development status?

[infuzion]

If you where going to get anything else publicly it would have been stated already by Malc

I don't think Malc reads anything but the Bugs forum anymore to be honest. But I do take the lack of answer as an answer.

[Nu Audio Science]

Well i wouldn't assume anything
He read the Hidden modules thread in the registered users area

So lets not jump to conclusions here OK

NAS

[stw]

I think one aspect of the development question is the concern about the future of SM.
Is SM a software which will be updatet in features and not only bugs and also adjusted to newer standards or will it stay on the point of development it is.
Unfortunately there is NO answer about this anywhere. A Forum called "Ideas and requests" and some ancient rumors about SM2 could lead to the assumption that there would be a really extended SM in future but reality shows a different direction. Most updates refer to bug hunting and no feature improvements.
There's even no insight about how many devs are working on SM. It seems Malc is the only one. What can a one man show achieve? There're times where one beta follows the next and then there's silence for months. Does it mean Malc is hacking day after day to get out the next major release, or does it mean he has to make a living from another business and sooner or later SM will become obsolete? We can only guess...
Whatever happens is ok. But what matters on the other side is when due to a lack of communication or clear statements people are misleaded in their expectations. And that concerns far more than the software itself. It's about how much time you invest in developing with SM. I myself started with SM because i planned (and still do) to release some commercial stuff in future. It would be a shame if after months or years on working on a project i have to realise that it never comes to a serious release of my work because SM stopped to be updated or simply industrial standards have have overtaken SM capabilities. (Other already made that experience).
Much of that issue refers simply to man power. If there's not enough people to do the job it simply can't be done. On the other hand we have a very confident experienced and supporting user base in that forum which obviously wouldn't resile to cope with additional fees. So people are willing to help!
Maybe it's time to think about combinig ressources and starting a new business plan for Malc. If that's not on the agenda i (and i guess others too) would appreciate a more distinct communication about what will happen from Malc. He's the one in charge and his ideas and plans are the ones that will be realised. And too many wrong expectations about SM could lead to a backdraft which harms outsim more than some not implemeted features.

just my 2 cents

[trogluddite]

Great post stw - really summed up the situation well.
Your point about being 'overtaken by industrial standards' is especially important - already people are having trouble with Steinberg hosts because of them dropping support for pre VST2.4 plugins. I can plan around features that SM doesn't have because I know that they're not available - but not knowing whether my plugins will run on other people's machines, or whether they will be disabled by some crummy new Windows or VST 'feature' is far more worrying.

I do think that this is maybe a big cause of the 'log jam' in terms of adding features - it does seem that Malc has had to spend a lot of the effort in recent updates simply addressing stability issues with hosts. I've no doubt that his work on this will have been hampered by a lack of co-operation from the bigger companies who make host software - Steinberg seem particularly unhelpful in this respect, despite VST being their standard! One also has to wonder how the tie-in with FL has skewed his business plan - they would naturally expect some influence on OutSim in return for their licensing money.

This must all be very tricky for Malc - I've no doubt that he would love to be honest about the situation with his most loyal users (he has always been very responsive and helpful when I've needed customer support) - however he has to be very careful what he says because internet 'rumours' and making hard-to-keep promises have the potential to be more damaging to OutSim than his current 'no news is good news' policy.