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

[John Emmas]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Rigg"
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Users] Could this solve Ardour's financial headache?
>
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2009 at 12:55:56PM +0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> It's fairly simple to add a window which can show subscription/donation
>> info and Mantis bounties directly in the software. It could just be an
>> embedded html view using an existing browser dispalying the ardour
>> website. It's not much effort to add a news feed so people are kept upto
>> date without having to lift a finger. It's a little more effort to make
>> the window into a central point for community involvement. By ensuring
>> the interface is self updating and relevant it will give users incentive
>> to participate. Most users don't want to and can't be bothered keeping
>> track of the website to find out what is happening. If it was easily
>> accessible to them and the info was relevant then more people would make
>> some time to contribute.
>
> This would put off a lot of professional users trying it for the first
> time. Many security conscious studios and recording engineers would be
> very unhappy about connecting a DAW containing clients' work to the
> internet full time.
>
I must admit - personally I'm with John on this one.  I have an inbuilt
suspicion of anything that insists on "phoning home" - to the extent that
I'll actually abandon the product and use something else.  I'm (just about)
willing to tolerate something that phones home for the purpose of alerting
me to new security updates but I'm deeply suspicious of anything else.

I guess a compromise might be to display some limited information in
Ardour's start-up (splash) window. where at least it would only be seen when
restarting.  Or possibly (forgive me, I don't know what a ticker is) but
could it be implemented as a stand-alone app which users could configure to
launch (or not launch) at the same time as Ardour?

John