6 May
2007
6 May
'07
2:01 a.m.
El Sáb 05 May 2007 22:53, Roberto Gordo Saez escribió:
| On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 03:49:34AM +1000, Mark Constable wrote:
| > Wow, this is exciting news. Well, any news is good, as it's been
| > very quiet on this list, but this is particularly good news.
|
| Indeed, it's been very quiet on this list. There are only few
| contributions and based on the responses I usually get, I know that main
| offenders are all those "semi-free" soundfonts out there. They are the
| real evil. People do not feel urged to contribute. They are discouraged
| to produce real free soundfonts. Why bother?
|
| Creating instruments takes a lot of time, and is difficult to do. It is
| a lot easier to download one of those General MIDI soundfonts available
| everywhere. But it turns out that those soundfonts are also loaded with
| unlicensed samples. It is very common to recognize samples from Emu,
| Roland and others inside them.
|
| There are many people who cares about free software, being very picky
| about licenses and imposed restrictions when using software; but
| surprisingly enough, this same people usually chooses to ignore the
| nasty restrictions, ugly agreements and the whole copyright law for
| sounds or other works beside software, turning a blind eye, just like
| if the problem had never existed. I've had some strong words with some
| people at Debian for this reason.
|
| Months ago, Mark told me about an interesting orchestral sample
| collection:
| http://www.soundsonline.com/EWQLSO-Platinum-Bundle-pr-EW-155PROB1.html
|
| For those corrupted souls like myself who have cowardly installed the
| proprietary flash plugin, please hit the play button to listen the
| example. This is how a high end, good digital sample collection is
| supposed to sound nowadays. The first time I've listened to it, I felt a
| need to cry.
|
| Could be possible that we ever manage to build something similar with
| free samples? And even if we get the opportunity, how many years could
| we need to carefully record, process, balance and fine tune such an
| enormous amount of samples? Maybe 10 years, 20 years... never? I'm
| unable to answer those questions, but I can say what I will do.
|
| I was tempted to purchase those instruments, and still I am. I've
| already purchased other proprietary samples in the past. While a price
| about $3000 may seem a bit high, it is not uncommon for me to spend very
| high quantities of money on hobbies, toys or other recreational
| activities that are much less useful than a good sample collection. It
| may be not a problem for me, just I need to buy those instruments,
| possibly together with other sets like the GM kit from the same site,
| and I will be happy. No need for spending lots of time making free
| instruments, no need to care about fine tuning, and no need to wait
| forever.
|
| But they are NOT FREE. And I'm not referring to the PRICE, I'm referring
| to the FREEDOM. And yes, this is an annoyance for me, much more than the
| price. They come with a license agreement:
|
| "you are NOT obtaining OWNERSHIP of the sound samples - you are in fact
| purchasing a LICENSE to use the sound samples within your musical
| composition" [...]
|
| I can only use them on the operating system imposed by the manufacturer.
| I can't share modifications. My own compositions are a derived product,
| so they are also infected, there is also a list of conditions which are
| passed to my own compositions, I'm required to use loops "in a musical
| context with at least two other instruments that contribute
| significantly to the composition", just to mention one particular
| condition. I can't publish my compositions under certain free licenses
| of my choice, because they may be incompatible with the requirements.
|
| The requirements themselves are common to proprietary sample collections
| and digital instruments (including hardware instruments). Some of them
| may have additional clauses, and may even require to pay royalties when
| distributing your music commercially. They are developed to produce
| proprietary music according to current commercial practices, and they
| work well in this context.
|
| It means that composers and music enthusiasts with less resources will
| be condemned to produce music that sounds poor, or to violate licenses.
| Many people choose between both options, but this way things would never
| change. I choose neither.
|
| I may purchase those samples in the future, depending on my mood; time
| is a finite resource for humans. But I will always continue searching
| for free instruments anyway, or I will never be completely happy. No
| matter how much time will take. No matter how much of an idiot I will
| look to the eyes of those people who do not see any problem, or who are
| completely happy with their semi-free soundfonts or proprietary
| products. I will continue to support free instruments. I'm grateful with
| people who has contributed (currently only a few, it seems). Even the
| simpler things like testing a soundfont or giving an opinion does
| matter. Thanks to all who are interested.
|
|
| PS: Sorry for such a political kind of email. I just had a depressing
| day today...
| _______________________________________________
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| http://opensrc.org/listinfo/freepats
I liked your mail, it's one of the best I had ever readed (sorry again about
my fucking english)
Look: as more people uses Free Software as in freedom, there are more chances
that they think about freedom
I was testing you freedom piano soundfont yesterday, and I LIKE IT, we just
have to include some more layers, maybe only the bright one!! (and retouch
some things). I am too busy on making Musix GNU/Linux for now, but maybe I
could help.
And, then, we must search for students at university, artistic schools, etc.,
that could study and make soundfonts as a part of their studies... this would
be the best I think, so , experiences like Gustavo Chico in Spain should be
an example about how we can make it if we collaborate: we need more people
thinking about freedom, and, this issue needs some work and time.
--
Marcos Guglielmetti
* Director del desarrollo de Musix GNU+Linux, 100% Software Libre
* Colabora: http://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/Musix1.0tasks
* CD Download: (http://www.musix.org.ar/en/)
* Videos, programas, etc.: ftp://musix.ourproject.org/pub/musix/
* Reporte de errores:
https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php?title=Problemas-Bugs
*IRC: #musix channel on freenode
* http://autosus.wordpress.com/
«No te tomes en serio nada que no te haga reír» [un amigo de E. Galeano]
... tampoco sigas al pie de la letra ninguna de estas frases...