[Ardour-Users] Ardour 2.8.5 released

[Thomas Vecchione]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 10:57 PM, John Emmas <johne53 at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> The issue here is simply that one swallow doesn't make a summer.  Nor
> can one lone developer have any expectation of competing with commercial
> giants like Steinberg and Digidesign.  The problem isn't that there's not
> enough income to keep Paul going.  It's that there isn't enough income to
> pay the number of devs that would be needed to get Ardour into the big
> league (where, in all honesty, it deserves to be).
>

Ok this part I agree with...


> And I'm sorry Paul but I
> think you need to stand up and shoulder the blame for that.  Here's why....
>
> Last year's vigorous debate saw people like Patrick and myself (and others)
> putting forward a whole host of suggestions for diversifying Ardour's
> income
> streams.  But Paul consistently rejects any proposal, except for that of
> voluntary donations (in which, I'm including sponsorship and sponsored
> features).


This part I disagree with.  In fact wholeheartedly as I have had
conversation with him about various topics you bring up in your list
below...

>
> 1)  A one-off charge for providing subversion access to non-developers.
> 2)  Releasing some kind of (chargeable) "Ardour Pro" version.
> 3)  Charging for enhanced support.
> 4)  Charging for "added value" items, such as manuals, printed logo
> stickers, special keyboard overlays etc.
> 5)  Using some of the existing income to pay a professional fundraiser.
>
>
And the issue is implementation for many of them, but several have been and
are being considered still actually.

You point about diverse income streams is absolutely correct, however we are
dealing with a beast that is different than normal here, in that in Ardour
we are supporting not only a product but also an idea(Open Source
Development), and some of those possible income streams are contrary to that
ideal(Paid for SVN access for instance).

Diverse Incomes are a good thing, however that doesn't mean that you should
take every possible one all the time.

            Seablade
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