[Ardour-Dev] Licensing and enforced payments

[Ronald Stewart]

geez.. careful guys or I bet Paul with come with some brilliant
statement to kill the convo and set y;all straight...

about the M-Audio opportunity.... good luck I talk to them 3 times a
year and they dont give a shit about us...their head is not on right.

thanks

ron
www.indamixx.com

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 11:43 PM, Jan Stary <hans at stare.cz> wrote:
> Patrick,
>
> On Jan 22 12:22:59, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> >>As the original thread is attempting to be a location for ideas to be
>> >>posted and discussion is suggested to take place on a separate thread
>> >>lets start up this discussion here:
>> >>
>> >>8: Paid for SVN
>> >>9: Paid License to: disable crippled interface, Get access to more
>> >>features, Disable RSS ticker
>> >>
>> >
>> >How does a paid license square with the GPL?
>> >
>> >The only way I can see of enforcing payment to disable the crippled
>> >interface etc. is to deny access to the source code.
>> >
>> Well in a binary release that is for example provided for mac users that
>> cannot compile their own software that would not be a problem.
>                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> this is going a _bit_ too far.
>
> First off, being an opensource project, you do assume that your
> users can and will compile from the source code that you provide,
> right? Right?
>
> Now, you are calling it a "problem" if they can compile
> their own software. Unbelievable.
>
> (Second off, why would a Mac user not be able to compile
> his own software, anyway? BTW, have you noticed that ardour's
> webpage provides instructions on how to build ardour from
> the source code?)
>
>> If they were able to compile it
>
> (which is what the whole open source idea encourages them to do)
>
>> then they would be able to disable the License code.
>
> (of course)
>
>> If they are not able to compile it
>
> if (false) {
>
>> then they should pay for a
>> License to get access to whatever the License enables/disables.
>
>        /* NOTREACHED */
> }
>
>
>> >>>9: Paid License to: disable crippled interface, Get access to more
>> >>>features, Disable RSS ticker
>> >
>> >If you want to stay open source (in whatever sense), you have
>> >to provide the source code. And as soon as you do (9), someone
>> >is gonna fork your code, with no other change than throwing
>> >away the code that disables interfaces etc.
>> >
>> And if they do that they will receive the evil eye of the developers and
>> make themselves look like a real *hole.
>
> Exactly who are you speaking for now?
> Exactly how will the evil eye make any money?
>
>> I think most rational people and busy developers will not be bothered to
>> maintain a fork of Ardour just to make sure a License key for mac users
>> and people who are unable to compile a binary isn't part of the system.
>
> No. Ardour is an opensource project.  Ardour users can and will compile
> it from source code (including Mac users, which you seem to have picked
> for some reason).  "Maintaining" such a fork would basically mean posting
> a diff with a few carefully placed #ifdef's each time Ardour makes
> a (crippled) release.
>
>> If it actually starts to make Ardour some money
>> then that will be very good for everyone.
>
> No it won't.
>
> Needles to say, I am all for Ardour (that is: Paul) getting all
> the money he can from either users and/or big audio sponsors
> (such as SAE). I think that being sponsored by an audio company
> is the best way to get funding (did anybody spoke to M-Audio?).
>
> But what you are suggesting in and (9) is cripling
> the application AS SUCH. That will not bring any more
> money - that will just make it a worse application.
>
> If you want people to pay for Ardour, do it the clean
> way. Clearly state that you need money, and ask users
> politely to donate. Keep the application itself out
> of it.
>
> I personally like the OpenBSD way: provide everything for download,
> but also sell the same thing on CDs, augmented with an audio track
> (particularly apealling in Ardour's case, IMHO).
>
>        Jan
>
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