Re: [Jack-Devel] The Situation(s) With JACK

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DateFri, 09 Dec 2011 09:13:06 -0000
From Phil Rhodes <[hidden] at rocketmail dot com>
To[hidden] at lists dot jackaudio dot org
In-Reply-ToPaul Davis Re: [Jack-Devel] The Situation(s) With JACK
Follow-UpNeil C Smith Re: [Jack-Devel] The Situation(s) With JACK
> My concern is over the problems we have created through the
> development process (or lack thereof).

Perhaps a little outside perspective would be useful, although I'm sorely  
aware that what I'm about to say isn't particularly new so I'll try to be  
brief.

Problems like these are the main reason I'm not a linux user. The lack of  
consistency. The duplication of effort. The fact that every time I go to  
look for a Linux solution to a problem, I find several half-finished  
solutions, all of which together represent more than enough effort to  
solve the problem but which ultimately don't, due to a lack of cooperation  
and a lack of management. I see this as an intrinsic problem of free  
software development.

It is no secret that open source development tends to produce software of  
use primarily to software engineers that can reasonably be developed by  
one person - linux has, famously, dozens of text editors and email  
clients. It is therefore perhaps not that surprising that media production  
software, which is not generally of interest to software engineers and  
can't be developed solo, has traditionally been lacking.

Ultimately this is a failure of management because as far as I can see  
there are enough free-software hours of work being done, they're just  
terribly misdirected, and the situation with JACK1/JACK2/[insert huge list  
of other Linux audio subsystems] is a prime example. What's worse is that  
 from what I've seen, it may not actually be fixable without giving up a  
lot of what makes people like Linux. You folks need to give up on having a  
dozen distros, different window managers, a thousand different ways to do  
everything. There needs to be a massive standardisation effort (and no,  
linux standards base doesn't go anywhere near far enough) so that when  
someone writes something under Gentoo, and someone claims "Linux" can do  
X, Y or Z, then I can actually do X, Y or Z under say Ubuntu without  
having to hack code. But people like Linux the way it is. I don't think  
it's a false dilemma to say that Linux can be this highly flexible but  
completely chaotic mess, or it can be consistent and usable by  
non-techies, but it cannot be both.

The usual argument given here is along the lines of "oh, so you want me to  
write stuff, for free, to your specification, do you?"

Er, well, yes, actually I do, or at least I realise that it's the only way  
to get certain results. I am a video editor by trade, and linux has (until  
Editshare do Lightworks for Linux) no NLE worthy of the name. The only  
contenders so far have been things like Cinelerra, which had some  
cripplingly, embarrassingly obvious holes in its feature set. I offered to  
consult, for free, on Cinelerra development, but this being Linux, nobody  
on the team has any time for anyone who isn't a software engineer, so they  
said they weren't interested and kept writing cute, fun-to-write features  
like the ol' page curl transition effect...

Or, well, actually, perhaps you don't have to write stuff, for free, to my  
spec. We already have a system for people being paid to write software  
that's useful to people. It's called "commercial software development". If  
you want to get paid to write media software that's actually useful to  
people, go and get a job at Adobe or Avid or Steinberg. The caveat is that  
you may occasionally be told to write things in a way you disagree with.  
Or you can listen to people like me, who are not software engineers, and  
implement our suggestions.

Ultimately it comes down to what linux and free software is for. If it's a  
hacker's toy, designed to be played with, fine. You're doing it right. But  
if you actually want it to be useful to non-techies, huge changes in  
approach are required. The problem right now is that people are behaving  
as if the former is true, but like to claim the latter is true, and it's  
that contradiction that creates situations just like this one with JACK.  
Or is it JACK2. Or whatever the hell it is. I just want my audio edited....

P
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