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... | _______________________________________________ | Freepats mailing list | Freepats(a)opensrc.org | 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...