7 Dec
2005
7 Dec
'05
6:58 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 14:04 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
LinuxSampler is a good program but has recently
considered straying
from the Open Source model. Please read the License Agreement included in
the CVS version for more info. For these reasons I've ceased using it. My
comments are probably a bit dated these days as I've not tried or even
paid attention to the program in a few months.
Their CVS server isn't responding, so I can't see the whole License
Agreement. But I see this on the web page:
LinuxSampler is licensed under the GNU GPL license with the exception
that COMMERCIAL USE of the souce code, libraries and applications is
NOT ALLOWED without prior written permission by the LinuxSampler
authors. If you have questions on the subject please contact us.
This is pretty nasty - if I interpret it correctly, it means that
LinuxSampler is no longer free software (at least not as defined by the
FSF, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html ) and not even freeware,
since a producer making commercial music would have to pay to use it.
The LinuxSampler hackers are of course free to license their code any
way they want, but I wish people who add this kind of exceptions to the
GPL would call it something else instead of "GNU GPL with exception
foo". That will just confuse people when the license is uncompatible
with the GPL.
--
Lars Luthman
PGP key: http://www.d.kth.se/~d00-llu/pgp_key.php
Fingerprint: FCA7 C790 19B9 322D EB7A E1B3 4371 4650 04C7 7E2E