I think it would be a great idea to have an Ardour project similar to The Blender Foundations Project “Orange” http://orange.blender.org/ and “Peach” http://peach.blender.org/. Find the best artists using Ardour and record a project album. It would aid in development of things that are required to complete a project beginning to end and the CDs could be sold to support further development.
Everything I’ve recorded in my studio has been done with ardour, jack, jamin and hydrogen for the last four or five years. I would also be willing to donate tracks (pending approval from the other musicians, of course) for such a project.
One of my favorite things about recording with ardour is telling listeners that it was recorded with 100% libre software; no one ever believes it at first, but music at or above “commercial software quality” is available for anyone with the time to download and compile!
(Presently using ubuntustudio 7.10 / ardour 2.1 on an AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ with an RME Hammerfall card)
I would definitely pitch in whatever I might have to offer. I don’t know too much about mastering and stuff yet, but I’m a talented musician (mostly keyboard), and I would be willing to add to tracks or whatever.