I just got around to watching the video, and I wanted to leave my 2c here...
Here's one thing that Mr. Davis' exposition leaves me wondering. He says:
1) Programming a DAW is an awfully hard job
2) Linux Audio is a niche within a niche
Considering those two rough facts, I would have liked to have some insight into mr. Davis' motivation for doing what he does. I think "coding is fun" hardly cuts it in this case, for that matter he could be coding anything different that, all other other things being equal, rendered more profit. I think I remember he has some kind of musical background or past musical interests, but that fact is never mentioned...
Such motivations would be extra interesting considering that, as he tells, he's been in this field for a long time, and with no small feats under his belt; as if Jack and Ardour weren't enough, he's also managed to create a viable business model, something that, from what I know, most open source developers -and not only in the audio community- struggle to do.
I also found a funny parallelism when he speaks of how marketing is not fun but you have to do it; "fractally", it's common to see the same problem mentioned in musician forums; "I'd rather be coding than doing marketing" turns into "I'd rather be playing than doing marketing"
Another thing that I found interesting was that he mentioned the lack of differentiation in the community between users and coders, or musicians and geeks... I've observed that gray area often for example in this forum, where you are never sure if you're being too noob for asking something... Obviously some people here is going to be more focused on rythms, and others on algorythms...
Just a few observations, without consequence or a moral. Happy music making to all.