Donating for the commercial exception to be removed?

[cuse]

Many people complain about the commercial exception in LinuxSampler's license. Would you donate for the commercial exception to be removed from LinuxSampler and all its future versions? Feel free to add your ideas and opinions in this thread.

[luisgarrido]

If what you guys want is to make some rightful bucks out of all the effort and talent you threw in LS I think donations are not very effective, only very well-off people will pay for something they can get from free.

Perhaps you could go for the old dual scheme: a "Pro" closed source version, with some extra features including tech support, and a "Community" full GPL'd version. That seems to work well for other projects and to me it looks like a good compromise: developers can pay some bills, customers that need a quality service get it, the community version works as a testbed, and eventually the commercial power features trickle down to the free version. Sound library companies will appreciate encryption features so they can protect their copyrights.

Regarding the present license, I think the only problem is that you keep calling it "GPL with...", giving whiners a straw to grasp so they can shout "woe me, this is not GPL!" Just call it the LS license and get done with it. Or implement a dual-licensing scheme like Qt's.

I get what you want to avoid with the commercial exception and I fully support you. It's ugly how many companies are jumping on the Linux bandwagon and put out products based on open source solutions without giving anything back to the community.

I wish you the best.

[ccherrett]

Hey Christian,

Why not say for $100,000+ you will remove it

[Octron]

Hi, I do not know, if everyone understands, how far the commercial exception goes.

If I understood right, than for the normal Musician this exception does not matter at all (concerning also commercial soundtracks, which were played in by using LS) . But it does matter if I decide to build a commercial product based on linuxsampler - let's say an audio PC with preinstalled software, or a Keyboard with a hardware-sampleplayer based on linuxsampler sources.

In this case I would propose not only to demand for a single buy out but demanding a shareholding on the income of the seller.
Lets say 5-10% of the price, the customer has to pay.

Best Regards, Markus

[nicop]

Hi, I agree with Markus interpretation and also with his advice (sharehold).

[shap]

One problem with the current state of affairs is that all mirrors of linuxsampler are violating the license. If true, that's a pretty big problem. Here is why I am concerned:

The authors of linuxsampler and libgig have the right to link their own works without regard to GPL. Having done so, they have the right to distribute the work to each of us in any form that they choose. But we do not have the right to redistribute the binary work in turn, because the combined work does not comply with GPL. The source package for linuxsampler can be redistributed, but it appears to me that redistribution of the binary package is prohibited because of the GPL violation.

A quick google search reveals more than 400 matches for "linuxsampler_1.0.0". Four or five of these are linuxsampler.org, but every other case appears to be violating GPL. Current violators include opensuse.org, which seems like a bad thing. I'm actually very concerned about this, and I'm considering whether I should advise them of the problem.

In my opinion, the current "non-commercial use" restriction reflects a confusion of objectives. If a commercial entity embodies linuxsampler in (say) a keyboard, that would take a lot of work, and they would be obligated to release the source code for that work. That is a valid form of contribution to the community, even if it doesn't get the authors paid. If the goal is to move linuxsamplers forward and build a group of funded contributors, the current restriction is counterproductive. If the goal is to get the authors paid, then I have to say (with respect) that GPL wasn't and isn't an appropriate license for the author's goals. Linuxsampler looks like good work. Sometimes cooperation is necessary to gain from this type of good work. It certainly worked very well for my last company.

Speaking as a potential commercial user who would be willing - indeed eager - to pay to move linuxsampler forward if we decide to use it, the current license strikes me as a reason to be cautious. It suggests that the authors are confused about how to properly achieve their goals. This tends to make successful discussions about how to proceed more difficult. In my opinion, the authors should be free to use whatever licensing terms they wish. What I am suggesting is that confused motivation doesn't help, and the license should be consistent with the goals.

If we choose to put funding into the linuxsampler project, that funding would be substantial (hundreds of thousands of dollars) and we would require that the (useful) results be distributed under GPL. Donations are definitely not the right path for us. We will have specific technical requirements that we need to meet, and we will be looking to fund work directed at those objectives. Which means a contract, not just a donation.

If there is one thing that I have learned in 25 years of startup companies it is that issues of ownership and compensation are very personal, and that they "blow up" very easily. Perhaps that would not be true here; the problem from our perspective is that we don't know, and that represents a risk. One way to manage that risk is to simply build our own solution. I would prefer to avoid that, but the issue from a commercial perspective is to manage the balance of risk and cost.

Based on what we can see on the linuxsampler web site, we have questions about the current architecture of linuxsampler. We may be misunderstanding, or we may be wrong about what we think we need. At the moment, the license stops us from looking at the code at all, and without that it is hard to understand (a) where the code is today, and (b) how our picture of sampler architecture actually differs from the linuxsampler picture. There are many aspects of linuxsampler that we think look promising! Problem is: under the current license we can't evaluate. We don't think the authors intended to stop this type of evaluation, but we have to obey what the license says.

So speaking as a potential commercial collaborator, we feel completely stuck. Assuming we get funded, we would like to help this project move forward. But at the moment, we can't do the due diligence that would be necessary to support that decision.

My last company was reasonably successful with a dual-license strategy. If it would be helpful, I would be happy to talk with you about how we made that work. I would also be interested to talk about our questions (in the current company) about linuxsampler and how we might help.

[cuse]

The commercial exception is not placed by confusion. If released under a regular open source license, the sampler could be used in a commercial product like a hardware sampler or as an engine for a soundlibrary bundle without modifying any source code of the sampler. Reason is that there is not only a C++ based API, but also a network protocol based interface for controlling the sampler (LSCP). Our goals are pretty clear. The source code is publicly available for everybody. A regular user can use it for private purpose and for commercial audio production for free (speaking about the audio output of the sampler). However if a commercial actor wants to use the sampler software itself in a commercial product, then this should happen on fair basis, that is if somebody is making profit directly with our long year work (not its audio output), that commercial has to support our project in some way for getting the permission to do so.

I totally understand your position about not looking at the source code yet. If you have any kind of questions about the architecture or other internals, you can ask them.

For a larger financial compensation we are willing to release the sampler under GPL. We can certainly also arrange the man power for source code adjustments. And sure, speaking about larger sums and goals, this should certainly be covered by a contract.

[eddie]

I will not "donate" but PAY for a developer versed in MIDI to put together a MIDI sequencer plugin (event list type) for me that would work on RTAS and VSTi. There is no sound involved but sharing the clipboard with the host and play in sync. I'm not wealthy by any means but I'd like a quote or an estimate and if it is within my means I would DEFINITELY consider it.

I wish to hear from the developers of Linux Sampler, (that would be fantastic).

My apologies to all users for posting this on an unrelated topic. Maybe I should pursue this endeavor via private messages?