linuxaudio.org

On Sun, Sep 21, 2003 at 10:35:22 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

quoted text
> Linux, as a business architecture, is so totally screwed up that I don't

> understand how it's supposed to work anymore. When you make hardware you

> have to compile drivers. In the Linux world (today anyway) this means

> releasing source. DigiDesign doesn't release source, so there's no real

> way to support all the different distributions and hardware

> configurations that exist. There's probably also a risk that if they

> were able to release only a small part that would be compiled on a

> target system that someone would hijack it and figure out how to make

> Pro Tools work with other hardware, thus undercutting DigiDesign's real

> business model which is selling hardware with software to support it.

What NVidia do is they have a core binary dirver (cross platform)

and the linux interface part of it is "open source", for some value of

open. This works well, and though I'd rather have propper Free Software

drivers the NVIDIA drivers have been very relaible on the whole, the

installation easy and the support from the developers has been good too.
> Oh, I agree. Pro Tools on Linux would be a great app on a great

quoted text
> platform. DigiDesign would benefit greatly, if they could manage the

> security of their source, and if their plug-in manufacturer's would play

> ball. Unfortunately, the 001/002/RTAS plugin support has been bad,

> except for Waves. The advantage for Pro Tools in Linux would come if

> they would embrace LADSPA.

Hmm... the TDM DSP chips are as much a part of the hardware platform as

the i/o hardware. IIUC it gives the devleopers copy protection and digi

plugins that cant be used without thier hardware.
- Steve