Re: [Audacity-devel] VST and beta version download

[Joshua H. <jo...@re...>]

Great summary, Dominic.  I have only one comment.

> A few times recently, I started to wonder whether or not it was a
> good idea to GPL Audacity in the first place.  In the end, I think
> it's well worth it, though: after all, if Audacity used a BSD-style
> license, then we wouldn't be able to link to libmad, libsamplerate,
> or soundtouch.

As I understand it, there's nothing preventing us from releasing our
source under a more liberal license like BSD.  The licenses of libraries
Audacity can link against have no effect on our source, because our
source is not derived from them.  The requirement is that if we
distribute binaries that link against GPL libraries (thus forming a
combined work that is derived from all of the libraries as well as the
main program), the whole of the binary distribution must be under the
terms of the GPL.

To me it seems perfectly legitimate to write a program, distribute the
sources under the BSD license (thus making the code more easily
reusable), but distribute binaries that link against GPL libraries under
the GPL.

Whether that is desirable for Audacity I can't say.  It makes me nervous
to imagine the prospect of competing against a closed-source fork of
Audacity.  On the other hand, if core functionality in Audacity depends
on GPL'd libraries, there's no way to create a closed-source version
unless you strip away the functionality that GPL'd libraries provide.

Josh