MIDI as a non-proprietary, non-patented, non ad supported or privacy invasive protocol opened so many innovation from synth and others electronic musical instruments constructors or makers. We really need this type of candid innovation back.
It's great that it's an open standard, but I feel like the MIDI Association is kind of dropping the ball on openness. You have to register with midi.org just to read the specs. That's not a huge hardship, but it's kind of off-putting.
It also feels like corporate behemoths are running the show. You can register as a site user for free and you can buy a SYSEX Id number for $240 a year, but to actually have a say in anything it looks like you need to be a corporate member.
Most of the interesting advances in musical instruments these days seem to be coming from small companies making unusual products. Things like the Osmose, the Linnstrument, the Continuum, and so on. MPE serves that community decently well, but I feel like we could at least in theory do a lot better by ditching the piano-centric assumptions built in to MIDI and hashing out a new protocol as a community effort.
