Make last release of every major version available for download

Community Ideas for Ardour
#1

With all the fuss about Calf plugins not working with version 8 I’ve started reviewing my old projects and I’m worried about version availability.

I know this has been discused and the goal is encourage people to use allways the last version, but I’ve been working from the trenches since version 3 and I don’t want to use a suspicious site to download an official package if I need to recover an old project.

It would be great to have at least the last release of every past major version:

  • 7.5
  • 6.9
  • 5.12
  • 4.7
  • 3.5

I know Ardour makes a great job importing old project files but there’s a lot of different setups and environments and sometimes upgrading si not an option (like the Calf situation).

By the way, I own MB10 and I’m a happy purchaser of some Harrison plugins, so this is not about money, is about availability.

3 Likes
#2

I think having at least one version back is a good idea because sometimes a new version introduces a bug and you might want to work with the previous version until the bug is fixed.

2 Likes
#3

On Linux, at least, you don’t have to uninstall old versions. People on other platforms will have to speak to their environments.

Here’s my /opt/directory at the moment:

$ ls /opt/
AppImages                  CIN_LV2                     Mixbus32C-9.2.172.uninstall.sh  wine-devel
Ardour-6.9.0               firefox                     muse-hub                        wine-stable
Ardour-7.5.0               google                      REAPER                          wine-staging
Ardour-7.5.0.uninstall.sh  Mixbus-10.0.0               resolve                         zoom
Ardour-8.6.0               Mixbus-10.0.0.uninstall.sh  RTCQS                           zyn-fusion
Ardour-8.6.0.uninstall.sh  Mixbus32C-7.2.0             Signal
ASCII                      Mixbus32C-9.2.172           Virtual-Playing-Orchestra3

Plus, I still have most of my install materials backed-up. Protect yourself.

#4

For this very reason I am saving the installers since version 6.9.0.

From your list I have 6.9 and 7.5. If you need them, drop me a line.

I guess one could download the source of the old versions and compile it, but I don’t know if all the other required packages are still available / working in a new environment.

by the way, hi ha alguna cosa nova de Metacorc? :wink:

1 Like
#5

yeah, that’s a very good advice, thanks for the offer. I actually wrote this post out of frustration downloading an old version from a Jack Sparrow site, but I know all hoarders from internet will save us one day :smiley:

si! estic gravant molt de material nou. stay tuned!
ens coneixem? :thinking:

#6

Happy to hear that :smiley:

no, I first heard you guys here: Metacorc - flames, I find your music really good, and also the singing in mallorquí!

1 Like
#7

Another question… Are the official releases really the best versions to have archived…? With the exception of 5.12 which was a long-running solid bridge release while numerous new Audio engine improvements were developed for 6.0 I would say about 6/10 times I have noticed that major releases have pretty substantial bugs in them and for me grabbing a nightly about a week after any given new release has usually been the best way to get the best “official release + new unnoticed bug fixed” scenario.

This is NOT to be critical, Ardour has a relatively small User base participating in active bug reports during development phases and many of the people who are involved with development and feature testing are probably more inclined to be music software people not general music producers so unfortunately things get missed until a big release into the wild world exposes them… But that said I have found a substantial number of official releases have not been archive worthy for various reasons…

#8

@GMaq

IIUC, the proposal is to preserve downloads for the last (not the first) release for every major version, which should mean a stable version, with any fixes found during that series’ release line. E.g.:

3 Likes
#9

that is correct.

main problem here is even for subscribed and donator users is hard to find old versions and I don’t want to use warez sites for an official package.

lets see if we can get an official statement about this.

1 Like
#10

I also have old Ardour releases if somebody needs them.

1 Like