Collaboration proposal (open source projects)

forart.eu · **on:** August 24, 2007, 04:24:05 AM

Hi everyone, very interesting discussions here.

I'm supporting some open source projects that could be *very* interesting for audio geeks:

1. Traverso

Quote

a free, cross platform (Linux, Mac and Windows) multitrack audio recording and editing suite, with an innovative and easy to master User Interface. It's suited for both the professional and home user, who needs a robust and solid DAW.

2. NASPRO

Quote

*will* be a free, powerful, reusable, modular, real-time capable, thread-safe, scalable, standard-agnostic, cross-platform DSP framework for sound processing.

3. FreeBand

Quote

a (SQL-less) framework that allows you to make a website for your band with little effort.

4. Haiku

Quote

an open source effort to first recreate and then extend a most excellent, once-commercially-supported, closed-source, media-oriented desktop computer operating system called the Be operating system (BeOS). Haiku aims to provide users of all levels with a personal computing experience that is simple yet powerful, and void of any unnecessary complexities.

5. ReactOS

Quote

I hope someone will collaborate -in any way- for spreading and helping the projects evolution.

Marco Ravich
--
>>Forward Agency
In progress we (always) trust.

adf · **Reply #1 on:** August 24, 2007, 06:27:43 AM

I think this is right up Gerk's street - it'll be interesting to hear what he says.

Andy (a Mac fan!

)

Caine · **Reply #2 on:** August 24, 2007, 08:47:18 AM

looks interesting...especially these two OS. maybe the symplicity helps save power for audio-software.
the reactos-site seems to be down, though

Gerk · **Reply #3 on:** August 25, 2007, 02:58:55 PM

All looks interesting

I've played with ReactOS a bit and was a big Be fan in the day, would still love to find a BeBox

so Haiku looks interesting! I have BeOS pro 5 running on an ooooold quad PowerPC box here, with a ton of hand compiled updates/upgrades.

Gerk

forart.eu · **Reply #4 on:** August 27, 2007, 04:56:28 AM

1st of all: ReactOS website (www.reactos.org) is perfectly working...

Quote from: Gerk on August 25, 2007, 02:58:55 PM

All looks interesting I've played with ReactOS a bit and was a big Be fan in the day, would still love to find a BeBox so Haiku looks interesting! I have BeOS pro 5 running on an ooooold quad PowerPC box here, with a ton of hand compiled updates/upgrades.

I'm glad. I was a BeOS fan too, and now I strongly believe in Haiku as a Linux alternative for multimedia production.
The main problem (IMHO) around it is that there isn't a multitrack application that could attract users actually; that's the reason why i support Traverso: it seems to be the unique open source multiplatform multitracker on the scene.
I already asked the feature of course, and seems that is not so hard to port it, but i'm not a developer unfortunally... $:-\$

BTW i also launched the HaMPS idea, that is collecting suggestions to build a live distro (in dyne:bolic vein) based on Haiku.

Last but not least, have you ever hear about BeOSMAX ?

Gerk · **Reply #5 on:** August 27, 2007, 12:30:26 PM

Sadly I don't have a lot of time to spend on those types of projects anymore, I kinda burned out on that stuff when I was the lead developer for Gentoo's powerpc port :/

Hadn't head of beosmax. I played a bit with the Haiku nightly build, but I couldn't get networking going and without networking it's no fun for me, I'm a network geek

Gerk

Sternen · **Reply #6 on:** August 28, 2007, 06:59:45 PM

There is a great Google Tech Talk with some of the brains behind Haiku. You can watch it at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=236331448076587879&q=haiku&total=1705&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Gerk · **Reply #7 on:** August 29, 2007, 12:55:05 PM

forart.eu · **Reply #8 on:** August 31, 2007, 04:11:44 AM

Quote from: Gerk on August 29, 2007, 12:55:05 PM

I can't do a single thing with the network stack at all, which for me makes it mostly useless, even for audio work at this point :/

I don't agree: the main problem is not the netstack IMHO, but the multitrack a/v suite (better if open sourced) inexistence.

Check out my 3ad about it on their forum.

Gerk · **Reply #9 on:** August 31, 2007, 06:01:02 PM

I guess we can agree to disagree on this one. I think they are taking sensible moves forward. They have had this os for 6 years now and are still working on low levels, so don't expect any leaps and bounds for releases, they are taking their time working out the details for all the low lever stuff -- which is not a bad thing!!

The last comment on that page makes sense to me, for them to concentrate on a new compiler and browser. You need a really good toolchain -- in this day and age especially, proper optimization goes a LONG way and is required for any sort of multimedia applications. Getting the toolchain and internals tweaked and optimized should come first, then worry about porting applications. No one is going to want to support things on an OS that's still in massive debugging mode with no optimizations.

They still have a lot of work ahead debugging and stabalizing things to get all these low levels in place from what I've seen. No sense in having a DAW if it's not stable IMHO. There's nothing worse than laying down that perfect track and watching your DAW application crash when you hit stop and you lose everything :/ Haiku is not (yet) as stable as BeOS was.

Mark