Pd social aspects (Re: [PD] PDDP meeting?)

[geiger]

Hi,

There are some general things I have to say regarding this thread,
which is, btw a discussion that I think is very important for Pd.

First, I do not think that technical reasons led to the fact that jMax
got abandoned. IMO its social reasons. When I first met Miller just after
he started in San Diego he still planned to continue on the IRCAM
version of MAX. IRCAM MAX was commercial software so this was not
possible, that is how Pd came into being (with a free license).

jMax died because it was not possible to get the community support, and
when they had no money any more it just got closed. At that time
probably most people were already using Pd or both, so it was not
a big loss. Maybe it was a mistake to make jMax free software, and
therefore compete with Pd directly. But maybe it was its salvation
at that time.

This can't happen with PD because there is no money behind its
development. Its based on a different development model.

This is also a drawback, of course. Some things can't be fixed easily
because it would require a big amount of work, money to buy computer
systems, and it might make other parts of the system unstable or
incompatible.

If Miller had to stop to develop Pd now, we would soon see several
versions of Pd popping up, competing against each other. This is
already the case actually, it is not bad for PD per se, but it can be
a terrible loss of energy. Well, I have my own version of Pd for
PDA, so I shouldn't complain, but still I think it is important to
focus our efforts.

This is also why I agree with Chris McCormick. I don't understand PD
develpers who complain about missing features, or how main Pd development
is handled. Its noone else but themselves who can change this situation.
Miller has always been very open to contributions and he includes patches
when time permits and also explains why he doesn't include others.

Günter


On Sun, 7 May 2006, Arie van Schutterhoef wrote:

> >x86-based SIMD didn't do floats until SSE1 and 3DNOW, but it doesn't
> >matter because jMax never used it and Miller's Pd never used it.
> -Which is not what I'm  saying, if you read more carefully. It's not even a
>  point I'm trying to make.
>
> > Does MAX/MSP use SSE and/or Altivec in its signal processing ?
> -Both are used (on WindowsMax and OSX-Max).
>
> >I think that the client/server separation is very worthwhile.
> -I think so too.
>
> >The dropouts are caused by not enough separation and/or by buffer-clogging.
> -Completely agree on that one too.
>  So are in the context of jMax are we talking about crappy programming or
>  crappy design?
>
> >> on the other hand with current dualcore processors becoming standard for
> >> the next couple of years, maybe it ought to be revived.>
> >You must be kidding. Pd already has a separate GUI thread (wish pd.tk).
> >The only advantage jMax has, is that all its GUI lives in that thread,
> -Indeed. Making it probably a better design, because it isn't in the way.
>
> >whereas Pd does lots of unnecessary coupling.
> -Agreed.
>
> >The amount of work left to make Pd cleanly client-server-separated is almost
> >nothing.
> -So why isn't that done?
>
> >Then there's the fact that at this point, the issue of getting audio
> >running fast enough, has already disappeared.
> -To what extent?
>
> >If it wasn't the case, many
> >more people would spend time on Pd devel_0_39, which can be up to 4 times
> >faster than Miller's Pd (except for fft~ in which case it's even faster).
> -Maybe people don't find that an issue.
>
> >Bringing in a second processor is thus not that useful.
> -Depends what you're trying to do, I guess...
>
> >> I think, by the way, IRCAM could have supported it slightly more
> >> decently with their lists.
> >What do you mean?
> -I remember that many times awkward questions were avoided or not even
>  answered. Also that the complete archive has been removed is rather
>  odd to say the least.
>
> AvS
>
>
>
>
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