On Wed, 26 Nov 2003, Thomas Webb wrote:

>> As a general rule, musicians who don't care about
>> proprietary vs. open source won't be running Linux to begin with.
> I hope this won't always be true. It if it, Linux has
> no future.

But Linux is already here! 

Without guessing how big or small impact Linux will have in audio sw, in
the long run, it will definitely have a role. I'm pretty confident that I
can open my old recording sessions on a modern PC in let's say 2010. I can
already open my sessions on both a 486SX bought in 1992, as well a laptop
bought this year. I guess I could keep an old Win9x machine around to
access the stuff I've written with old Win9x apps, but what if that
machine breaks down - can I purchase an old machine capable of running
Win95x, a license for it and all the required sw in 2010? Nopes, I don't
want to count on that, I want to access my old stuff on a modern machine
in 2010, and Linux allows me this.

Knowledge of this - that I will be able to access my music even if I
upgrade/change my hardware/distro - is one big reason why I want to record
my music on Linux and using FOSS apps. No commercial company - no matter
how benevolent - can guarantee me this.

I don't personally have anything against commercial software (neither open
or closed sourced, even though I personally prefer the former), but it is 
worth to note that FOSS (free-and-open...) has certain advantages that 
commercial players can never match, and similarly commercial side has 
certain advantages which are really hard for FOSS projects to compete 
with.

-- 
 http://www.eca.cx
 Audio software for Linux!