[Ardour-Dev] PACKAGER_README

[schoappied]

Paul Davis wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-11-30 at 13:43 +0100, schoappied wrote:
>   
>> Hi devs,
>>
>> Little comment about the content of the file 'PACKAGER_README', quote:
>>
>>     
>>> (1) VST SUPPORT
>>>
>>> You may not distribute binaries of Ardour with VST support. Doing so
>>> is a violation of the license agreement for the Steinberg VST SDK. If
>>> you are found to be distributing such binaries, you risk both
>>> prosecution by Steinberg and public humiliation by me.
>>>       
>> especially this sentence:
>>
>>     
>>> you risk public humiliation by me.
>>>       
>> I find this sentence unnecessarily  hostile/ aggressive. IMHO there is 
>> never a reason to public humiliate someone.  That's why they closed the 
>> 'Abu Graib' prison in Iraq.... ;)
>>     
>
> I am afraid I disagree. I have had already had to remind at least a half
> dozen people that they have violated both the GPL and/or Steinberg's
> license, even when explicit instructions were in place that this was
> illegal. I also find (even humorously) equating the possibility of me
> identifying a license violator on ardour.org with the grotesque abuse of
> human rights perpetrated by the USA in Iraq to be extremely offensive.
>   
As you mention, it was with a ;)
But the essence of it was that public humiliation  can never be 
justified imho. 

>   
>> Moreover such a statement is unprofessional imho.
>>     
>
> I have never been a fan of convention. I really don't care too much
> about other people's perception of what is professional or not. However,
> I do care very much about licenses and honoring their terms, which I
> feel are one very real sign of professionalism. If people cannot read
> the very simple instructions - you may not do this - and then go ahead
> and do it anyway, then public humiliation is what they deserve. It
> normally doesn't come to that - a reminder that they are violating 1 or
> more licenses has always been enough (so far) to make them stop doing
> it.
>
> If nobody had actually violated these instructions, this terminology
> would not be there. But it seems as if a mere instruction that something
> is against the terms of the license is not enough. Since I don't intend
> to waste money taking people to court over this issue, public
> humiliation will have to do as the extra dis-incentive.
>
> It is true, however, that the text is innaccurate in another way. It is
> more likely that they are violating the GPL of Ardour and/or some of the
> libraries that Ardour depends upon, rather than the license for the
> Steinberg SDK, and that should be changed.
>
>   
I understand your frustration about this. But again, that's doesn't 
legitimate the public humiliation statement. And such a statement 
doesn't solve any of this problems, so it's not necessarily  to  state 
it this way.

AFAIK the vst support in Ardour is not really recommended by the devs of 
Ardour to use. Other say dssi-vst is a better way to use VST with 
Ardour, cause it doesn't harm the stability of Ardour. So why make it 
able to build it with VST support? Why not help to develop tools as 
dssi-vst to make it easy to use VST with Ardour?

About professionalism, I don't like to use that word either, cause it's 
one of the most misused words today...

Regards,

s