[Consortium] RE: re: VST licensing progress

[Chris Cannam]

On Saturday 04 Nov 2006 00:25, Ashton Snelgrove wrote:
> Would it be possible to compile the headers for the VST separately,
> and then link them as a external library? 

That's broadly what we do now with dssi-vst.  (dssi-vst also runs the 
plugin in a separate process instead of within the same library, but it 
does that for technical reasons, not legal ones.  It could usefully be 
updated to use the same method as xfst, running the VST directly from 
within the DSSI plugin library, with no additional legal problems.)

There are limitations with dssi-vst that are due to the "impedance 
mismatch" between the DSSI and VST APIs.  Fixing that, by designing 
your library API specifically to resemble VST, might get you back in to 
an interestingly ambiguous legal area.

So there are various possible technical hacks, but yes, it would be 
better not to have to use (more of) them.  Apart from anything else, it 
would be nice to feel there was no impediment to doing things like 
using the VST logo when promoting one's software.


Chris