I would argue that audio production is the one area that Open Source truly excels in. I was very pleasantly surprised to find so many different tools available for audio production on Linux and the quality of the software.

Of particular interest is the JACK (JACK Audio Connection Kit) which allows multiple software products to communicate seamlessly with each other. You don't need to hope that your primary production tool supports your plugin or tool, only that it supports JACK. The rest is transparent and you'll find that because JACK has been around for so long that all the production tools you use will support it.

There is a very high quality open source multitrack recorder that is consequently used as a platform for a highly regarded commercial platform (Ardour/Harrison Mixbus). There are very capable MIDI sequencers with full feature sets and a veritable ocean of MIDI compatible synthesisers and effects generators. There are also a number of solid sequencers and loopers available as well.

Hardware wise, support is a mixed bag. On one hand, many sound interfaces do not have open drivers - but if you are selective then you can find very high quality interfaces with very good support. My experience with real-time kernels and PCI based sound cards (MAudio Delta 66's in this instance) allowed me to record at error free sub 3ms latencies with 24bit/96khz on much older hardware - something I couldn't even hope to achieve on other platforms.

The primary weakness in open source audio production is also a strength. The sheer diversity of production tools available makes developing an effective workflow a time consuming business and commercial offerings do have a much shallower learning curve. This isn't an issue if you are willing to invest a little time during the initial setup stages.

If you want to do open source audio production then there's absolutely nothing stopping you. Some might want to do this for ideological reasons (political or technical - they might want to extend the software), but others might not have any other option. Somebody from a poor community or in a third world nation might not have much trouble sourcing hardware capable of performing the job (donations etc.), but affording the software with the same level of features the open source solutions offer could be prohibitively expensive or it may be unavailable for other reasons (geo-blocking, donated commercial software is a very problematic area, etc.).

I finished high-school in the late 80's primarily using BBC Acorn's. Our computer teacher was terrible. He told us all that learning programming was a waste of time because "computers will soon program themselves". He failed everyone in the class bar one student, who just happened to be an attractive female (although admittedly, she was pretty smart). I now make a good living as a programmer (OK, PHP script kiddy, but still).

Let's make no joke of it people. Napster raped the music industry. Sure, you may make claim that 'popularising the mainstream' promoted certain bands and made some names, but ultimately the performers were being right royally (pun intended) screwed.

NIN and Radiohead found a way to turn the emerging trends in their favour. When Napster was anally violating the musicians, this was not possible. Congratulation to Radiohead and NIN for proving this new business model, but also praise the intentions of Metallica who were taking on the selfish desires of the majority, and those who fed the junkies their shameless passions.

Piracy is wrong. Honest, hard working people deserve monetary compensation. Anyone arguing otherwise are little more than foul-crying thieves who don't deserve the spit cast upon them by well intentioned consumers.

Metallica were quite within their rights to discredit Napster. It was a business model that had proven to diminish the rights of the artist and one that has been discarded by the current darlings of the current online music distributing model (NIN and Radiohead). Metallica were right then and are just as right now when they review the potential for online distributing withing the context of the current market. The context now is vastly different from the context of yesteryear.

And so it is that I am saddened to see so many Slashdot participants judging Metallica by criteria that no longer applies. Yes, P2P piracy is still a reality, but many of us have chosen to ignore piracy and embrace the goodwill gestures of ground-breaking artists like Trent Reznor and Radiohead. It is only fitting that artists like Metallica and company follow this emerging market and embrace this superior distribution media.

I for one will be continuing to support those artists that embrace this new medium and purchase material from any new artist willing to brave these turbulent seas. While I question the production quality of albums such as In Rainbows and Ghosts I-IV, I have come to enjoy the quality of these productions at a more than welcome price point. Should future artists embrace this model, including Metallica (whose latest albums I have come to dislike in contrast to earlier works), then I will support them likewise.

At best, I will be exposed to groundbreaking material (of which Ghosts and In Rainbows undoubtedly is) at perfectly reasonable costs. This is more than acceptable in my opinion.