On Mon, 2002-01-14 at 21:45, Paul Davis wrote: > >Perhaps an important thing about designing such a soundcard is to show the > >world that open source is more than just a few hackers doing some funny > >coding. I mean open source is real and many commercial companies just > >don't see that. Designing hardware with people all over the world as > >volunteers will take the community a step forward I think. > > how will it do any more than developing software with people all over > the world? hardware costs a truly significant amount to produce and > distribute. software costs a more or less insignificant amount to > produce and distribute. which one do you think is more likely to be a > domain where "developing with people all over the world" actually > succeeds?
i think both :) > > in addition, despite being a true GPL zealot myself, you run the risk > of seriously shooting open source in the foot with this type of > strategy. its impossible to make money from selling GPL > software. even .com millionares sometimes need to make money while > writing GPL'ed software, and one of the best ways of doing this comes > from selling and/or partnering with h/w. I think there's no problem in selling open-source h/w... The point is you wouldn't have to beg for specs. + you would have a bigger chance that such companies would take care of some s/w os projects (in terms of money), because they do not have to produce the required s/w by themselves and keep it confidential. It's the future (i guess)... if the h/w is GPL'ed and in > free or ultra-low-cost circulation, this option vanishes, leaving only > consulting and support as revenue generators. most programmers who are > deeply into a project as complex as many audio+MIDI programs are would > rather avoid such things (well, this one would, anyway :) > > audio+MIDI hardware is already essentially a commodity item. i really > see very little point in spending time working on developing "open > source" versions of existing hardware capabilities most of which you can't use under linux(this concerns audio h/w)... when there is all > this incredible software (halion, anyone?) that needs writing, and > writing soon! Benno's disk sampler evo? would be cool :) Marek
