If I were running a commercial software firm and software made by random people in their spare time compared pretty well with my pricey software, I would be a little concerned.
On Dec 6, 2007 1:08 PM, Kyle Klipowicz kyleklip@gmail.com wrote:
And this is precisely the unfortunate reason why the open source world will (almost) always lag behind the commercial world of consumer software. When developers make their bread and butter based upon if the consumer buys, they're more likely to pay attention to and implement the wishes of their users. Take Ableton. They actively parse their online forums for feature requests...and then implement them when a critical mass is reached.
There are some exceptions in the FOSS world. Ubuntu is quite user friendly (with the support of a large endowment from a very wealthy organization with a charter specifically devoted to bringing Linux to the non-programmer set of the world). Firefox is giving IE a run for it's money (although the primary codebase from FF comes from the old commercial, closed source Netscape).
I know that Hans' statement re everyone becoming a developer is true in theory, but in reality people who want to rapidly prototype a project with something like Pd or Max are using these applications precisely because they do not want to code in C.
After reading Marius' post re GEM vs. Jitter, it is painfully apparent that the capitalist/consumer model of software engineering has a few aspects to it that are difficult for the FOSS community to compete with. Namely monetary and human resources and the external pressure to meet the requests of the user in order to ensure a continuous flow of financial support. When you code for a hobby or yourself, it is difficult or even impossible to be bothered with these things, and rightly so. Without compensation, there's often little scope (or time) outside one's own projects for developers in the FOSS world. This is unfortunate, but as I see it, true.
Question is, what can be done to change this or compete? Or should Pd just become the thing that hobbyist programmers use, while Max takes the stage as the "serious" tool for rapidly prototyping interactive A/V artworks? I hope that this is not the case...
No flames meant in this mail, just compassionate thought-mulling.
~Kyle