7 Dec
2005
7 Dec
'05
4:54 p.m.
What can you say about the usability of the LinuxSampler in its current
state..
Giga import?
Disk streaming?
Writing audio to file?
GUI?
-------------
Best regards,
Mehmet Okonşar, pianist-composer
www.okonsar.com
mehmet(a)okonsar.com
7 Dec
7 Dec
6:02 p.m.
On Wed, 7 Dec 2005 22:54:29 +0200
Mehmet Okonsar <okonsar(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What can you say about the usability of the
LinuxSampler in its
current state..
Giga import?
Disk streaming?
Writing audio to file?
GUI?
HI Mehmet
I use linuxsampler and the gui Qsampler. I have
an older library of huge gigasamples *.gig and its working nice for me.
LS supports diskstreaming as well.
QSampler is an easy and intuitive GUI for LS
I work in a lowlatency jack enviroment with rt kernel.
courios, but linuxsampler dosn't work under a buffer of 256 samples on
my system, thats 11ms audio latency. Thats ok...
Writing to disk is possible in realtime via any jack recording unit
like ardour or simple apps like qarecord.
The killerfeature is the possibility to connect 2 or more computers
with LS for a SamplerCluster.
Regards,
Michael
-------------
Best regards,
Mehmet Okonşar, pianist-composer
www.okonsar.com
mehmet(a)okonsar.com
6:04 p.m.
On 12/7/05, Mehmet Okonsar <okonsar(a)gmail.com> wrote:> What can you say about the
usability of the LinuxSampler in its current> state..> Giga import?> Disk
streaming?> Writing audio to file?> GUI?>> -------------> Best regards,>
Mehmet Okonşar, pianist-composer> www.okonsar.com> mehmet(a)okonsar.com
LinuxSampler is a good program but has recently considered strayingfrom the Open Source
model. Please read the License Agreement includedin the CVS version for more info. For
these reasons I've ceased usingit. My comments are probably a bit dated these days as
I've not triedor even paid attention to the program in a few months.
Giga Import - pretty good and getting better.
Disk streaming - Good, up to a point, but not nearly as good asGigaStudio 3.0. Far fewer
voices than GSt3 even when using betterhardware. Voice stealing not so mature so many
clicks and pops. Somehard crashes when you really hit the wall with a lot of MIDI events.
Writing audio - No support.
GUI - OK for very simple setups of a few instruments. I've run as manyas 24
instruments on 16 MIDI channels (doing essentially stacking asper GST3) and it works but
it can get pretty slow.
Memory management - You didn't ask, but it's not nearly as good asGST3. Expect to
use far more memory. Also LS's memory managementdoesn't play fair and makes it
very difficult to run other apps whenrunning a lot of instruments in LS. LS is best used
on a stand alonemachine. This is similar to GSt3 in real world terms since it'sWindows
only and doesn't get along real well with Pro Tools on thesame box.
Hope this helps,Mark
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
8:05 p.m.
On 2005-12-08T00:01:14+0100, Lars Luthman wrote:
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.
Yep. Alternatives?
/Allan
9:45 p.m.
On 12/7/05, Allan Wind <allan_wind(a)lifeintegrity.com> wrote:
On 2005-12-08T00:01:14+0100, Lars Luthman wrote:
None that I know of under Linux with these sorts of features. I was
involved with the project for over 3 years as an in-depth tester and
user before the changed the direction. During that time period it was
either LS or GSt for me.
There are many other simple sample players, but none that I know of
that read Gig files.
LS is a good program. I sincerely hope the developers will remove this
language one of these days. Until then I'm a Windows sampler user.
Cheers,
Mark
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.
Yep. Alternatives?
/Allan
8 Dec
8 Dec
12:51 a.m.
LS is a good program. I sincerely hope the developers
will remove this
language one of these days. Until then I'm a Windows sampler user.
Cheers,
Mark
I've been eyeballing a Yamaha A5000 for this very reason. What is
most irritating is that, while the gig library has seen a lot of
activity, the Akai library has been neglected. I see no reason why
those two features can't be worked on in parallel, but
IANAP(rogrammer). It's a shame, considering that, from my vantage
point at least, the Akai library is massive and would make LS a very
popular program.
Though it might be pointless to support either - seems like everything
is in Kontakt or Halion format now, so maybe that should be the format
to work on. Too many options - a moving target isn't easy to hit.
--
Josh
3:04 a.m.
Though it might be pointless to support either - seems
like everything
is in Kontakt or Halion format now, so maybe that should be the format
to work on. Too many options - a moving target isn't easy to hit.
agree (akai stuff is fairly obsolete, and gigasampler is major yawn:
just a bunch of strings 'n' crap for the 'we no longer use real bands'
hollywood set..CDXtract in WINE to wavs...)
there was talk a while back about a common xml-metadata-based
sample/bank/instrument format...itd be nice to be able to freely move
files between chionic / specimen / sooperlooper / ardour / pd without
redoing mapping, bpm, volume etc each time....
10 Dec
10 Dec
10:49 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 22:51:42 -0600, Josh Lawrence wrote:
I think wired (website currently down) is aiming for Akai support, but
since I don't have any Akai samples, I can't test it.
James
LS is a good
program. I sincerely hope the developers will remove this
language one of these days. Until then I'm a Windows sampler user.
Cheers,
Mark
I've been eyeballing a Yamaha A5000 for this very reason. What is most
irritating is that, while the gig library has seen a lot of activity, the
Akai library has been neglected. I see no reason why those two features
can't be worked on in parallel, but IANAP(rogrammer). It's a shame,
considering that, from my vantage point at least, the Akai library is
massive and would make LS a very popular program. 
9 Dec
9 Dec
3:12 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 19:05 -0500, Allan Wind wrote:
Yep. Alternatives?
Depends on your needs. SimSam (http://simsam.sf.net) and Specimen
(http://gazuga.net) are both samplers, but they're not designed for Gig
file importation et al, nor do they have client-server separation. Both
are GPL'd.
If you need drum machine functionality, Hydrogen (http://hydrogen-
music.org) is the cat's meow.
But as far as huge, multi-sample instruments goes, I don't think there
is a replacement (although I intend to add that functionality to
Specimen in, y'know, "The Future").
--
Pete Bessman
http://gazuga.net
"So this baby seal walks into a club."
3:14 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 19:05 -0500, Allan Wind wrote:
Yep. Alternatives?
Oh, and there's also Chionic (http://www.reduz.com.ar/chionic/). I
haven't looked at it much, but it might do what you need. It's written
by the same guy who did CheeseTracker, and even uses the same underlying
engine, so you can be assured that it's quality.
--
Pete Bessman
http://gazuga.net
"So this baby seal walks into a club."
7 Dec
7 Dec
8:09 p.m.
On 12/7/05, Lars Luthman <larsl(a)users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 14:04 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
Yep, this was the problem and you interpret it as many others do. The
Debian folks didn't like this so much that they dropped LS from their
releases. I think that the LS developers weren't taking the commercail
thing quite as far as you are. They seemed more interested in keeping
Synth manufacturers from using the code, which is disappointing sime a
good software company could pick this up and run with it quite
quickly. This would be great for us users, should they every do it.
Note that this license modification was not in the latest official
release the last time I looked. It was only in the CVS version so
there is an opportunity to fork the database and put a development
team together to keep it truly Open Source, should someone care enough
to do so.
Cheers,
Mark
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. 
9:32 p.m.
Yep, this was the problem and you interpret it as many
others do. The
Debian folks didn't like this so much that they dropped LS from their
releases. I think that the LS developers weren't taking the commercail
thing quite as far as you are. They seemed more interested in keeping
Synth manufacturers from using the code, which is disappointing sime a
good software company could pick this up and run with it quite
quickly. This would be great for us users, should they every do it.
there is more going on there than almost nobody on this list except for
the LS authors and myself is aware of. it would be wise for everyone to
not judge this admittedly very unpleasant change in the license without
being aware of the reasons why it occured. unfortunately, it is not
possible to explain any more.
--p
8 Dec
8 Dec
4:33 a.m.
On 08/12/05, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
there is more going on there than almost nobody on
this list except for
the LS authors and myself is aware of. it would be wise for everyone to
not judge this admittedly very unpleasant change in the license without
being aware of the reasons why it occured. unfortunately, it is not
possible to explain any more.
Still, without explaining any more, would it be an idea for the authors
to indicate what their likely response would be under some easily
imaginable scenarios, like: "I'm about to release a commercial album
where linux sampler was used in production. May I?"
- Pete.
10 Dec
10 Dec
10:52 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 08:33:58 +0000, Pete Leigh wrote:
On 08/12/05, Paul Davis
<paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
there is more going on there than almost nobody
on this list except for
the LS authors and myself is aware of. it would be wise for everyone to
not judge this admittedly very unpleasant change in the license without
being aware of the reasons why it occured. unfortunately, it is not
possible to explain any more.
Still, without explaining any more, would it be an idea for the authors to
indicate what their likely response would be under some easily imaginable
scenarios, like: "I'm about to release a commercial album where linux
sampler was used in production. May I?" From my understanding, it is the commercial
exploitation of the software,
rather than the sale of music written with the
software that they are
trying to limit: so if you were to build a linux based synth, and sell it
with LS installed, they would like to get some money from you for it,
which they would not be able to do under the GPL.
James
4:49 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
On 10/12/05, James Stone <jmstone(a)dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Hi James,
I hope (and am quite prepared to believe) you're right. Just that it
doesn't specifically say that - it just says "commercial use [...] is
not allowed", which is a little vague. That's why I'm suggesting a
clarification for those unwilling to make assumptions might be
a good idea :-)
Cheers,
- Pete.
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 08:33:58 +0000, Pete Leigh wrote:
> Still, without explaining any more, would it be
an idea for the authors to
> indicate what their likely response would be under some easily imaginable
> scenarios, like: "I'm about to release a commercial album where linux
> sampler was used in production. May I?"
From my
understanding, it is the commercial exploitation of the software,
rather than the
sale of music written with the software that they are
trying to limit: so if you were to build a linux based synth, and sell it
with LS installed, they would like to get some money from you for it,
which they would not be able to do under the GPL. 
5:01 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 20:49 +0000, Pete Leigh wrote:
On 10/12/05, James Stone <jmstone(a)dsl.pipex.com>
wrote:
Hi James,
I hope (and am quite prepared to believe) you're right. Just that it
doesn't specifically say that - it just says "commercial use [...] is
not allowed", which is a little vague. That's why I'm suggesting a
clarification for those unwilling to make assumptions might be
a good idea :-)
Rather than speculate any further someone really should ask them. If
they mean "commercial distribution of the software" they need to say
that rather than "commercial use" which I suspect is too vague to have
an unambiguous legal definition.
Lee
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 08:33:58 +0000, Pete Leigh
wrote:
> Still, without explaining any more, would it
be an idea for the authors to
> indicate what their likely response would be under some easily imaginable
> scenarios, like: "I'm about to release a commercial album where linux
> sampler was used in production. May I?"
From my
understanding, it is the commercial exploitation of the software,
rather than the
sale of music written with the software that they are
trying to limit: so if you were to build a linux based synth, and sell it
with LS installed, they would like to get some money from you for it,
which they would not be able to do under the GPL.
10:13 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
On 12/10/05, Lee Revell <rlrevell(a)joe-job.com> wrote:
On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 20:49 +0000, Pete Leigh wrote:
Lee & others,
I may be wrong but I believe that the answers to this are in the
archives if someone wanted to go through them and find it.
The proble with asking is that while the answer may be true today
it may not be true in the future.
- Mark
On 10/12/05, James Stone
<jmstone(a)dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Hi James,
I hope (and am quite prepared to believe) you're right. Just that it
doesn't specifically say that - it just says "commercial use [...] is
not allowed", which is a little vague. That's why I'm suggesting a
clarification for those unwilling to make assumptions might be
a good idea :-)
Rather than speculate any further someone really should ask them. If
they mean "commercial distribution of the software" they need to say
that rather than "commercial use" which I suspect is too vague to have
an unambiguous legal definition.
Lee
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 08:33:58 +0000, Pete Leigh
wrote:
> Still, without explaining any more, would it
be an idea for the authors to
> indicate what their likely response would be under some easily imaginable
> scenarios, like: "I'm about to release a commercial album where linux
> sampler was used in production. May I?"
From my
understanding, it is the commercial exploitation of the software,
rather than the
sale of music written with the software that they are
trying to limit: so if you were to build a linux based synth, and sell it
with LS installed, they would like to get some money from you for it,
which they would not be able to do under the GPL.
11 Dec
11 Dec
4:12 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Re: Linux Sampler
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 20:49:34 +0000, Pete Leigh wrote:
On 10/12/05, James Stone
<jmstone(a)dsl.pipex.com>
wrote:
Hi James,
I hope (and am quite prepared to believe) you're right. Just that it
doesn't specifically say that - it just says "commercial use [...] is not
allowed", which is a little vague. That's why I'm suggesting a
clarification for those unwilling to make assumptions might be a good idea
:-)
Cheers,
- Pete.
Here is an excerpt from an email on 5th September title Re:
[Linuxsampler-devel] GPL tainting and [linuxsampler license] from LS
project leader, and author of libgig (Christian Shoenebeck) posted to the
LS-Dev email list
<quote>
The idea about such a possible new license was to allow "direct" commercial
usage of LS only if the commercial actor supported this or another
(important) open source project either directly by contributing code or
indirectly by funding the respective project. So somebody who supported e.g.
the GCC, ALSA or Jack Audio Connection Kit project might also be allowed to
use LS commercially. "Commercial usage" would of course only mean products
based on LS, it would of course not mean using LS e.g. for commercial music
production or something. Such a license wouldn't mean anything negative for
the user, but might "motivate" or force ;) more people to contribute to this
or another open source project, so personally I would find such a license
more beneficial (than GPL for example) for the open source community in
general.
</quote>
James
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 08:33:58 +0000, Pete Leigh
wrote:
> Still, without explaining any more, would it
be an idea for the
> authors to indicate what their likely response would be under some
> easily imaginable scenarios, like: "I'm about to release a commercial
> album where linux sampler was used in production. May I?"
From my
understanding, it is the commercial exploitation of the
software,
rather than the sale of music written with the software that they are
trying to limit: so if you were to build a linux based synth, and sell
it with LS installed, they would like to get some money from you for it,
which they would not be able to do under the GPL.
14 Dec
14 Dec
10:28 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
On 12/10/05, James Stone <jmstone(a)dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Do you mean like this one?
http://www.lionstracs.com/site/index.php?option=content&task=view&i…
It seems that one company already has used it. I wonder why it should
be OK for them to use it and not others? ;-)
- Mark
From my understanding, it is the commercial
exploitation of the software,
rather than the sale of music written with the
software that they are
trying to limit: so if you were to build a linux based synth, and sell it
with LS installed, they would like to get some money from you for it,
which they would not be able to do under the GPL.
James 
11 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
Mark Knecht wrote:
On 12/10/05, James Stone <jmstone(a)dsl.pipex.com>
wrote:
Do you mean like this one?
http://www.lionstracs.com/site/index.php?option=content&task=view&i…
It seems that one company already has used it. I wonder why it should
be OK for them to use it and not others? ;-)
- Mark
I assume that you do know that Lionstracs is a venture started by none
other than Dominic and Benno ?
Best,
dp
From my
understanding, it is the commercial exploitation of the software,
rather than the
sale of music written with the software that they are
trying to limit: so if you were to build a linux based synth, and sell it
with LS installed, they would like to get some money from you for it,
which they would not be able to do under the GPL.
James
8 Dec
8 Dec
7:25 a.m.
On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:34:43 -0500
Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
there is more going on there than almost nobody on
this list except for
the LS authors and myself is aware of. it would be wise for everyone to
not judge this admittedly very unpleasant change in the license without
being aware of the reasons why it occured. unfortunately, it is not
possible to explain any more.
There's no way other to judge this than on the data we have. As i have
said before i'm not really sure it's even legal to change the license to
from GPL to something different, as there might have been many
contributions by other people during the GPL time. As a project
maintainer of a GPL project, it would be very wrong to accept patches
while the project was GPL and then change the license without explicit
agreement by _all_ other contributors. Actually not only wrong, but
illegal.
I have spoken out this concern earlier, but there has never been a
conclusive answer. Actually i don't think there was ever _any_ answer.
So from my point of view LS is dead until someone actually speaks up.
This "Ah it's all ok, but we can't tell you why" doesn't sound
convincing at all. Sorry.
Have all contributors been asked whether they agree to the license
change? Or did they sign off all copyrights to the LS authors? Browsing
through the ML archives it doesn't look like either to me.
Regards,
Flo
--
Palimm Palimm!
http://tapas.affenbande.org
8:11 a.m.
Florian Schmidt wrote:
On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:34:43 -0500
Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
IANAL but I'll take a guess that there's a patent encumbrance issue. If
I recall correctly the Giga folks own a patent on streaming audio to a
sampler, and if the wording on that patent is sufficiently broad then
there may indeed be a legal issue with LS's technology, regardless
whether they actually broach the Giga patent. I welcome correction on
the patent surmise, if I'm wrong about it.
Btw, are there clones of GS in the Win/Mac world ? If not, I'm sure it
would be easy to discover why.
Well, you can always just use GS in Windows. That way you can be
absolutely sure that you're dancing with the devil. ;)
Best,
dp
there is more going on there than almost nobody on
this list except for
the LS authors and myself is aware of. it would be wise for everyone to
not judge this admittedly very unpleasant change in the license without
being aware of the reasons why it occured. unfortunately, it is not
possible to explain any more.
[snip]
This "Ah it's all ok, but we can't tell you why" doesn't sound
convincing at all. Sorry.
8:32 a.m.
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 07:28 -0500, Dave Phillips wrote:
Florian Schmidt wrote:
A software patent? Then maybe EU citizens could be exempted from the
non-commercial restriction (at least until Virgin and friends have
bought enough MEPs). Not that it would make any practical difference to
me, I'm not going to write any music that anyone would want to buy any
time soon.
--
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
On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 20:34:43 -0500
Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
IANAL but I'll take a guess that there's a patent encumbrance issue. If
I recall correctly the Giga folks own a patent on streaming audio to a
sampler, and if the wording on that patent is sufficiently broad then
there may indeed be a legal issue with LS's technology, regardless
whether they actually broach the Giga patent. I welcome correction on
the patent surmise, if I'm wrong about it. there is more going on there than almost nobody on
this list except for
the LS authors and myself is aware of. it would be wise for everyone to
not judge this admittedly very unpleasant change in the license without
being aware of the reasons why it occured. unfortunately, it is not
possible to explain any more.
[snip]
This "Ah it's all ok, but we can't tell you why" doesn't sound
convincing at all. Sorry.
10:33 a.m.
A software patent? Then maybe EU citizens could be
exempted from the
non-commercial restriction (at least until Virgin and friends have
bought enough MEPs). Not that it would make any practical difference to
me, I'm not going to write any music that anyone would want to buy any
time soon.
Right, most people other than my wife will probably never hear
anything I create, but at the same time, using software with any kind
of restrictions on it really bothers me. This is exactly the reason I
left the Windows world and went to Linux, so that I could have the
peace of mind of using 100% free software. If I wanted to use
software with sketchy licensing under the table, I'd load a cracked
version of Windows on my box and start surfing the warez sites. This
is an exaggeration I know, but still - if the software is GPL, then it
should be GPL 100%.
---
Josh
10 Dec
10 Dec
10:41 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Linux Sampler
A software patent? Then maybe EU citizens could be
exempted from the
non-commercial restriction (at least until Virgin and friends have bought
enough MEPs). Not that it would make any practical difference to me, I'm
not going to write any music that anyone would want to buy any time soon.
It's not a restriction on selling your music made with the software, it is
a restriction on commercial sale of the software itself.
James
8 Dec
8 Dec
3:01 p.m.
So from my point of view LS is dead until someone
actually speaks up.
This "Ah it's all ok, but we can't tell you why" doesn't sound
convincing at all. Sorry.
if they dont want to speakup, we will have to extrapolate...as it is
most likely one or two things:
* they found someone using LS code in a commercial product without
negotiating a relicense first, this could be any of those things like
PlugZilla, Receptor, Neko, OASYS, whatever...
* Tascam threatened to sue them into oblivion. Given the pricetag of
NI's Kontakt, which has GIGA support and disk streaming, theres
certainly room in there for some kind of royalty payment, even when
you factor out what an expense the enormous payroll listed in the
AboutBox must be...
if its the former, sorry to hear that for the LS folk's sake, but
perhaps they could clarify whether material created with pure LS is
permissable under CC or other license..
if it is the latter, that is fairly absurd. if i make a sampler in pd
using readsf~ ive instantly violated tascam's 'patent' ?
4:20 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 16:09 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
On 12/7/05, Lars Luthman
<larsl(a)users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
When was that?
A cvs snapshot that I packaged for experimental purposes dated
2005.01.20 does not have the "commercial usage" exception.
Was there any "official" tarball release before 0.3.1? That one (and
subsequent ones) come with the GPL but-not-really-GPL license. So no, it
is not only CVS.
-- Fernando
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 14:04 -0800, Mark Knecht
wrote:
Yep, this was the problem and you interpret it as many others do. The
Debian folks didn't like this so much that they dropped LS from their
releases. I think that the LS developers weren't taking the commercail
thing quite as far as you are. They seemed more interested in keeping
Synth manufacturers from using the code, which is disappointing sime a
good software company could pick this up and run with it quite
quickly. This would be great for us users, should they every do it.
Note that this license modification was not in the latest official
release the last time I looked. It was only in the CVS version so
there is an opportunity to fork the database and put a development
team together to keep it truly Open Source, should someone care enough
to do so. 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.
6:43 p.m.
On 12/8/05, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano <nando(a)ccrma.stanford.edu> wrote:
I believe it was in March sometime. The LS guys have been pretty
forthcoming and have kept people on the list informed about this, to a
small extent. They have made a strong statement, which I have not
verified, that the tarball releases from linuxsampler.org have the GPL
license and only code taken from the CVS server have the change.
(Subject to my memory. Don't take anything I say as the gospel truth.)
Note that this
license modification was not in the latest official
release the last time I looked. It was only in the CVS version so
there is an opportunity to fork the database and put a development
team together to keep it truly Open Source, should someone care enough
to do so.
When was that?
A cvs snapshot that I packaged for experimental purposes dated
2005.01.20 does not have the "commercial usage" exception.
Was there any "official" tarball release before 0.3.1? That one (and
subsequent ones) come with the GPL but-not-really-GPL license. So no, it
is not only CVS.
Not sure. Now that I look at the web site they have the same LS-0.3.3
file for both stable and unstable. Probably someone is going to have
to either check the mailing list archives to find out if they've gone
with this license change for good. I no longer subscribe so I'm
concerned that my information is getting too out of date. I was told
that they would keep me informed but maybe I missed a message.
Anyone intersted in further study could easily discover the U.S.
patent numbers that were originally licensed to NemeSys. (Not Tascam!)
If someone cannot do that for themselves then they probably could
figure out someone who does know the numbers and ask so they could
read the patents for themselves.
Please note that while I am greatly disappointed that all of this has
happened I still thinkLS is a really great piece of work and I, for
one, still have great respect for all the folks that have done this
work.
With best regards,
Mark
7:24 p.m.
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 14:43 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
Anyone intersted in further study could easily
discover the U.S.
patent numbers that were originally licensed to NemeSys. (Not Tascam!)
If someone cannot do that for themselves then they probably could
figure out someone who does know the numbers and ask so they could
read the patents for themselves.
Please note that while I am greatly disappointed that all of this has
happened I still thinkLS is a really great piece of work and I, for
one, still have great respect for all the folks that have done this
work.
If the issue really is a patent dispute involving a patent that is 1) a
software patent and 2) obvious and therefore invalid, wouldn't this be
the first case where a corporation went after a free software project
for software patent infringement? And if this were the case shouldn't
there be a huge uproar going on?
Lee
7:49 p.m.
On 12/8/05, Lee Revell <rlrevell(a)joe-job.com> wrote:
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 14:43 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
Lee,
I don't know the answers to your questions but I do not believe
that I said that the patent was "obvious and therefore invalid". IANAL
and wouldn't want to suggest anything like that.
Please note that this may or may not be considered a 'software
patent' as disk streaming is involved.
With best regards,
Mark
Anyone intersted in further study could easily
discover the U.S.
patent numbers that were originally licensed to NemeSys. (Not Tascam!)
If someone cannot do that for themselves then they probably could
figure out someone who does know the numbers and ask so they could
read the patents for themselves.
Please note that while I am greatly disappointed that all of this has
happened I still thinkLS is a really great piece of work and I, for
one, still have great respect for all the folks that have done this
work.
If the issue really is a patent dispute involving a patent that is 1) a
software patent and 2) obvious and therefore invalid, wouldn't this be
the first case where a corporation went after a free software project
for software patent infringement? And if this were the case shouldn't
there be a huge uproar going on?
Lee
8:17 p.m.
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 18:25 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 14:43 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Anyone intersted in further study could easily discover the U.S.
> patent numbers that were originally licensed to NemeSys. (Not Tascam!)
> If someone cannot do that for themselves then they probably could
> figure out someone who does know the numbers and ask so they could
> read the patents for themselves.
The patent was licensed to NemeSys, but it is owned by Conexant.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d…
If the issue really is a patent dispute involving a
patent that is 1) a
software patent and 2) obvious and therefore invalid, wouldn't this be
the first case where a corporation went after a free software project
for software patent infringement? And if this were the case shouldn't
there be a huge uproar going on?
The patent is very obvious - I came up with the same idea about 30
seconds after hearing about the problem of a low latency sampler with
huge samples, and I'm not even particularly clever. I don't know enough
about US patent law to know how complex or original something has to be
in order to be a valid patent, but if I was a US citizen I would
definitely write some angry mails to the patent and trademark office.
--
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
10:20 p.m.
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 18:25 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 14:43 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
AFAIK, it has nothing whatsoever to do with a patent issue. That
question does exist for LS, but I do not believe (and I am not certain
here) that it is related to the reason for the license change in CVS.
--p
Anyone intersted in further study could easily
discover the U.S.
patent numbers that were originally licensed to NemeSys. (Not Tascam!)
If someone cannot do that for themselves then they probably could
figure out someone who does know the numbers and ask so they could
read the patents for themselves.
Please note that while I am greatly disappointed that all of this has
happened I still thinkLS is a really great piece of work and I, for
one, still have great respect for all the folks that have done this
work.
If the issue really is a patent dispute involving a patent that is 1) a
10:42 p.m.
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 21:22 -0500, Paul Davis wrote:
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 18:25 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
In CVS a while back, I suppose. AFAIK all 0.3.x (x >= 1) tarballs have
the same non-GPL license.
-- Fernando
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 14:43 -0800, Mark Knecht
wrote:
AFAIK, it has nothing whatsoever to do with a patent issue. That
question does exist for LS, but I do not believe (and I am not certain
here) that it is related to the reason for the license change in CVS. Anyone intersted in further study could easily
discover the U.S.
patent numbers that were originally licensed to NemeSys. (Not Tascam!)
If someone cannot do that for themselves then they probably could
figure out someone who does know the numbers and ask so they could
read the patents for themselves.
Please note that while I am greatly disappointed that all of this has
happened I still thinkLS is a really great piece of work and I, for
one, still have great respect for all the folks that have done this
work.
If the issue really is a patent dispute involving a patent that is 1) a 
3:45 a.m.
On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Lars Luthman wrote:
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.
Hmm....
From what I understand of GPL you can't put additional restrictions
to it. It's either GPL ot not.
The only thing you can do as a copyright holder is to dual-licence it,
like MySQL for instance, where you have one free GPL version with its
licensing rules or the same code bought as a commercial license
that you can use free of GPL restrictions.
AFAIKT from what Lars reports, LinuxSampler is violating GPL.
Regards,
Peder
4:26 a.m.
On 08/12/05, Peder Hedlund <peder(a)musikhuset.org> wrote:
Hmm....
From what I understand of GPL you can't put additional restrictions
to it. It's either GPL ot not.
If you own the copyright on something, you can license it how
you like - the fact that older versions have been licensed under
GPL is irrelevant.
If the program is derived from GPL'd code whose copyright is
owned by someone else, who's unwilling to allow re-licensing,
then what you say is correct, but I think Linux Sampler was
written from scratch.
There's nothing to stop someone taking the last GPL'd version
of Linux Sampler and forking a GPL version from there, of course,
except that the mysterious "more going on" alluded to by
Paul Davis might also start to happen to the forkers..?
- Pete.
5:36 a.m.
On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Pete Leigh wrote:
On 08/12/05, Peder Hedlund
<peder(a)musikhuset.org> wrote:
But can you really restrict usage of the software?
I mean, if someone has accepted to use the software under GPL terms
then, to him, it's GPL. Since GPL allows commercial use, that
should be his right.
I don't think GPL allows exceptions to the license in that something
that's GPL suddenly changes licensing terms if it's being used
commercially.
Regards,
Peder
Hmm....
From what I understand of GPL you can't put additional restrictions
to it. It's either GPL ot not.
If you own the copyright on something, you can license it how
you like - the fact that older versions have been licensed under
GPL is irrelevant.
6:02 a.m.
On 08/12/05, Peder Hedlund <peder(a)musikhuset.org> wrote:
On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Pete Leigh wrote:
> If you own the copyright on something, you can
license it how
> you like - the fact that older versions have been licensed under
> GPL is irrelevant.
But can you really restrict usage of the software?
Well, the way you can effectively license software - you'd
have to ask a lawyer, but I think there are plenty of licensing
schemes out there that say: "only for non-commercial use".
Whether they would work in court, I've no real idea.
I mean, if someone has accepted to use the software
under
GPL terms then, to him, it's GPL. Since GPL allows commercial
use, that should be his right.
Under GPL terms, yes. If he's using a version of Linux Sampler
which was released under the GPL you're quite right.
But if he's accepted the LS license being talked about, it's not the
GPL, it's the GPL plus an exception disallowing commercial use.
A different beast.
I don't think GPL allows exceptions to the
license in that something
that's GPL suddenly changes licensing terms if it's being used
commercially.
The pure, original GPL doesn't allow this. But they are apparently
not offering the software under the GPL, but under a
GPL+commercial-exception license of their own.
The developers themselves have no obligations under the GPL,
because they themselves wrote the software and own the copyright.
They did not license their use of it from some other party.
Whether licenses that attempt to restrict the use of the thing
licensed are robust enough to satisfy a court, that's a different
question.
- Pete.
6:59 a.m.
On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Pete Leigh wrote:
But if he's accepted the LS license being talked
about, it's not the
GPL, it's the GPL plus an exception disallowing commercial use.
A different beast.
What I was caught up with was §6 of the GPL where it says
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise
of the rights granted herein."
But apparently this only affects the right to "copy, distribute or
modify" the software, not acctually running it.
OTOH this raises the interesting question: what's to stop me from
taking the GPL source, modifying it a bit and releasing it as
LinuxSamplerXP with no extra restrictions? The source is GPL and
according to §6 I have GPL, and only GPL, rights to modify the source
and create a derivative work. I then release it as "pure" GLP.
I'm by no means a GPL expert. These thoughts are merely toughts.
I'd love to hear from someone with proper GPL knowledge.
Regards,
Peder
8:01 a.m.
On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 12:00 +0100, Peder Hedlund wrote:
On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Pete Leigh wrote:
These terms are for the licensee (you), not the copyright owner (the LS
authors). The copyright owners are allowed to relicense their software
any way they want. If you have a GPL'd copy of LS then it is GPL and no
one can tell you that the terms for your copy have suddenly changed. But
if you download the CVS version, which apparently has this "no
commercial use" restriction, then you are not allowed to use that
version commercially.
But if he's accepted the LS license being
talked about, it's not the
GPL, it's the GPL plus an exception disallowing commercial use.
A different beast.
What I was caught up with was §6 of the GPL where it says
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise
of the rights granted herein."
But apparently this only affects the right to "copy, distribute or
modify" the software, not acctually running it. OTOH this raises the interesting question: what's
to stop me from
taking the GPL source, modifying it a bit and releasing it as
LinuxSamplerXP with no extra restrictions? The source is GPL and
according to §6 I have GPL, and only GPL, rights to modify the source
and create a derivative work. I then release it as "pure" GLP.
You are not a copyright owner, so you can not release the software under
another license. And since the actual license is GPL + the
non-commercial "exception", that extract from §6 could be taken to mean
that you are not allowed to impose any restrictions other than the one
in the GPL + the exception.
_Or_ it could be taken to mean that you are not allowed to impose any
further restrictions other than the ones in the pure GPL, in which case
you are not allowed to redistribute LS at all since redistributing it
under the pure GPL would give other people additional rights (using it
commercially), which you can not give them since you are not the
copyright owner. From §7: "If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy
simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other
pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the
Program at all."
This is why I said it was confusing...
--
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
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41 comments
17 participants
participants (17)
-
allan_wind＠lifeintegrity.com -
c -
Christoph Eckert -
Dave Phillips -
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano -
Florian Schmidt -
JackLab Core Team -
James Stone -
Josh Lawrence -
Lars Luthman -
Lee Revell -
Mark Knecht -
Mehmet Okonsar -
Paul Davis -
Peder Hedlund -
Pete Bessman -
Pete Leigh