[Ardour-Dev] Licensing and enforced payments

[Patrick Shirkey]

Mike Mazarick wrote:
>
> There are a few specifics that aren't clear to me right now, so I'm guessing
> they aren't clear to others as well.
>
> Here's the immediate questions:
> 1.   How much money are we talking about?
>   
Around 100k/year would be a good number to aim for.

> 2.   How long do we need to raise it?   Is there a logical end to this
> somewhere?
>   

As soon as possible as it has already been 12 years of underfunded or 
negatively funded development.

> 3.   How much are you, (we),(Paul) willing to 'sell out'?   (example:   if
> all that is needed is money, could it be obtained from picking up trash or
> collecting bottles by the road for recycle?).
>   

The answer is something along the lines of...

"As long as it is directly related to Ardour development and doesn't 
require Paul or the other devs to take their main focus away from that 
purpose and it doesn't conflict with the ethics of GPL software and FOSS 
development practices and noone can think of a reason why it does any of 
the above then it is probably acceptable.... But don't count on it."


> 4.   Is there a structure already in place that can collect some money?
> Can you describe it?
>
>   

Ardour has a subscriptions and donations account with paypal that is 
accessible via the website.


> 2.   It looks to me that the method used to collect money is more of a
> reaction than a plan.  You can get the most money when your customers are
> rich and you are helping to make them rich.   It appears that we are trying
> to get some 'blood out of a turnip' by squeezing a few musicians who have
> figured out how to download free stuff.   If I felt they were getting rich,
> I'd suggest that we go after this market.   However, I haven't run into a
> musician who has become rich from using Linux tools yet.  
>   

There aren't many musicians using Linux tools yet. However there are 
plenty of musicians who will happily spend another $10 on that extra 
drink at the end of the night. I don't see why they shouldn't be asked 
to send a little of that this way if they are using Ardour to have the 
excuse to visit the bar in the first place.

There are also plenty of musicians who are happy to spend money on the 
latest hardware but boast about all the pro software they have cracks for.


> Another obvious solution is to make all the music that is created
> with Ardour GPL (or Creative Commons) unless you get some type of
> 'commercial license', which allows commercial music to be created with
> Ardour.
>   


This is a good idea but will no doubt be met with howls of pain and 
angst... (see question 3 above)



-- 
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd.