UAD Linux Support Petition

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sjzstudio
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UAD Linux Support Petition

Post by sjzstudio »

I thought I'd share this here. You can delete if it's inappropriate.

https://forum.harrisonconsoles.com/thre ... l#pid58578

The petition is here :

https://www.change.org/p/linux-support- ... interfaces
Last edited by sjzstudio on Mon Jan 17, 2022 6:07 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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bluzee
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by bluzee »

Never hurts to have more hardware options I suppose.
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Largos
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by Largos »

The UAD person was being a dick and someone called their bluff, doesn't look they have any intention of supporting linux from the thread.
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by asbak »

They'll support whatever they will make money on but 10K signatures is a tall order. That market doesn't exist afaik, so for now it's probably not going to happen.
Some Focal / 20.04 audio packages and resources https://midistudio.groups.io/g/linuxaudio
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bluzee
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by bluzee »

Their analogue gear is worthy. I'm not sure about their audio interfaces. All they need to do is be class compliant.

The great irony here I think is that a company that specializes in custom hand built gear can't understand why people want a custom hand built OS.
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by Largos »

I think their problem will likely be the rest of the software they bundle with their devices as a selling point, not to mention their "eco system" of plugins.
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by bluzee »

They avoid the inherent issues with running plugins in Windows by running them on dedicated hardware directly inside their interface and then passing the processed audio back to Windows.
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by merlyn »

@sjzstudio I would suggest you change the title of this to thread to include the word 'petition' e.g. UAD Linux Support Petition.

I think we should all sign it. The petition is here :

https://www.change.org/p/linux-support- ... interfaces

The original post 'pledging' to support Linux has been edited -- UAD have reneged already, but it would be good to get as many signatures as possible. It looks like Universal Audio were using the petition to show that Linux has such a small user base that it's not worth supporting, but if there are a lot of signatures it shows the problem is with UAD, not Linux. :)
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Re: UAD Linux Support Petition

Post by sjzstudio »

The original post 'pledging' to support Linux has been edited -- UAD have reneged already, but it would be good to get as many signatures as possible. It looks like Universal Audio were using the petition to show that Linux has such a small user base that it's not worth supporting, but if there are a lot of signatures it shows the problem is with UAD, not Linux.
I also read their forum and found the same thing unfortunately. And also a nasty attitude between the lines. Depressing.

But luckily, it's easier to breathe in here. Freedom is nice.
Last edited by sjzstudio on Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: UAD Linux Support Petition

Post by d.healey »

Will these drivers be free software?
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by robbert-vdh »

asbak wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:39 pm They'll support whatever they will make money on but 10K signatures is a tall order. That market doesn't exist afaik, so for now it's probably not going to happen.
Well they moved the goalposts shortly after telling people to go ahead and make a petition to requiring every signee to have a UAD device registered to their account. So they're obviously not intending to ever actually support Linux because who would buy an expensive appliance like that they wouldn't even be able to use.
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Re: UAD Linux Support Petition

Post by Largos »

d.healey wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 6:12 pm Will these drivers be free software?
They won't exist but to quote what they said
Our UAD ecosystem is "self contained" inside our driver which includes our plugins, the Console app, and the Meter Control Panel app. We're not going to release this IP.
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Re: UAD Linux Support Petition

Post by asbak »

For better or worse the general corporate perception is that Mac line is for "Platinum" customers, people who consider themselves "the best", for whom money is no object and who buy "the best".

Now whether or not "the best" snobbery applies (from my point of view Apple is a cult of ripoff merchants but my opinions are irrelevant to the market) is not the issue here, the issue is about the perception from the corporations and the attitude that the userbase have about themselves.

Next in line it's Windows, considered by the snobs to be more of a peasant ecosystem but it's a huge ecosystem and hence it gets supported by the vendors.

The numbers for Linux Desktop users and whatever else is out there (BSD's) just don't register - at least not with these corporations - to the point that they're going to throw money and resources at it. Their reasoning is not entirely irrational. If you're going to throw 1000's at a UAD, or RME, or MOTU or whatever, then you can afford a Mac or if you had to, a Windows license. Why would you be using Linux, is how they would reason. Getting 10000 signatures for a UAD petition is presumably a next to impossible task. Do they even have that many Mac & Windows customers?

How many folks out there from studioland buying the pricey hardware use Linux as their daily driver & audio production systems. Not very many is the diplomatic answer.

It comes back to the situation we're all familiar with. It's hard to gain mass adoption for the ecosystem without the numbers, and it's hard to get the numbers when the vendors aren't interested in pushing product for the ecosystem, and without the product in the ecosystem the numbers don't adopt and join in.

The typical user doesn't care about walled gardens, about vendor lock-in, about restricted choice, about software freedom or about throwing ridiculous amounts of money at the vendors. These kinds of issues don't matter to them, so why would they use Linux or the Open Source versions of BSD.

The over-complicated (from an end user's point of view) state of the Linux audio system hasn't helped either. Users need to be able to get on with just running their software suites as they do on Mac or Windows. Not spend 1/2 a lifetime learning all the idiosyncracies of the OS just to get decent sound (finally) working.

Having choice and the ability to chop and change your OS is fantastic, otoh it's also a curse for the novice, particularly when most vendors don't provide the OS with a set of defaults that "just work" for audioproduction.

Once Pipewire's ready for primetime it will go some way toward mitigating that long-running problem, as for the rest I suspect the chicken & egg situation will persist.
Some Focal / 20.04 audio packages and resources https://midistudio.groups.io/g/linuxaudio
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sjzstudio
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Re: UAD Linux Support

Post by sjzstudio »

Well they moved the goalposts shortly after telling people to go ahead and make a petition to requiring every signee to have a UAD device registered to their account. So they're obviously not intending to ever actually support Linux because who would buy an expensive appliance like that they wouldn't even be able to use.


That says a lot about UAD ethics. If the device warranty works the same way, :lol:
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Re: UAD Linux Support Petition

Post by bluzee »

UAD makes some very good analogue hardware. They have been doing so for a very long time. I covet all of it.

I have not personally seen anything in their interface line up that interests me. I'm not interested in having a whole tonne of plugins that fall short of my latency requirements being bundled into the driver. It can only create unnecessary issues that are unfixable on my end. I can see where they are trying to make a simple package for the bedroom producer, but I think it comes with a lot of compromises.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's actually really good stuff. If it is then my experience tells me that someone in the Linux world will find a way to make it work. As an example on the other end of the scale Win modems were never ever supported in Linux and there was a very good reason for that.
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