disfrontman wrote:Marc,
I believe in caveat emptor. Anybody buying this product knows it is a "kitchen sink" invention by a gifted hobbyist. The expectations for regular updates, timelines, and breakthroughs are just foolish, IMHO. Your clients are buying from a brilliant tinkerer, not from a company with millions in R&D and a staff of engineers. If they have any delusions to the contrary, that's their own fault. But that's just me.
@disfrontman -
Yes, that's just you.
If a product is advertised as a "kitchen sink", whatever that is, and is portrayed as something less than it is intended to be, as in "experimental", "beta", "a hobbyist's unfinished work", "tinkerer's tinkering", "it's meant to do thus but I can't guarantee its functionality with all the DAWs listed as compatible", or some other portrayal of an un-productized development effort, then sure, don't expect much in the way of getting what you've paid for. Caveat emptor indeed. But when you've seen advertised for sale a capabilty with no warnings, provisions, or exceptions, even a shrewd buyer has no way of knowing that the product does not live up to its advertized functionality.
You clearly have no "skin in the game" because if you did, and you did not get what you paid for, your perspective would likely be much different. For me, my skin includes not only the $350 I paid up front for the software but hours of interface research and documentation, additional software purchased for that activity (Bome MIDI Translator) costing another $80, Perl software development to aid in the parsing of MIDI messages exchanged between D8Bridge and the DAW, and the time and energy it has taken to accurately document in great detail issues in v1.1 which I've provided to Marc to assist him in the continued development he indicated he would be doing. When you have that kind of "skin in the game" then I think it will be fair for you to criticize the expectations of others.
As far as millions in R&D and a staff of engineers, I don't think anyone has those expectations. We all know that BluAudio is a 1 - 2 man shop and nobody expects them to perform like a heavily resouced outfit. I don't even think "regular updates" are expected, just what Marc has said he intended to do. And I think most everybody here understands that Marc has been challenged by some life events and I think we all understand the implications. The fact is, it doesn't take a large staff and millions in R&D to develop and maintain a product like D8Bridge. It is basically a serial-to-MIDI translator and one or two smart guys can manage nicely to develop and maintain it, given no substantial interference from life events. When Marc is back on his feet I hope he resumes his stewardship of this wonderful concept.
To be clear, I am a big fan of D8Bridge 1.1. I don't feel deluded at all. I feel like I haven't gotten completely what I paid for, what was advertised, and because of that I feel like I can't recommend it to colleagues, but I really want to. I think these guys have done a pretty good job and with just a few exceptions I am satsfied with the performance of 1.1. But there are a few things that need fixing and I'm staying tuned in to try to support and encourage that. I want Marc to get through his life circumstances successfully and get back on his feet. I also want to feel like I know what's going on, since I have "some skin in the game", so if I hear that development is resuming I want to trust that report and not learn 2 months later that nothing has happened. An occasional status from BluAudio would help to manage my expectations, even if it's to report that Marc's still focused on sorting out some personal matters. I really hope Marc continues to resolve his issues, and to let us know how he's doing and what's going on with D8Bridge 1.2. In my mind, these are not unreasonable things to hope for.
