[LAD] GPL Violation Alert! - I talked with the President of Beat Kangz Today

[Michael Fisher]

Everybody,

Good.  I wasn't really trying to get Beat Kangz in trouble or anything 
like that.  More than anything I was just disappointed to see that these 
LADSPA plugins were being distributed with their software with not a 
single mention of credit to the actual developers.  As a computer 
programmer myself I understand the work involved in creating code.  The 
way I found out about this was me running the program from terminal and 
with the mac Console open to submit some bug reports to them.  That 
reminds me, I still need to do that.

I actually know one of the staff members at beat kangz, so I really am 
not interested in causing trouble.  Credit due, where credit deserved is 
all.  And I figured the LADSPA developers should be aware of what was 
going on.  I suppose it's not really that big of a deal, because say I 
had those plugins already installed on my system, then the Beat Kangz 
software would only be searching for and loading them.  My problem was 
that their installer included them, which would be distribution of GPL'd 
software.

That would be pretty awesome if they decided to open development.  
Really, it would only make their products much stronger.  If their using 
LADSPA plugins, I can only assume that development is taking place in a 
Linux/*nix type environment as they are obviously familiar with Linux 
Audio stuff.  Wouldn't surprise me if the actual hardware "box" is 
running an embedded linux of some sort.

On the lighter side...  The Virtual Beat Thang is in my opinion pretty 
nice.  A few bugs here and there (the thing just came out), but really 
not a bad peace of work.  Great drum sounds.  I have it working with 
jack-osx which makes it even more powerful.  Might as well just make it 
natively support jack in my opinion.

-Mike

Ronald Stewart wrote:
> GPL Violation Alert! - I talked with the President of Beat Kangz today 
> his name is A.J. and he is a sweetheart and his head is on straight.
> He is currently going to work on an official statement and he wants to 
> embrace and thank the developers and give the authors credit on their 
> software and materials moving forward.  Additionally, Beat Kangz is 
> interested in opening up development with authors to make Beat Kangz 
> even better including funding open source development and projects.
>
> I think the hiccup is that they didn't know how to properly 
> thank/engage in regards to GPL and such.  It's sounds like more of a 
> noob thing and definitely not a jerk thing.  Let's give these guys the 
> benefit of the doubt because their heads are on stragiht.
>
> Stay tuned.
>
> Much Love.
>
> Thank you
>
> Ronald Stewart
> Creative Director
> Trinity Audio Group Inc.
> 9854 National Blvd. #322
> Los Angeles CA 90034
> 310-733-9285
> ronaldjstewart at gmail.com <mailto:ronaldjstewart at gmail.com>
> www.indamixx.com <http://www.indamixx.com>