Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ardour 5 released

community.ardour.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: Ardour 5 released

#21

Post by Joeboy »

ashitlerferad wrote: post #10
ronjouch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, qualifying 75 k$/yr in the US as "not much money" is hyperbole for a developer with 20 years experience of multithreaded multiplatform C++. As to funding from big OSS players, the problem is that Ardour is niche software, far away from the interests of those big OSS players. Regarding your examples, - Mozilla has interest and invests into web/infrastructure tech (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11956…

The GNOME program aims at getting more people involved in OSS projects: https://www.gnome.org/outreachy/ Personally, I think it is awesome and appreciate the great contributors I've seen come in through the program.

Obviously getting way offtopic here, but I want to point out that from scanning that page it looks like that's a $5000 stipend for three months of 40-hour weeks. Not exactly the big bucks.

Re: Ardour 5 released

#22

Post by dawhead »

spriggan3 wrote: post #6
roel_v wrote: post #4

Is there anyone on here who uses DAW's seriously, and has tried Ardour? Can it compete with the big boys?

> Is there anyone on here who uses DAW's seriously, and has tried Ardour? Can it compete with the big boys? Can it compete? Yes, a DAW hardly decides what the final result sounds like. The problem is integration. Often controllers come with presets for Pro-tools,Logic, Cubase, Live so integration is seamless, there is virtually no need for configuration. Now Is Ardour popular ? right now not that much. But it's a gre…

Ardour has builtin support for many hardware controllers. Our support for Mackie Control is as good as anything in the proprietary world, ditto for things like the FaderPort. Generic MIDI controllers can have MIDI maps, and we have at least a dozen predefined ones already.

Ardour 5.1 will also see support for the Ableton Push 2 device.

Popularity: right now, someone starts a bundle of Ardour obtained from ardour.org roughly once every 4 minutes. There were 10,000 downloads of Ardour 4.7 from ardour.org. We're more like the members of the Fight Club network than we are like the ProTools club: we're everywhere, but you can't see us. Every laptop distributed to the favelas by the Brazilan government comes with Ardour. There are at least 10,000 users of Ardour in each of the USA and Germany alone.

Are we "as popular" as Reaper, Logic or Cubase? Almost certainly not. Are we popular enough? Sure.

Re: Ardour 5 released

#23

Post by ashark »

ronjouch wrote: post #17
wtbob wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently, internships are open internationally to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people. Additionally, they are open to residents and nationals of the United States of any gender who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. It's have been quicker to write, 'internships are open to everyone but white, heterosexual men,' but…

> "It's have been quicker to write, 'internships are open to everyone but white, heterosexual men,' but that would have been too honest." Agreed. But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. So to my eyes we need biased, opposed initiatives like this one…

> But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased.

Serious question: was this kind of stuff necessary for the huge increases over the decades in the percentage of lawyers and doctors who are women? If not, then it seems it's possible (if not necessarily desirable) to let "natural" forces do their work for achieving gender balance, and least for careers requiring well-educated individuals that provide high compensation and confer high status (those are both higher status than developers in most circles, by far). But maybe there were lots of women-only medical conferences or something at some point. Maybe there still are, I really don't know.

(I did a quick DDG search for this issue in law and medicine, but turned up nothing relevant aside from graphs demonstrating the shift)

Re: Ardour 5 released

#24

Post by adrusi »

ronjouch wrote: post #17
wtbob wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently, internships are open internationally to women (cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people. Additionally, they are open to residents and nationals of the United States of any gender who are Black/African American, Hispanic/Latin@, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. It's have been quicker to write, 'internships are open to everyone but white, heterosexual men,' but…

> "It's have been quicker to write, 'internships are open to everyone but white, heterosexual men,' but that would have been too honest." Agreed. But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. So to my eyes we need biased, opposed initiatives like this one…

I really don't know what I think about wtbob's comment, but it's awful that it got flagkilled.

Are the total available OSS funds the result of a zero-sum game?

I think at face-value it isn't zero-sum. I think this question can be restated as "If advocacy groups became convinced that this kind of discrimination is unproductive, would they spend their money on supporting open source, or on promoting minority groups in a different way?". I think it's pretty clear that the answer is the latter. But you can also step back and ask whether the advocacy groups would have less funding if these programs came to be considered ineffective, and I think they would, since people would lose trust in them. I'm sure a lot of that money would go toward some other kind of minority advocacy groups, but I'm also sure that many sources of funding are actually specifically interested in promoting open source (otherwise it would be more productive for them to support minorities in employment, not open source internships). I think it's reasonable to say some of that money might make its way to people like Paul.

This is terribly speculative, but it is to say that if you accept that discriminatory programs like outreachy are not productive, there's merit to the claim that they deprive heroes like Paul of funding.

Re: Ardour 5 released

#25

Post by penagwin »

laveur wrote: post #9

It disappoints me that that they charge for pre-built binaries... Yes I can go and build it from source but it just doesn't feel right to have an open source project distributed like this. Shame on them for flaunting what I think is the spirit of Open Source.

I think this is a great method. People always want more Open source software right? Look at this a different way, if you can't charge money for it to be OSS then it will have to be closed source right? (Advertising 'nstuff, I don't think that pays well...reddit...)

Re: Ardour 5 released

#26

Post by ronjouch »

ashark wrote: post #23
ronjouch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's have been quicker to write, 'internships are open to everyone but white, heterosexual men,' but that would have been too honest." Agreed. But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. So to my eyes we need biased, opposed initiatives like this one…

> But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. Serious question: was this kind of stuff necessary for the huge increases over the decades in the percentage of lawyers and doctors who are women? If not, then it seems it's possible (if not necessarily desi…

I don't know either. Thoughts/questions:

- Can we compare the case of legal/medical to software? Especially, have the legal/medical fields been so unbalanced as software is right now? (Not implying it was, honestly asking). And if it was, as you ask yourself, what mechanisms helped bringing balance?

- Regarding the specific case of sexism in software, early research suggests that the unbalance may have emerged in the 1970s as "the idea that computers are for boys became a narrative", maybe due to ads: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... . Admitting this idea, what about now? Yes, unlike in the 1970s, software is part of everyone's daily lives. However, the "computers (and STEM) are for boys" myth isn't dead.

Re: Ardour 5 released

#27

Post by RIMR »

laveur wrote: post #9

It disappoints me that that they charge for pre-built binaries... Yes I can go and build it from source but it just doesn't feel right to have an open source project distributed like this. Shame on them for flaunting what I think is the spirit of Open Source.

Just build your own binary if you don't want to pay. You can't really complain when they're giving the source code to you for free.

Re: Ardour 5 released

#28

Post by ashark »

ronjouch wrote: post #26
ashark wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. Serious question: was this kind of stuff necessary for the huge increases over the decades in the percentage of lawyers and doctors who are women? If not, then it seems it's possible (if not necessarily desi…

I don't know either. Thoughts/questions: - Can we compare the case of legal/medical to software? Especially, have the legal/medical fields been so unbalanced as software is right now? (Not implying it was, honestly asking). And if it was, as you ask yourself, what mechanisms helped bringing balance? - Regarding the specific case of sexism in software, early research suggests that the unbalance may have emerged in the…

The effect there was pretty rapid. Did it somehow take hold far more strongly than the earlier narrative (whatever that may have been)? It seems like the marketing has become quite a bit less dude-centric, yet the trend continues in spite of everything. One would hope a similarly sudden shift the other direction could be effected, but that doesn't appear to be happening.

Oddly enough, the two most obvious big drops on that graph appear to correspond pretty closely with drops in the total share of university students majoring in CS[1]. What significance that has, if any, I do not know.

[1] http://core0.staticworld.net/images/idge/imported/article/it...

Re: Ardour 5 released

#29

Post by diminish »

ronjouch wrote: post #8
roel_v wrote: post #4

Is there anyone on here who uses DAW's seriously, and has tried Ardour? Can it compete with the big boys?

I'm not qualified to comment as a "serious" user (as would be, say, someone doing mix/production for a living), but as a hobbyist it has been a joy and powerhouse to use and produce two little homebrew albums. Another popular alternative for that kind of audiences is http://reaper.fm/ , from Cockos from Justin Frankel & co from Nullsoft who made WinAMP.

As a serious hobbyist, ardour is on the way to compete with pro tools. I decided to use ardour, musescore and ableton live for different purposes 3 years ago and I m happy. Reaper, logic pro, garage band etc don't give anything extra to Ardour after 6 months of trials I can say that.

Re: Ardour 5 released

#30

Post by spacelizard »

RIMR wrote: post #27
laveur wrote: post #9

It disappoints me that that they charge for pre-built binaries... Yes I can go and build it from source but it just doesn't feel right to have an open source project distributed like this. Shame on them for flaunting what I think is the spirit of Open Source.

Just build your own binary if you don't want to pay. You can't really complain when they're giving the source code to you for free.

Yes you can, but that's beside the point. For a complicated application like this there obviously is value in both the source code and the pre-built binaries. I think people would be a little less annoyed if this didn't seem to be copping sales techniques from sketchy outdated proprietary business models (Prices not posted up front? Free version has time limitations??) and instead did something that was more sustainable. What this would be, I'm not quite sure of. Part of the problem probably is that desktop applications are not really a big market anymore. Maybe they should run a proper marketplace for free (as in freedom) audio plugins?
Post reply on HN