
>>
>>  how does a distro distribute up-to-date code under your proposal?
>>
> The same way as at present - there'd be a current "stable" tarball
> (available FOC to anyone who wants it) and no doubt, package managers could
> still produce packages just like they do at present.
>
> I'm not saying this idea is flawless - only that the flaws could be
> overcome.  For example, people who contribute anyway, either financially
> (like Greg) or with technical help (beta testing / contributing code /
> helping with manuals or langage translations etc) would need to get an
> automatic "buy-in".  OTOH, people who want to use Ardour but don't have
> anything to contribute can either stick with the stable versions or (if they
> want the development version) help the cause by paying $35.
>
> John

For many programs my distro currently gives me access to both stable
and testing. (Not sure about the current state of Ardour in this
respect.) Keep in mind that my distro (Gentoo) builds everything,
except for packages for which I *choose* to use a binary, from source
so access to source is pretty key to using Gentoo.

I'll grant you that 99% of the time I'll be happy with whatever is
considered 'stable', and most likely performance isn't an issue so I
could even use a binary. At times however I like to look at new
features that are coming along. There was a time when the development
folks were interested in opinions about how Ardour compares to other
DAW platforms. Possibly not anymore.

In the end I suspect that there are *far* more people like me - just
using the program once in awhile - and not that many that really want
or need testing versions. If anyone in the development chain supports
your idea then start partitioning the user group today. Give away free
1 month subscriptions, but only if they write you a 1000 word document
as to why they want and need it. (Good info the the developers.) I
suspect very few people would do that, and I suspect there are even
fewer who would pay for access to a development code base. I think it
would be an unfortunate development if that happened, but it's most
certainly not up to me. I have less than no vote here.

Is that worth $35 to me? No more than my opinions about any of this
are worth $35 to you. I could be very wrong though. I am most of the
time. Wanna subscribe to my opinion blog? Cost is $40, but for you I'm
running a special. $35 and I won't bill until my opinion makes
difference! ;-)

Cheers,
Mark



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