IAMLFO wrote:Hey James,
I take off for the movies and when I get back I see that the stars are aligning! I totally get where you are coming from, the opensource world and traditional software license world are almost generational gap topics. Believe me, I make my living working with Linux on, of all things, mainframes. There is *nothing* in the world of computing that is more separated by different modes of thought than 55 year old system programmers and Linux admins. Lol!
I'll give you a good example. When I stated what I did about companies who don't change will lose you came back with `can't' change. I get this all the time at work. Some System z guy who has been working MVS for the past 30 years is being told to run Linux on his System z and his reaction is `I can't change'. Well, I show him that he can, then he does and he has more job security for the 5 or 10 years he has left in his career. The same goes for companies. I dont care if MOTU (or any other company) has been writing DAW software for the past 25 years. If companies are unable to change they *will* lose market share and eventually go under. That is true in any industry. How does, MOTU for example, change? Well, perhaps they continue to diversify with more virtual instruments. Perhaps instead of creating guitar amps that most users don't care about they add plug-ins to DP that more users care about. Perhaps they start charging less for DP that has fewer built-in plug-ins and starts charging for MOTU plug-ins. There are a thousand ways to go. With the competative landscape you cannot continue doing the same thing over and over again or you will get left behind. Apple learned that lesson, that is why Jobs was brought back. Believe me, as an individual who has purchased MOTU hardware and software I want the company to do well.
I hear what you're saying. However I think it's unfair to paint this solely as the "hip, with-it, young" company, versus a "stodgy, dinosaur" company. I mean it serves the narrative, but it's not altogether fair or accurate.
How do you suggest a MOTU competes with a company with just a couple of employees and a low overhead? Charge less for DP and then fire half the staff? Perhaps the future will be all audio software will be created by small companies made of a few individuals who are also programmers. If any of them grow too big, they will fail as they won't be able to bring in enough revenue to support growth.
I get what you are saying about a `cloud' being over the user base especially because you don't align well with the opensource community. Ok, it is a stigma that isn't going to go away so most of us will just need to let it slide off our backs.
Ahhh, so it's ME that's the problem here. I don't "align well" with the opensource community. Well, I guess you're right when the opensource community seemingly lacks understanding of certain boundaries regarding commercial software. Case in point coming to a site for users of an established DAW that is often misaligned and understood, and saying "Hi... I use one of those opensource DAWs that's aggressively trying to build user base and erode your market share, although one of the things I don't like about it is it doesn't have your DAW's GUI. Please give it to me."
I'm sorry, but NFW!!
Here, let me bend over backwards to take a brand new feature that's a marketplace advantage which is attracting converts to DP, and just HAND IT TO YOU so you can take it on to Reaper? What have you been smoking???
The last thing I will say is that, as an active member of the opensource community for over a decade, I have found the good heavily outweigh the bad apples. Hence, I bristle at the stereotype.
I don't blame you. However, folks like Adam have reinforced the stereotype just a bit.
As a quick point of information, the Reaper evaluation box opens everytime an unregistered copy of Reaper starts up. There is a countdown button that starts at a higher increment with each new start so the user has to wait longer to be able to hit the continue button. Also, my good buddy FMeguilez states that Reaper is free multiple times, almost as many as he calls Reaper a toy.
Does it increment the timer upward each time right away or just after the 30 days have expired? I'm assuming it's the latter. I've never gotten that far. I've tried Reaper myself... and it wasn't my cup of tea. That's not to say I didn't see a number of features that I liked, but overall it's my opinion that DP is still more capable in the areas that matter most to me. YMMV.
DP is a great program. It can do several things Reaper can't and vice-versa. What people don't understand about Reaper is that it has `grown up' very quickly.
I don't dispute that at all. What I have said is part of the reason it is "growing up" quickly is Cuckos is a small company compared to MOTU and they can and do get by with much less revenue. Hence they can undercut other DAWs significantly in price in order to stay in the game until such time as they achieve feature parity and feel "safe." At a certain point, when they have taken enough market share and are "established" we will see if the pricing structure remains.
The development cycle is very fast and the code quality speaks for itself. Simply outstanding. Reaper is a lean, efficient, feature rich application. Maybe people think it is a toy or whatever because they are not used to a product maturing so quickly. They are used to looong development cycles that don't always result in the quality offering users hoped for. Believe it or not, it is completely different with Reaper and it is one of the reasons I use it.
Thanks for that Reaper advertisement. That read like a brochure. But in case you hadn't noticed MOTU has picked up the pace of DP development and made enormous strides in the past few months. There are a slew of new features, many of which you cannot get in Reaper. On top of that it has full OSC support and a free iPhone/iPad remote control app. Not bad for a stodgy, old DAW that's been around for close to 30 years.
Last of all, I do agree that the fader buttons are identical and that is a real shame. If it does not change I won't be using the theme. As I stated before, I will not condone piracy in any form.
Well, as you can see I went to some extra effort to prove that point beyond a shadow of a doubt. Personally, you have to understand was that my upset was not so much at the idea that Adam wanted to do it, but rather his somewhat clueless audacity and obliviousness to the context of current events (SOS feature, etc.) that led him to walk into worldwide "DP User Central" and ask to be handed screenshots with which to create a Reaper verson of DP's "Producer" theme.
Many of us here are strong DP advocates and we're just a little sensitive to the sorts of misinformed public maligning that happens out there-- just as you are when it comes to Reaper. I am however, somewhat pleased to learn that Reaper's timeout screen increases the countdown. I won't go into detail, as I too hate piracy, but I imagine it's not all that hard for a sophisticated person to "reset the timer" if they're willing to put up with the inconvenience every 30 days or so.
