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

NAMM follow-up, some major decisions to makeIf that can make it unlinked from 
MIDI internally.. 




  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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