<HTML>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #f5f5f5 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><BR>
<BR>
>However, I don't personally think this sort of contribution really<BR>
>makes much of a difference. It's spotty at best.<BR>
<BR>
>There are problems. Ardour development, like most every other OS<BR>
>project I've ever looked at, isn't developed with the 'customer' in<BR>
>mind. How many times have we heard that 'we should be happy with what<BR>
>we get since we don't pay' or something to that effect. We get the<BR>
>features that developers decide to add. Ardour doesn't have the<BR>
>features I need to really commit to using it long term so I don't.<BR>
>That doesn't mean that I don't have the greatest respect for the<BR>
>people that do the work. It's great work, but it doesn't support my<BR>
>needs. I've been asking for MIDI since 2001 or 2002. It's now 6-7<BR>
>years later.<BR>
<BR>
>Again, I'm NOT complaining. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't have<BR>
>the features I need so its _value_ is fairly low to me because I<BR>
>cannot do the music composition with it that I want to do. Some sort<BR>
>of hodge-podge group of Linux apps tied together by hand to send data<BR>
>around isn't user friendly to a user who just wants to sit down, write<BR>
>and play. To someone else who runs a studio and wants to use open<BR>
>hardware and software it might be very valuable. to academic types who<BR>
>like to wire things together it's invaluable.<BR>
<BR>
>Just my view,<BR>
>Mark<BR>
_______________________________________________<BR>
Ardour-Users mailing list<BR>
<A href="javascript:top.opencompose('ardour-users@lists.ardour.org','','','')">ardour-users@lists.ardour.org</A><BR>
<A href="parse.pl?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Flists.ardour.org%2Flistinfo.cgi%2Fardour-users-ardour.org" target=_blank><SPAN style="COLOR: #ff0000">http://lists.ardour.org/listinfo.cgi/ardour-users-ardour.org</SPAN></A><BR>
)<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
I agree with the other people here that have said charging for SVN is counterproductive, as it will limit the amount of patch testing.. Also, going by a month worth of statistics isn't necessarily a good stat to go by. Some users (like myself) will report bugs as we encounter them, and then when time is available, work to help test patches e.t.c... At other times some people may not have the time to do this work, or it may not be appropriate.. for example, I have a lot of projects on the way with deadlines coming up shortly.. so I am working with a "stable" setup that provides me the minimum functionality I need... until these projects are complete and I can have a few weeks break from actually recording, then I won't be updating or testing... <BR>
<BR>
I'm not sure if the idea of paying would lead to more bug reporting. I've been a subscriber for 2 years and it hasn't increased or decreased the amount of bug reporting I commit.. If anything my bug reporting has slowed down, but there is no correlation between the two.. simply my available time has reduced. I think in this sense I probably am a typical "paying" user. <BR>
<BR>
Mark, I completely agree with your assesment of "value" ... altough I am less bothered by a bit of connection work than some.. although my workflow lends to/allows the use of ardour without MIDI, it would be ideal for it to have MIDI and MIDI clock functionality finished (for which I will be testing the patches once my current projects are finished (probably towards the end of feb).. I do use ardour for release purposes but I started making electronic music at a time when unless one could afford a full blown Pro Tools rig, it was not really feasible to do multitrack hard disk recording on a computer.. as such I have an extensive outboard MIDI setup<BR>
The main thing is each user will be different have different needs. <BR>
<BR>
There are really only two main solutions to the financial problems... sponsorship and subscription. Sponsors will be harder to find as most hardware companies now have some vested interest in software although it would be nice to see something like jacklab or ubuntu studio packaged with audio devices (I really think Behringer is one of the more likely ones to do this).. So really the main thing is for the users to subscribe and encourage others to do the same.. It has more power if the calls for subscription come from users rather than Paul or the other lead developers. really for anyone working the subscription cost is pretty much negligible<BR>
<BR>
so there's my 2 cents.. <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE></HTML>
<BR>