c'est dans les vieux pots qu'on fait la meilleur confiture !

sharke
 
[...] I lived in hope that these issues would one day get fixed. [...]

This simple statement summarizes Gibson's business model and its vehement defense by the individuals that represented it here on the forum for the past few years. Everything shifted from "product in hand" to "buy it as is, and one day you might see what you were hoping for." Only in the software world can this ever fly, with the caveat of if it can lead to financial destruction or loss of life (those ones are pretty regulated).
 
Dumb anecdote from an SLT meeting (not Gibson nor Cakewalk, nor even a company in this industry) that I heard of years ago... When asked about what was being done to mitigate a risk, the business lead began with "We hope..." and was immediately interrupted by the senior member slamming his fist on the table and shouting, "Hope is a religious experience, not a business action!"
 
Two years ago I made the conscious decision to do what everyone is forced to do now; i.e., choosing the best version I have available and "locking it in time" so that all bugs are static and can be worked around in a static manner. Any massive gaps then get filled by third parties. From a time perspective, this was the best vehicle to maximize usage hours versus the "wtf was that?" moments. So much of what has occurred made the assumption that hobbyists (and I agree the majority of users probably are) have the time bandwidth to religiously read the forums and e-zines to keep up with changes and issues rather than using the program. Additionally, people who have grown accustomed to workarounds are often not capable of placing themselves in a new users shoes.

probably 95% of the users of all DAWs are hobbyists. One funny thing no one points out: everyone saying what a great and valuable feature and selling point this forum was.... fat lot of good that did-- maybe to the younger crowd the forum is a turnoff

Tried to start a new thread, but after four attempts I’ll just leave this here:

https://www.roland.com/Ro.../pdf/2013/20130924.pdf

dafunk104
If Gibson is not going to do anything then maybe they would not mind turning it into an open source project.

Although I understand the desire for this, what nobody seems to realize is that if a powerful DAW like Sonar became open source, it would put all the other DAWs (and their employees) out of business. Who'd pay for Cubase or Logic or Ableton or Studio One when they could get Sonar for free? No one. As a programmer myself and someone that thinks a programmer should get paid for his work, I think open sourcing Sonar would be a really, really bad idea.

dafunk104
If Gibson is not going to do anything then maybe they would not mind turning it into an open source project.

Kamm Schreiner
Although I understand the desire for this, what nobody seems to realize is that if a powerful DAW like Sonar became open source, it would put all the other DAWs (and their employees) out of business. Who'd pay for Cubase or Logic or Ableton or Studio One when they could get Sonar for free? No one. As a programmer myself and someone that thinks a programmer should get paid for his work, I think open sourcing Sonar would be a really, really bad idea.

Of course not, there are open source alternatives all over the internet. People need support as well that will never be free. There's also lots of paid software based on open source software bases.

Also who will maintain the code base for free? Some people will do tweaks but huge new features aren't going to happen without financial backing.

I certainly would pay for all those DAWs rather than use Sonar right now.

However I'd love to see it open source even with the third party code stripped out. Maybe something could be done.

The main issue with Sonar that will turn off open source devs is perhaps that it only runs on one OS.

Kamm Schreiner

dafunk104
If Gibson is not going to do anything then maybe they would not mind turning it into an open source project.

Although I understand the desire for this, what nobody seems to realize is that if a powerful DAW like Sonar became open source, it would put all the other DAWs (and their employees) out of business. Who'd pay for Cubase or Logic or Ableton or Studio One when they could get Sonar for free? No one. As a programmer myself and someone that thinks a programmer should get paid for his work, I think open sourcing Sonar would be a really, really bad idea.

I'm not convinced this would be the case, for a number of reasons:
 
1. There isn't one open source DAW that is in the top 10, and there's a fair few about that are actually ok.
2. There's still a stigma attached to open source, pretty much unfounded these days, but brands and commercial software carry weight.
3. Support is a huge part of using a software product. If you rely on your DAW for making a living you want support you can rely on. Not just bug fixes, or enhancements - you want to know there's someone at the end of a phone.
4. Would people who didn't use Sonar before because they had to pay for it suddenly switch if it became free? Sonar Artist was pretty much fully functional and VERY reasonably priced. Even SPLAT was much cheaper than Cubase or Pro Tools.
 
If Gibson did something like RedHat/CentOS where the program was open source, but you paid for the supported version that would be a great call (they could even charge for different levels of support), but I doubt if they'd go for it. Craig Anderton had some great ideas for additional income streams, but Gibson weren't interested.
 
My bet it Gibson is using Cakewalk as a tax wright-off. They won't make it open source as this will affect its value, and hence the amount of tax they can write off. Once they've benefited from the write-off, maybe they'd be open to ideas, but I suspect they've made their mind up and consider it dead unless a buyer comes along.
 

That and there aren't enough people who are good enough to do that sort of programming and willing to do it without compensation.

Well from the various forums that I follow there appears to be a consensus, amongst both users and non users of Cakewalk products, which is a growing dislike for Gibson. They have in almost one voice stated they will never buy anything ever again with the name Gibson on it. Gibson have more than shot themselves in the foot, they appeared to have taken a fatal shot and limped into a hole, never to come out again. 

CakeAlexSHere
Yup :)

 
"Time to move on" hopefully includes you, too.