Users and the development process (was: Re: See ya!)

Hi Steve, Daniel and all,

there we go, action on the list. :)

@Daniel: I was polemic, by intention. I might be in this email as
well. Please take my words with a grain of salt.

@Steve: Thanks for coming and rescuing me. ;-)

So, there are some things to reply to.

D = Daniel James

D > don't judge a professional by the complexity
D > of the tools they use, you go by the results.

You do need certain tools for certain results. To stay with analogies,
I want crosshairs on my rifle. I can't hit right with my bare eyes.

D > Squeezing every last dB out of those RMS meters leads
D > to nasty, over-compressed results.

No one is talking about squeezing. I want to go for a certain RMS-Peak
ratio to actually avoid overcompression, a thing recommended by
professionals[1] and hard to do without an appropriate meter.

D > I think you've misunderstood how free software works. [...]
D > With free software, once the developers are happy, 
D > there's no need to add new features.

O.O Right... To me, free software means more than just "here it is, get
lost and don't bother me". It means to develop a responsibility. If
there is a dissatisfied user, then there is something wrong with the
software. Hold on: Of course this is always an opinion. But no one is
"right" here. If the developer is happy, he has no obligation to improve
the software. But there is still something missing - in the user's
mind. The question is: Where do we go from here?

If the user is a programmer, he can fix it on his own. If he's a
gardener, oh well, he can go ahead and learn to program. If he can
afford it, he can pay the developer to add this nifty feature.

But the projects I've dealt with so far do it another way. They want
to build a tool that is useful not only to them, but to end users. So
the end user's opinion is a critical measurement of how they succeeded.
Of course, again, there is no obligation to work this way. But in my
mind it produces the better tools.

The Free Software world is no longer what it used to be back then. One
might cheer or cry about consumers installing Linux from an Ubuntu
cover CD found on a magazine. But developers begin to understand that
their software might be improved by listening to what makes actual users
happy that are not involved in the development. Projects like [2]
prove this approach.

D > Right, and you haven't offered to fund Jamin development
D > either, as I recall. [...] "I want specific features in Jamin
D > but I won't do any of the work, and I expect other people to
D > do that work for me - for free." So I'm not surprised the features
D > you want have not appeared yet.

Oh. As for "any of the work": Yes, I won't go, learn C and study DSP
algorithms to fix it myself. You see, there _are_ developers in the
project who know about all that stuff intimately.

For "expect": I don't expect anyone to do anything. I just wanted to
react on your "everythin is fine"-mail. I want to provide useful input,
which, in my mind, is actually to _give_ something.

"for free": From my observations I do not think fundig would affect the
development process of JAMin much, at least the funding I could give as
a person who is trying hard to make a living. And would it mean "now, I
paid you, go do this and that"? I doubt it, I wouldn't want that as a
developer. Let's just give it a try: I am ready to fund the feature
"configurable meter colors at configurabel levels", in the sense of [0]-
[-6]dBFS: red, [-6]dBFS - [-15]dBFS: yellow, below [-15]dBFS: green,
with 10,00 EUR per working hour. Let's see what happens.

For the -30dBFS:
D > Probably because if you are compressing audio that quiet, then
D > adding makeup gain to bring the peaks to 0dBFS, you will be raising
D > the noise floor a lot too. You'd be better off re-recording.

I do not want to add makeup gain. A 24 Bit recording with -15 dBFS peak,
-30 dBFS mean level and a noise floor somewhere around -100 dBFS is not
at all bad in a technical way. If I want to do some leveling with a 1.5
ratio and a threshold of -45 dBFS, the software should not get in the
way.

S = Steve Harris

S > > DSP development is definately a bottleneck
D > I don't see it that way, as a user. Jamin works great, there are
D > more LADSPA plugins than any one person could use

That is not my point. When I suggested RMS meters, the overall reply
was "good idea, but Steve is the only one who can do it". Steve is busy,
and he is right to be so. So development is stuck, in that area. That is
what I mean.

D > I think if users demand specific features then they should be
D > prepared to either help out, or fund that work.  If not, I have
D > about as much sympathy for them as I do for those people who moan
D > about a particular proprietary app crashing, but are using a cracked
D > copy they got from a mate.

I strongly agree here. Now, Daniel, how can I help out? As I said, I
can not and will not code. What is left? I can report bugs. JAMin runs
quite stable and does well what it does at the moment, so nothing to
report here. So I look around, find myself sitting in a studio, doing
recording and occasional kind-of-mastering work as an everyday
business. I have some Linux skills and I'd love to migrate my audio
work to free software. So - my point is, to provide an however biased
view and wishlist for JAMin from an every day audio user's perspective
seems something valuable for me. And it does "help out" in some way, in
my very own humble opinion. If you can't sympathize with that, then I
am sorry to bug you.

D > I see free software as a gift to the wider community, and I think
D > sending gifts back and expecting something 'better' is just rude...

That does not apply to me, as far as I see it. JAMin indeed is a gift,
and it is a great one. I've met Steve at a LAC in Karlsruhe and used
that opportunity to just give a personal "Thank you so much". I didn't
bug him with a wish list. :) Rude? No.

I do not "send back" JAMin either. I do not expect 'something better
instead', but I want to help (the little I can) to _make_ it something
better.

Right... lots of words. I hope I cleared the smoke a bit.


Best regards,
	Florian

References:

[1]
http://www.digido.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9&mode=&order=0&thold=0

[2] http://www.openusability.org/

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