[gmpi] NAMM follow-up, some major decisions to make

> Hi folks,
> 
> We held a GMPI working group meeting last Sunday as part of the MMA
> annual general meeting.  Tim Hockin did a great job presenting the
> requirements document, and I presented some preliminary material and
> took a few bullets during the follow-up Q&A.
> 
> About a dozen people attended the meeting.  I apologize if you were
> there and I didn't get to say "hello" personally to each of you.
> 
> Right now we're in a very strange place with respect to the MMA and we
> need to decide what to do next.  Two major companies who we had hoped
> would be at least minimally supportive of this effort have expressed
> their disinterest.  The feeling was that the best thing GMPI will do
> is enable smaller plugin vendors to easily deliver across mulitple
> platforms (thanks to the planned wrappers), but that larger
> established plugin vendors already have this technology and don't need
> it.  
> 
> There was also concern about the fact that GMPI would potential be
> developed in a way that large commercial companies would have little
> control over.  The point was made that the MMA is supposed to be
> companies who make money doing this sort of thing; if a GMPI working
> group member wasn't willing to pay the $400 to join the trade
> association then they can't be taken seriously as a commercial
> enterprise.
> 
> I personally understand both points of view.  I happen to think the
> idea of enabling smaller vendors to deliver on more platforms more
> easily is very attractive.  Ultimately it will drive innovation among
> music plugins and instruments.  But I also agree (as a commercial
> vendor) that this needs to "matter" to parties who are doing this for
> a living, either individually or as part of a company.
> 
> So, decision time.  We can continue on outside the MMA and start
> writing code on SourceForge or similar.  But this runs the risk of
> increasing the amount of noise from casual participants.  There is
> also the dange that GMPI as implemented starts to diverge from the
> requirements that we worked so hard on.  And when we're done there is
> little assurance that an association like the MMA will want to adopt
> GMPI.  (It's bears mention that the MMA would want the copyright on
> the specification -- not necessary the "reference implementation" aka
> the code.)
> 
> Or, we each can consider how "commercial" we are, and decide whether
> or not joining the MMA makes sense.  I believe there are about a
> half-dozen or so small for-profit companies represented on this list,
> all of whom aren't in the MMA.  IF these all join, AND these all agree
> to participate in the version 1 effort within the MMA, we stand a MUCH
> greater chance of getting broad commercial adoption.
> 
> Comments?
>

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