Author's reply [LWN.net]

Author's reply

Posted Aug 18, 2012 12:28 UTC (Sat) by StudioDave (subscriber, #84346)
In reply to: The Linux digital audio workstation - Part 1 by njwhite
Parent article: The Linux digital audio workstation - Part 1

Greetings,

In future articles I will take your advice re: proprietary vs. commercial. The distinction is valid and important.

You wrote that "I believe Ardour is a commercial project for the main developer" and you are close to the mark. IIRC Mac users can purchase a ready-made binary for OSX or download the source code for free and build it themselves (apparently a non-trivial task, considerably moreso building for Linux). Linux source code and binaries remain free as in FSF-defined free. A Windows version may someday appear, my guess is that it will be available a similar fashion to the Mac version.

The chief developer, Paul Davis, relies on user contributions to keep the project going (it's a big project), but Paul intends that Ardour will always be licensed under the GPL. You will never need to purchase the source code.

Best,

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Author's reply

Posted Aug 18, 2012 12:39 UTC (Sat) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]

Thanks Dave.

> The chief developer, Paul Davis, relies on user contributions to keep the project going (it's a big project), but Paul intends that Ardour will always be licensed under the GPL. You will never need to purchase the source code.

I thought that was the case. Good for Paul! When I mentioned it as a good example of a "commercial" free software project, I meant specifically a project that the main developer(s) seek to sustain themselves financially with, while remaining free software.

Author's reply

Posted Aug 18, 2012 14:54 UTC (Sat) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

I'd like to see more of this kind of thing, there are too many popular and fundamental projects that have no sustainable funding model. If the developer isn't making a living off their open source work then they are really operating as a tax on some other professional work and are having to make unnecessary personal sacrifice to make it all work. Even with their sacrifice it's often not enough.

A developer shouldn't have to choose between an open source license and making a living.

Author's reply

Posted Aug 20, 2012 18:11 UTC (Mon) by StudioDave (subscriber, #84346) [Link]

A quick note. This statement re: compiling Ardour on the Mac :

"apparently a non-trivial task, considerably moreso building for Linux"

should have read:

"apparently a non-trivial task, considerably moreso than building for Linux"

Apologies for the confusion.