open source challenges (was Re: FreeBSD Most wanted)

[Mike Hoskins]

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Vulpes Velox wrote:
> For itunes? what part do you want? exporting? well we can do that far
> bloody better... nfs, smb, and then there is some awesome streaming

as a closet musician, i wish there was a good fbsd audio solution.
there's not, really, and that's no fault of fbsd's.  (because there aren't
good one's - imco - for linux either, which has much more commercial
buy-in at this point.)  assuming you actually get your high-end audio card
recognized (mine aren't even supported), you either don't find the tools
you need (because there's no real incentive to develop them for free) or
you find tools which mostly work, but produce sub-standard output quality.
(that's even a problem with many windoze-based solutions costing $$$.)

again, that's absolutely nothing against fbsd...  i don't even consider
itunes a "real" audio package.  (only audio newbies would, imco.)  this
all has very little to do with fbsd, related advocacy, etc. and more to do
with open source as a whole.  i'm sure more open source apps will come
down the road over time, but acting like certain areas aren't lacking
seems pointless.

so what's the end result?  it's not that i decide to write my own audio
solution and device drivers for fbsd (wish i had the time), but instead i
use different tools for different tasks.  when i want a server or
workstation, i use fbsd.  when i want to create audio, i turn to windoze
or macos.  not because i love using those operating systems, but because
when i do use them i'm in a mood to create audio/video and not spend five
hours tweeking OS settings just to get sub-standard output.

that's a challenge open source faces in many areas...  it's not just about
developing tools, but developing tools that actually make people go "yeah,
i'd rather use that".

-m