[Ardour-Users] ardour & "phoning home"

[Simon Wise]

On 09/08/10 18:49, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-08-09 at 14:43 +0800, Simon Wise wrote:
>> On 09/08/10 10:26, Ross Johnson wrote:
>>> Arnold Krille wrote:
>>>> On Saturday 07 August 2010 02:16:58 Ross Johnson wrote:
>>>>> Paul Davis wrote:
>>>>>> Why am I adding this to Ardour?

>> One of the only reasonable arguments against this is that many people are using
>> Linux systems for audio and they will miss sales if they ignore these potential
>> customers. It is easy to count the numbers of copies of software that have been
>> paid for, or that have been distributed via some registration scheme. It is much
>> harder to count the users of FLOSS systems unless those users are prepared to
>> acknowledge their use of these systems in some real, countable way.
>
> A list of signatures of Linux audio users that are annoyed by the
> hardware companies would be more effective for this special issue.

I am using this as an example, there are many other situations where information 
and numbers are useful

>
>>
>> If the majority of FLOSS users choose to keep the fact that they are using Linux
>> secret they will, quite reasonably, be ignored in these situations. There are
>> many other situations where numbers of FLOSS users is important, for example
>> when arguing for public documents to be accessible in formats usable in FLOSS
>> systems,
>
> I never had any manual in a format that wasn't readable by Linux.

I was referring to the on-going effort in many places to ensure proprietary 
formats like .doc are replaced by open formats in any documents required for 
dealing with public institutions .. documents like tenders, or forms to fill in, 
or anything else. I think this effort has been very important in making FLOSS 
systems more widely used.


>> 2) If a person can't trust Paul enough to tell him which version of his software
>> they are using and which OS they are using it on, how can they possibly trust
>> him enough to allow his software to run on their system! I am assuming of course
>> that very few have actually studied the code and the libraries it uses closely
>> enough to understand them fully before compiling, then installing, the binaries.
>
> But people trust the control by the community! This is one of the big
> advantages of FLOSS.

exactly my point ... and such a community only exists in so far as it shares 
information and data openly, we lose this community if we become secretive and 
stop being willing to trust and share. The community as a whole can only look at 
what is revealed publicly, anyone who stays hidden is retreating from this and 
is not an active member of this community.



Simon