Alex;
The most annoying thing for me is that he is flatly accusing all free
> software of being buggy, and not free in that you have to spend a lot
> of time compiling it and messing around troubleshooting. This seems
> rather an out of date point of view, and certainly not applicable to
> vlc.
I don't think that's "out of date" in the given context (computer music), as
one of the first great developments there (the music n series) was also one
of the first great events for "arty" open source. I quote Barry Vercoe in
the CSound Handbook, page XVII; "Like Max Mathews, I then gave this away as
fast as I could, [ ]" (referring to Music 360). FOSS music software was here
before the ICMC or MP4 were, and I believe it'll be here after they are
gone.
Of course there are bugs, this is why we have the exact open peer-review
they aim for. I try to put in my share of time there (seeing as how I
greatly benefit too). People make claims, these are then reviewed and either
verified and enjoyed as a new part of applied knowledge (and nice beeps) or
counter-claims are made in the form of bug-reports and/or patches. Then we
start over. This can go through several cycles a day. On a very small scale
this is *exactly* what peer review is about, a implementation of
the scientific method on a micro scale. Eventually this benefits all (or at
least all who feel like stopping by for some music or a game or....). I'm
not saying FLOSS is a requirement for this process but it's certainly a very
direct implementation and it's this process that many of us are involved in
right now that (as far as I know) was at the core of the origin of computer
music as well.
I can see limiting submissions to certain formats to keep things reasonable
but this -to me- goes too far and the presented reasoning seems to deny both
the history and the practical reality of computer music in the present. Ogg
is open, it's free and widely used. It's specifically meant to make sure
everyone is able to and permitted to use it. I'd say it's extremely well
suited for a level and impartial playing-field.
Instead we are seeing the equivalent of preaching in Latin here.
OK, I'm in a bad mood (largely due to unrelated factors) and should leave it
at this. Sorry if I got exaggeratedly passionate here, but I like curious
people and I like things that benefit all and I believe this method of
peer-review (in FLOSS or science or both) is as good a road to combining
those as we are going to get.
Yours,
Kas.
Received on Mon Jan 17 2011 - 20:23:39 GMT