The Story Behind Audacity

With Muse Group's ownership and Tantacrul/Martin Keary as Head of Product of Audacity [0][1], Audacity will be moving in a radically different direction from a UI/UX perspective. I happen to think this will be a good thing, and I happen to think that (opt-in) telemetry is a perfectly good way of ensuring that a consumer-facing open-source project doesn't just build for its loudest users, especially in the context of large interface redesigns. And with MuseScore 4, the creative team struck what I think is a great balance between streamlining the interface and avoiding the removal of complexity/advanced features. But I can also see why a fork can and should diverge, for those who want a more stable and slow-moving evolution of the software. I hope the Tenacity project succeeds! [0] ▶ this video [1] link

> doing things like automating certain workflows where possible, building some custom tools, etc. The goal is to slowly transition to working as a programmer at Steinberg or Ableton or something like that, and then start my own company. I presume you’ve contacted tantacrul[1] who is now working[2] redesigning Audacity, with a hilarious video on the hellscape of a UI that is Sibelius[3]. I am guessing becoming a UI designer for a major piece of software is less difficult than becoming a composer? [1] link [2] ▶ this video [3] link Thank you for your story - it is a good reminder of the risks we face.

At this point I am just really interested in the psychology and goal-orientation of the Muse Group team. There seems to be a fundamental disconnect with significant portions of the community they inherited. This disconnect includes things like ethical concerns and public-facing messaging...to some really strange extents. For example Martin was very upfront[0] about including the community in decision-making, to include the original Audacity team, which he apparently interviewed about their past and intentions for Audacity...but then these strange gaffes keep occurring with the software's written policies and back-end functionality. So I wonder what the perspective and messaging looks like on the inside of this project. I guess I wonder if--and maybe this is way out there--but I wonder if Muse Group is designing for acquisition. Their website is more like a portfolio in a lot of ways [1]. They could be pitched as a FOSS-to-commercial services bridge, for example. This would also explain the strange moves around metrics-gathering and user data; a customer looking to acquire something from Muse Group would almost certainly be asking about these things. 0. ▶ this video 1. link (Newsroom, Careers, tons of stock photography, zero emphasis on the typical FOSS-style FOSS-information-first design...)

Tantacrul, the project lead for both MuseScore and Audacity, is a professional UI/UX designer and has once conducted a significant first-time user testing for Dorico [1], so I'm pretty sure that he already knows what you are saying. Given his latest video about Audacity [2] though, I guess that Audacity has a very diverse user base and it might be hard to do the user testing while accounting for that diversity (the article you've linked specifically mention this issue). [1] link [2] ▶ this video (includes an interview with original Audacity developers)