9 Dec
2002
9 Dec
'02
7:32 p.m.
Hi again,
I just completed a huge introduction to ladcca. I hope this will help
generate some interest. It's part of a very incomplete manual, which
I've put up on a webpage for the thing at http://pkl.net/~node/ladcca.html
The introduction is here:
http://pkl.net/~node/software/ladcca-manual-html-one-page/ladcca.html#SEC2
Bob
10 Dec
10 Dec
12:04 p.m.
On Tuesday 10 December 2002 12:27 am, Bob Ham wrote:
Hi again,
I just completed a huge introduction to ladcca. I hope this will help
generate some interest. It's part of a very incomplete manual, which
I've put up on a webpage for the thing at http://pkl.net/~node/ladcca.html
The introduction is here:
http://pkl.net/~node/software/ladcca-manual-html-one-page/ladcca.html#SEC2
Bob
It's a really, really good idea and I hope it comes into widespread use
eventually. I just have one comment really: IMHO this should definitely be
LGPL not GPL. I don't think there's any reason to exclude non-GPL clients
from linking to the library, and I think that doing so would ultimately have
adverse effects.
LGPL would still protect your code in that any alterations to ladcca itself
would still have to be released under LGPL - it just means that if commercial
companies (or people with inclinations toward non-GPL open source licences)
were ever to start taking an interest in linux audio, their apps would be
able to link to it, and thus interact seamlessly with the pre-existing Free
ones.
1:19 p.m.
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 05:03:14PM +0000, Nathaniel Virgo wrote:
It's a really, really good idea and I hope it
comes into widespread use
eventually. I just have one comment really: IMHO this should definitely be
LGPL not GPL. I don't think there's any reason to exclude non-GPL clients
from linking to the library, and I think that doing so would ultimately have
adverse effects.
LGPL would still protect your code in that any alterations to ladcca itself
would still have to be released under LGPL - it just means that if commercial
companies (or people with inclinations toward non-GPL open source licences)
were ever to start taking an interest in linux audio, their apps would be
able to link to it, and thus interact seamlessly with the pre-existing Free
ones.
Aye, I'm well aware of what the LGPL would mean. That's why I released it
under the GPL :) I'm not sure about this tho. I don't know that there's
any need for it to be LGPL, and certainly not for the moment. IMHO, better
to be safe than sorry where freedom is concerned.
Bob
4:26 p.m.
On Tuesday 10 December 2002 6:14 pm, Bob Ham wrote:
Well, I just think it's restricting the programs that can use the system for
no particularly good reason.
If it was a library that provided, say, some novel dsp features then GPL
makes perfect sense because it guarantees that your library would only
benefit open source apps, and it would not affect end users in any way.
However, this is a library that allows the seamless interaction of sevreal
programs. This means that if a commercial program comes along it won't be
able to use the library, and anyone who wanted to use that program would have
to manually keep loads of files in sync like we do now.
This would make linux a worse system for making music. It would discourage
commercial programs from fitting into the linux paradigm, but it wouldn't
discourage them from existing - you would just have to choose between running
free or commercial apps, which would be bad because people coming to linux
from other systems who are used to commercial apps would probably never use
the free ones.
The pre-amble to the LGPL says,
"[The] Lesser license provides advantages in certain special circumstances.
For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the
widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes a de-facto
standard. To achieve this, non-free programs must be allowed to use the
library."
I would argue that this is one of those rare cases. There has to be one
universal standard in order for it to work. A worst-case scenario is that a
competing, proprietary standard could arise, which from an end-user point of
view would be terrible.
These concerns are a long way off, of course, but probably worth bearing in
mind.
LGPL would
still protect your code in that any alterations to ladcca
itself would still have to be released under LGPL - it just means that if
commercial companies (or people with inclinations toward non-GPL open
source licences) were ever to start taking an interest in linux audio,
their apps would be able to link to it, and thus interact seamlessly with
the pre-existing Free ones.
Aye, I'm well aware of what the LGPL would mean. That's why I released it
under the GPL :) I'm not sure about this tho. I don't know that there's
any need for it to be LGPL, and certainly not for the moment. IMHO, better
to be safe than sorry where freedom is concerned.
11 Dec
11 Dec
1:38 p.m.
On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 09:25:15PM +0000, Nathaniel Virgo wrote:
programs. This means that if a commercial program
comes along it won't be
able to use the library, and anyone who wanted to use that program would have
to manually keep loads of files in sync like we do now.
Like I said before, I'm very well aware of what it means for the library to
be under the GPL. I'm aware that proprietary (who says that free software
isn't "commercial"? Have a look at Red Hat's stock quotes) programs are
not
allowed to link to libladcca. Like I said, this is *why* I chose to release
under the GPL. The issue is: what is best for free audio software (on
linux or any other system.) Will it aid free audio software by having a
proprietary applications like, eg cubase or cakewalk or reason, ported
to a free operating system like gnu/linux, and remain proprietary? I think
not. If cubase was ported to gnu/linux, its users would still be told
"you cannot change this program." What good will this do free audio
software? It may bring more users in to using other free software such as
jack, portaudio, ardour, sweep, alsa, etc, but if such a thing ever happened,
I very much fear that it would make the linux-audio-dev world a place where
proprietary licenses were dominant. Do I want cubase to be ported to gnu/linux?
No, I do not. Not if it's under a proprietary license. Of course, I
realise that I am (unfortunately for software freedom) in a minority here.
I also realise that the license that libladcca is released under will have
little or no effect on the issue, but I'm not quite prepared to put a stamp
of approval on proprietary audio software, either, and that's what I would
feel like I was doing if I released ladcca under the LGPL. Regardless, this
is a non-issue for the moment, as, thankfully, freely licensed audio software
abounds atm. If/when the situation changes, it may be prudent to readdress the
issue, but for the moment, I think the GPL will stay.
Having just reread the above, and thinking back to the reasons why glibc was
released under the LGPL, I have, in fact, concluded that I am wrong. I'll
leave it up there anyway as it's an interesting argument. The next release
of ladcca will have libladcca under the LGPL license. I do still not want
cubase if it's under proprietary license, and I do still very much fear a
linux-audio-dev world dominated by proprietary licenses, but libladcca under
the GPL will probably make things worse for free audio software, I see this
now. Oh the woes of a proprietary software world :)
Anyway, back to hacking :)
Bob
1:59 p.m.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 04:31:24PM +0000, Bob Ham wrote:
of ladcca will have libladcca under the LGPL license.
I do still not want
cubase if it's under proprietary license, and I do still very much fear a
linux-audio-dev world dominated by proprietary licenses, but libladcca under
the GPL will probably make things worse for free audio software, I see this
now. Oh the woes of a proprietary software world :)
Ogg is an interesting example of these issues. The Ogg team were
worried that GPL would hurt their ability to get Ogg widely adopted,
which was clearly a priority given the icky license issues around
MP3. They ended up with:
- the Ogg Vorbis spec is in the public domain.
- the "reference" encoder and decoder software are under the GPL.
- the libraries and SDKs developed by the Ogg team are under
a BSDish license.
I think they did a pretty good job of weighing the issues
and coming up with something that optimally promotes open
standards and free software.
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
"Welcome to Muppet Labs, where the future is made - today!"
10 Dec
10 Dec
1:47 p.m.
Nathaniel Virgo said:
people with inclinations toward non-GPL open source
licences
To pick a nit, code under non-GPL OSS licenses /can/ be linked to GPLed
(not LGPLed) libraries as long as the OSS license is a GPL compatible Free
Software License.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
and http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatIsCompatible
This includes (but is not limited to):
X11 (aka MIT)
W3C
"modified" BSD (sans advertising clause)
Zlib
and public domain works
See also http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html for a discussion of
why /not/ to use the LGPL _by_it's_authors_.
-Peter
7812
days inactive
7814
days old
linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
6 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Bob Ham -
Nathaniel Virgo -
Paul Winkler -
Peter Hutnick