This community can use Sonar now for a while, at least until something breaks (some OS or other factor like new technology comes out making plugins no longer work, etc). In the end we will all be forced to leave for another DAW (or another solution). I will be moving over to ProTools as it IS the studio standard and makes hit records every day more than any other DAW. That's enough for me.
HOWEVER,
There is another option that has not been talked about. It will show whether there is real support or not..... I/we can start a KickStarter campaign. Let people put their money where their mouth is. Sooner or later you will need to pony up money for a solution. One possibility is to make that Sonar. I bet if a campaign offered 100k for rights to Sonar, that would get Gibson's attention.
Again, I am a Senior Software Engineer (although not in C++ which I assume Sonar was written). The Campaign could either promise to open source it, or not. I don't really care either way. I would think a couple devs could keep it alive and moving forward. With that small overhead, it would even be a viable small business. I might even be willing to run it (open source or not).
If the campaign fails, then just call it quits and best of luck to all of us.
Thoughts?
-Jeff