Payment request beforehand?

Hi,
I’m new to Ardour. I’m so new to Ardour that I have not even used it yet. The cause is that I wanted to download, to try it, to see if it fits my needs… but I couldn’t because a payment (for precompiled version) is needed.
I do understand that programmers eat and buy clothing and send the children to school, like everypne. I also do understand that a good piece of software is expensive to develop. That’s why other similar software is so expensive. I myself became a Logic Express user, after having tested Garageband, i.e. after having checked that it was what I wanted, I paid for it. Same with many other software, like Fusion, Crossover, Textpad, Mandriva…
The same way, I would happily pay for Ardour… but I want to know what am I paying for.
I will not download the sources, because I wouldn’t know what to do with it. A “lite“ version of the software would be great. At least a “demo mode“, something like that.
In the meantime, I’ll expect for the possibility to download to be free of charge again, and if then (and only then) I decide to keep it because is so great as they say, if it’s compatible with my particular hardware and devices… only then I’d pay for it or become a subscriber.
Cheers

@Adolfo: once we get to August, things will revert to the previous situation where you can choose to not pay. If you notice over there on the upper right of this page there is a running counter showing how close am to making $4500 for this month. Not only will I not make it, but it looks as if it will be worst month since I stopped receiving corporate support for working on Ardour. 2 or 3 more months at this sort of level, and my working fulltime on Ardour is over, which may also imply that my work on Ardour at any level is over. As an experiment, the download system was modified mid-month to deny free downloads of pre-built versions. The experiment hasn’t been particularly successful, although it did bump numbers just a little. At this point, I think that is is unlikely to be repeated.

I would note that the vast majority of other software is not available as a cost-free download. Its either always cost-free, or shareware, or bundled with some piece of hardware. There is absolutely no such thing as a demo-version of ProTools or Nuendo or Samplitude or Logic. Reaper is a notable exception.

@paul: It would be a great shame if work on ardour was to stop, but I think there is just not much money for anyone at the moment. So far this month I’ve made approx GBP 40 from plugin sales And I expect the final total will not be much better. It costs me approx GBP 1000 each month to develop software fulltime…

You can test it for free on several Linux distributions (I have run it on Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu). There are few differences between the Linux version and the OS X version, so you can try out the Linux one and if it meets your needs buy the OS X one.

These are dreadful news, Paul.

I’ve compiled the current development version of Ardour3 just two days ago and I’m really excited about MIDI editing. I’m not using Ardour very often actually as for my purposes often just recording from the command line is sufficient, but I am planning on doing proper multitrack recording in a few months from now.

If development of Ardour could not be sustained anymore that would be extremely saddening to a great many people I believe.

Actually, I think that the idea of not offering pre-compiled packages for free is a very good one. The source is freely available. People who want to have this simple step be taken over by someone else might as well pay a little fee, especially given that Ardour is probably the best-known professional audio software in the world of free software.

I’ll submit part of my promised sponsorship for MIDI early and I hope many more people will.

@rekado: i’m trying to be optimistic. but in the end, if there are not enough financial resources flowing into the project to permit me to live from it (let alone the incredible work that carl hetherington has been putting in over the last many months), then one just has to face the fact that the resources aren’t there. for now, lets remain optimistic that its just a down month, and that once we get ardour3 out into beta testing, excitement and interest will show an upward trend that leads to better financial flow.

It looks very likely that the user base of ardour will increase in the months following the final release of ardour3, given the much anticipated MIDI features, assuming that they work well enough. There is a group of new potential users like myself for whom MIDI is essential, who have not used ardour up until now as a result.

Statistically then, you can expect an increase in donations/sponsorship along with the increase in user base. Whether this will be enough I guess none of us can know in advance. I hope you can hang on long enough to find out.

Paul: Ever considered go the Reaper way and make a popup window in a neverexpiring trial version that tells users it’s time to register and pay (a very fair fee)?

@lundberg: i make the “nag screen” appear only after an export. it felt better that way. it does exist. if you haven’t seen it, you haven’t done an export :slight_smile:

Ooops, I missed that one, and I exported a song yesterday… Or is it removed because I payed to download?

@lundberg: ah, that’s right. it exists only in the free version. if you already paid, i’m not going to nag you again.

Also a subscriber (but forgot to log in before I did it), and I think I would appreciate the old fashion way to buy a license number (or a license file) to enter in a box in the application. But of course that would stop most of the donations, I guess. Ah well, I don’t really know what is the better way to do it. For me, as studio technician that refuses to abandon Linux, Ardour is essential and I would hate if it discontinues due to financial issues.

You have a point there, Paul. I’ll return in a few days to check. I look forward to test Ardour, and to support a work well done.
Kind regards

@ paul “The experiment hasn’t been particularly successful, although it did bump numbers just a little. At this point, I think that is is unlikely to be repeated.”

are you sure? to me it looks not to bad, you could even make it… i hope so!

@lokki: yes, actually, i didn’t look carefully enough. its a bit of a mixed blessing in terms of the numbers. actual numbers of downloads dropped by about 50%, but the income from them over a 7 day period went up by 10-20%. the other factor is this thread, which has likely caused a few people to make non-download related donations/payments. its certainly true that the month no longer looks so bad.

@paul

that’s what i thought… it was the same about a year ago, when the whole pay for the download thing started. you had a thread on the main site, and for a month or two you made the goal (or even more). the problem is, that people tend to forget and every time you tell them again it’s a little less successful. and it’s an unpleasant thing to remind people every two or three months. i would suggest you either stay the way it is now with the downloads, or you create a version for free, that has more limitations then the current one. maybe only 4 tracks recording or no export longer then 2 minutes.

I’d second the vote to not make any decisions until Ardour 3 has been out for a while. I haven’t become a subscriber yet either because I just have too much invested in midi control and sequencing and Ardour doesn’t quite solve problems for me at this point. I wish I had the financial means to donate just because I think it’s cool, but I need to be using it for real work to do so. I suspect that if the midi automation support is good, and and a good job is done of publicizing it, you will see a real increase in attention to ardour.

I think live independent multi-track looping support would do that even more. but from what I gather from previous posts that would be a mammoth task. I’m currently trying to decide whether to make my looper in Python and Csound and pipe into Ardour or try to get Ardour to do what I want.

iain

@iainduncan: I think live independent multi-track looping support would do that even more. but from what I gather from previous posts that would be a mammoth task

We rely on SooperLooper for that, written by one of Ardour's original very active developers Jesse Chappell, now busy with ThumbJam for the iPhone/iTouch/iPad.

Hi - I only paid $5 because I wanted to try this out, see if it fits my purposes - $45 is a lot of money for me. But for $5, the site seems to direct me to the version for Mac OSX only, even though I checked Linux. If I pay $45, will I have access to a version for Linux? I am worried now that this site might only let me have the Mac version.

You should be able to download either the Linux or Mac version, precompiled, if you paid. Were you logged in when you paid by chance? And did you pay as part of the download process or by clicking the ‘donate’ button on the main page?

      Seablade