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

  • From: Paul Davis <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: gmpi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 11:52:17 -0500

>> 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.

Sorry I couldn't be there. No particular reason to be at NAMM other
than this (the product announcements this year were dismal, as
expected :).

>> 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

Since people who attended the meeting presumably knew who this was,
would you mind telling those of us who didn't ?

>> 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

"Large commercial companies". Hmm. Can't be Steinberg - US$26M isn't
large. So we're talking about who here? Apple? Avid/Digidesign?
Yamaha? Microsoft? And guess what: companies like this have little
control over the development of IPv6, or DNS, or HTTP, or SMTP or
various other standards that have all benefited from quite
significantly. I would point out that companies like Yamaha and Korg
are already benefitting from the development of an operating system
that they simultaneously have zero and absolute control over - quite a
conundrum.

>> 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 agree with this, even though I would actually get very little
benefit from the expense. 

>> So, decision time.  We can continue on outside the MMA and start
>> writing code on SourceForge or similar.  But this runs the risk of

Please, not sf.net. Their entire system has become terribly
overloaded. It costs hardly anything to host a significant
collaborative development system - I could do it right now via my
hosting service for zero extra cost. I'm not suggesting this the right
way, but we "own" gmpi.org or something similar already, and we should
not be worried about setting up a development system.

There is no reason to open up development to anyone. My host (ardour)
has downloads available for anyone, read-only CVS for a limited set of
beta testers, and write-access for less than a dozen people. You let
people in based on their participation in the requirements process,
clearly demonstrated existing skills and, as time goes by, the quality
of their contributions as judged by the rest of the community.

It occurs to me that it is *possible* that some of you who work for
commercial concerns might not have much experience of running open,
net-based, collaborative software development efforts. It doesn't
hurt, honest :)

>> 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.)

these have been risks we've known about all along. 

>> 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.

I told the Linux Audio Developers mailing list year that I would be
happy to join the MMA "on behalf" of LAD so that we had explicit
representation in the process. I stand by that intent, and I also
believe that, although the MMA is not the absolute ideal body for this
(a true standards body like the ISO or even the less commercial AES
would be better), its still a very, very good option.

--p

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