[LAU] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[Simon Wise]

On 07/02/13 05:34, Louis Gorenfeld wrote:

> - Make it easier for authors to support Linux: I'm the author of a VST
> plugin. I decided to go with VSTGUI for my Linux port. However,
> despite being an open-source project, VSTGUI is somehow not supported
> on Linux. Due to time constraints, this resulted in me just yanking
> the GUI support from my Linux version. Also due to time constraints, I
> was not able to produce an LV2 version which some people wanted. I get
> that VST is technically not a free-free standard. But it's also the
> most widely-supported plugin format, with a staggering number of free
> plugins. Unless there's something I'm not seeing, this seems perfectly
> support-able on Linux (it's halfway there already!).

It is not a technical point about only using free software ... it is a very real 
copyright issue. VST is owned by Steinberg so unless you are willing to 
ignore/reject Copyright and IP laws (which would be really problematic regarding 
your other points about encouraging commercial software on Linux) then you are 
very limited in how VST can be distributed in Linux. To change that you must 
convince Steinberg to change the license they offer. A freely distributed 
program obviously cannot pay Steinberg for every downloaded copy .. so no 
license .. so the potential user must compile their own version of VST support.

See Dave Philips article ...

http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000192

> The greater problem is the license for the VST SDK, particularly this section
> :
>
> "2. The Licensee has no permission to sell, licence, give-away and/or
> distribute the VST PlugIn Interface technology or parts of it in anyway, on
> any medium, including the Internet, to any other person, including
> sub-licensors of the Licensee or companies where the Licensee has any
> involvement. This includes re-working this specification, or
> reverse-engineering any products based upon this specification."
>
> That passage expressly forbids the free distribution of the SDK source code,
> excluding it from agreement with the terms of the GPL, nor can Linux-specific
> improvements be added to the official codebase.

basically VST is a privately owned protocol and the owner makes money by selling 
license for hosts, so distributing free hosts is not allowed. (Though compiling 
a host for personal use apparently is OK?)

Simon