Re: [Jack-Devel] [andraudio] Google I/O: High performance audio talk

On Thu, May 23, 2013 5:53 am, John Emmas wrote:
> On 22/05/2013 20:20, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> Due to their completely illogical and unnecessary decision to ignore
>> professional audio needs,  professional audio developers and companies
>> that make a business out of professional audio running on Linux (those
>> are
>> the only ones I am interested in) are excluded from targeting Android as
>> a
>> sales platform.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> The question is why do they feel that they have the right to make this
>> decision on our behalf
>
> Patrick, I'm surprised at you.  Google is making a decision on its own
> behalf as it has every right to do.  Their decision is certainly
> short-sighted but it's the nature of open source development that, once
> you release your source code, you end up with very, very, very, very,
> VERY few rights.  You certainly don't have the right to insist that
> future recipients must retain features which (perhaps) they feel are
> making the software bloated.  Nor do you have the right to insist that a
> recipient's priorities for the source code must be the same as yours.
>
> A day will undoubtedly come when Google will need to start taking
> pro-audio seriously - so it doesn't make much sense for them to be
> pissing off a whole bunch of people whose expertise they're eventually
> going to need.  Nevertheless, they have every right to behave like
> jackasses if that's what they want.
>

Normally I would agree but in this case Android is the dominant OS on the
planet. They have a responsibility to be more careful in the way they
approach sensitive business topics such as making money out of
professional audio. By completely excluding the will of the LAD community
they are taking the wrong approach so I want to know why they feel it is
acceptable for them to make decisions like that on our behalf.

Put simply if we want to run JACK on Android why is Google deciding for us
that we are not allowed to?

What rationale can they possibly have that makes it seem like a logical
choice on their part?

Considering that Google is supposed to hire incredibly bright people to
make these kind of decisions there is something in this picture that is
just not making sense.

How can the entire Google Android team think that low latency is not
important enough to justify them solving the issue once and for all?

Who in the Google Android team is getting the priority on that decision?
Is it coming all the way from the top? Do we have to petition Sanjay to
get him to weigh in on the matter? If we had a petition from all the LAD
professors who work at the top universities of the world that might make
Google take some notice. Especially if it was published in wired or Ars
Technica, etc...

Does he already know about the issue and not see the value of solving it?
Has it not been explained sufficiently clearly what kind of impact this is
having on the wider market and Googles reputation too? Do they not realise
that they look like complete dicks at this point for having failed to
solve the problem for so long? Does Google want this to continue
perpetually or are they prepared to allocate some more resources, solve it
and let everyone get on with their business?

Are they aware that they are getting close to a class action anti trust
law suit and that simply by opening one up they would have to spend
significant amounts of money on legal fees that could be invested in
solving this problem and avoiding more egg on their face?

Anyway they are reading and no doubt discussing internally. I have had
some private feedback with some more advanced details but we have still
not got to the bottom of the issue as far as I am concerned.

The latest excuse is backwards compatibility. I don't see how that makes
any difference. I can't even upgrade my old android phone from 3 years ago
unless I roll my own cyanogen-mod. The OEM is certainly not going to do it
for me. I'm highly doubtful that I will see another update from the vendor
for my 1 year old tablet too.

Raph or Glenn are welcome to chime in at any point with their feedback.



--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd

1369285279.29077_0.ltw:2,a <54914.188.26.171.156.1369285264.squirrel at boosthardware dot com>