Ardour and Funding

[Kiernan Holland]

I keep spelling Ton's last name wrong.. It's Ton Roosendaal . I've always
had a hard time with that last name. Anyhow, Ton's one of the kindest
people.. I'm sure if he doesn't respond to Paul  it will be because he's too
busy. But Ton was in Paul's position sort of when blender was in freeware,
and Ton was asking $60K to develop blender each year. He eventually got to
pursue blender as a commercial/freeware project, with about 5 million seed
funding.. But that's what led to the effort to release the sources, cause
NaN went bankrupt. I'm out of touch with Ton, but I'm sure he's still
developing the software mostly himself because he's a bit of a perfectionist
(and concerned about it's development because it's his baby). But I'm not
sure how much of the development is being shared with the community. I
pressured after the sources were released, that there should be more
involvement with the users on what features should be in blender. But Ton
pushed the point that only those who develop get the features they want in.
But somewhere, maybe when I left forums, something happened, and it seems
they found a way to work better with the community.

I'm not suggesting Paul get involved in the same way that was done with
blender, but that he may find a better way to receive support than especting
direct support, like providing a product aside from the development, like
pre-purchased DVD's and a name in the credits of some music work. Remember
what made Jonathan Coulton popular? Song a week  and puting the result into
creative commons. If Paul could do that with his software, distribute the
sources with a musical CD or a Video, released in creative commons and liner
notes with contributors and pre-purchasers in the credits, that would
probably fund Ardour's development better.  He might  have to change his
name, or go under a nickname, because there is an American songwriter named
Paul Davis who made a lot of songs in the 70s and 80s, like "I go crazy",
"cool night" and "'65 love affair". But now that Paul Davis passed away
(RIP), there should be less confusion, just may make releasing a commercial
CD harder.
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