manual/xml/why_is_it_called_ardour.xml

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   5 ]>
   6
   7 <section id="sn-why-is-it-called-ardour">
   8         <title>Why is it called "Ardour" and other questions</title>
   9         <section id="why-ardour">
  10                 <title>Why "Ardour" ?</title>
  11                 <para>
  12                         The name "Ardour" came from considerations of how to pronounce the acronym
  13                         <glossterm linkend="gt-hdr">HDR</glossterm> (Hard Disk Recorder). The most obvious attempt sounds like a
  14                         vowelless "harder" and it then was then a short step to an unrelated by
  15                         slightly homophonic word:
  16                 </para>
  17
  18                 <para>
  19                         <emphasis>ardour</emphasis>
  20                         <quote>
  21                                 n 1: a feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or
  22                                 cause); "they were imbued with a revolutionary ardor"; "he felt a kind of
  23                                 religious zeal" [syn: ardor, elan, zeal] 2: intense feeling of love [syn:
  24                                 ardor] 3: feelings of great warmth and intensity; "he spoke with great
  25                                 ardor" [syn: ardor, fervor, fervour, fervency, fire, fervidness]
  26                         </quote>
  27                 </para>
  28
  29                 <para>
  30                         Given the work required to develop Ardour, and the personality of its
  31                         primary author, the name seemed appropriate even without the vague
  32                         relationship to <glossterm linkend="gt-hdr">HDR</glossterm> .
  33                 </para>
  34
  35                 <para>
  36                         Years later, another interpretation of "Ardour" appeared, this time based
  37                         on listening to non-native English speakers attempt to pronounce the word.
  38                         Rather than "Ardour", it became "Our DAW", which seemed poetically fitting
  39                         for a <glossterm linkend="gt-daw">Digital Audio Workstation</glossterm>  whose source code and design belongs to a
  40                         group of collaborators.
  41                 </para>
  42         </section>
  43
  44         <section id="why-write-another-daw">
  45                 <title>Why write another DAW?</title>
  46                 <para>
  47                         There are already a number of excellent digital audio workstations. To
  48                         mention just a few: ProTools, Nuendo, Samplitude, Digital Performer, Logic,
  49                         Cubase (SX), Sonar, along with several less well known systems such as
  50                         SADIE, SAWStudio and others. Each of these programs has its strengths and
  51                         weaknesses, although over the last few years most of them have converged on
  52                         a very similar set of core features. However, each of them suffers from two
  53                         problems when seen from the perspective of Ardour's development group:
  54                 </para>
  55
  56                 <itemizedlist>
  57                         <listitem>
  58                                 <para>
  59                                         they do not run on Linux
  60                                 </para>
  61                         </listitem>
  62                         <listitem>
  63                                 <para>
  64                                         they are not available in source code form, making modifications,
  65                                         improvements, bugfixes by technically inclined users or their friends or
  66                                         consultants impossible.
  67                                 </para>
  68                         </listitem>
  69                 </itemizedlist>
  70         </section>
  71
  72         <section id="why-linux-and-osx">
  73                 <title>Why Linux (and OS X) ?</title>
  74                 <para>
  75                         Not running on Linux is understandable, given the rather small (but
  76                         growing) share of the desktop market that Linux has. However, when
  77                         surveying the landscape of "popular operating systems", we find:
  78                 </para>
  79
  80                 <itemizedlist>
  81                         <listitem>
  82                                 <para>
  83                                         older versions of Windows: plagued by abysmal stability and appalling
  84                                         security
  85                                 </para>
  86                         </listitem>
  87                         <listitem>
  88                                 <para>
  89                                         Windows XP: finally, a version of Windows that seems stable but still
  90                                         suffers from incredible security problems
  91                                 </para>
  92                         </listitem>
  93                         <listitem>
  94                                 <para>
  95                                         OS X: an amazing piece of engineering that is excellent for audio work
  96                                         but only runs on proprietary hardware and still lacks the flexibility and
  97                                         adaptability of Linux.
  98                                 </para>
  99                         </listitem>
 100                 </itemizedlist>
 101
 102                 <para>
 103                         Security matters today, and will matter more in the future as more and more
 104                         live or semi-live network based collaborations take place.
 105                 </para>
 106
 107                 <para>
 108                         Let's contrast this with Linux, an operating system which:
 109                 </para>
 110
 111                 <itemizedlist>
 112                         <listitem>
 113                                 <para>
 114                                         can stay up for months (or even years) without issues
 115                                 </para>
 116                         </listitem>
 117                         <listitem>
 118                                 <para>
 119                                         is endlessly configurable down to the tiniest detail
 120                                 </para>
 121                         </listitem>
 122                         <listitem>
 123                                 <para>
 124                                         is not owned by any single corporate entity, ensuring its life and
 125                                         direction are not intertwined with that of a company (for a contrary
 126                                         example, consider BeOS)
 127                                 </para>
 128                         </listitem>
 129                         <listitem>
 130                                 <para>
 131                                         is fast and efficient
 132                                 </para>
 133                         </listitem>
 134                         <listitem>
 135                                 <para>
 136                                         runs on almost any computing platform ever created, including old "slow"
 137                                         systems
 138                                 </para>
 139                         </listitem>
 140                         <listitem>
 141                                 <para>
 142                                         is one of the most secure operating systems "out of the box"
 143                                 </para>
 144                         </listitem>
 145                 </itemizedlist>
 146
 147                 <para>
 148                         More than anything, however, Ardour's primary author uses Linux and wanted
 149                         a DAW that ran there.
 150                 </para>
 151
 152                 <para>
 153                         Having written a DAW for Linux, it turned out to be relatively easy to port
 154                         Ardour to OS X, mostly because of the excellent work done by the JACK OS X
 155                         group that ported JACK to OS X. Although OS X has a number of disadvantages
 156                         compared to Linux, its ease of use and its presence in many studios already
 157                         makes it a worthwhile platform.
 158                 </para>
 159         </section>
 160
 161         <section id="why-doesnt-ardour-run-on-windows">
 162                 <title>Why doesn't Ardour run on Windows ?</title>
 163                 <para>
 164                         There have been several discussions about porting Ardour to Windows. The
 165                         obstacles are relatively few in number, but rather substantial in
 166                         significance. Ardour was written to run on operating systems that properly
 167                         and efficiently support a portable operating system standard called <glossterm linkend="gt-posix">POSIX</glossterm>
 168                         (endorsed by the US government and many other large organizations). Linux
 169                         and OS X both do a good job of supporting POSIX, but Windows does not. In
 170                         particular, the efficiency with which Windows handles certain aspects of
 171                         the POSIX standard makes it very hard to port Ardour to that platform. It
 172                         is not impossible that we will port Ardour at some point, but Windows
 173                         continues to be a rather unsuitable platform for pro-audio work despite the
 174                         improvements that have been made to it in the last few years.
 175                 </para>
 176         </section>
 177
 178         <section id="need-dsp-hardware">
 179                 <title>Don't I need DSP hardware to run a good DAW?</title>
 180                 <para>
 181                         Please see XXX
 182                         for a discussion of the merits of dedicated DSP hardware.
 183                 </para>
 184         </section>
 185
 186         <section id="ardour-is-complicated">
 187                 <title>Isn't this a really complicated program?</title>
 188                 <para>
 189                         There is no point in pretending that Ardour is a simple, easy to use
 190                         program. The development group has worked hard to try to make simple things
 191                         reasonably easy, common tasks quick, and hard and/or uncommon things
 192                         possible. There is no doubt that we have more to do in this area, as well
 193                         as polishing the user interface to improve its intuitiveness and work flow
 194                         characteristics. At the same time, multi-track, multi-channel, non-linear,
 195                         non-destructive audio editing is a far from simple process. Doing it right
 196                         requires not only a good ear, but a solid appreciation for basic audio
 197                         concepts and a robust mental model/metaphor of what you are doing. Ardour
 198                         is not a simple "audio recorder" - you can certainly use it to record
 199                         stereo (or even mono) material in a single track, but the program has been
 200                         designed around much richer capabilities than this.
 201                 </para>
 202         </section>
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