Re: [Audacity-devel] modules, ASIO and licensing
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From: Michael S. <msc...@bs...> - 2013-07-06 10:44:45
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On 06.07.2013 12:01, Richard Ash wrote: > It would be nice to only support open standards in open source > software, but an aggressive stance in that direction dooms programs to > be adopted only by niche users. The same problems occur with MP3 and > so on. Richard, I absolutely do see your point. OTOH when you mention MP3: there are hundreds of programs of any provenance reading and writing MP3. Any Linux distribution comes with such software So the license issues seems to be negligible. But I in fact don't see how an interface description can in fact produce a licensing case (at least in Europe). Once it is written down and published for anybody to freely read, how can (and in fact why should) the author restrict anybody from adhering to it ? Regarding GPL: while "creating work based on GPLed code" makes the new stuff GPLed, I don't suppose interface _descriptions_ are (or can be) released under GPL. In fact, usually the header files are deliberately released under the non "infectious" LGPL, otherwise it would not be possible to do closed source software to run on Linux. I do suppose the LADSPA headers are LGPL, too, so they can be used in closed source software. An extreme example of possible license-stretching are the "Receptor" boxes by Muse Research. These computers run on Linux and happily load any VST and VSTi plugins. OTOH it's a nasty hack (as it does not provide any technical benefit), but to me it seems any those problems should be avoidable when the GPLed program uses only "free" interface formats (such as LADSPA) and "somebody" provides closed source "adapters" / "routers" that "simply" convert the free interface to one ore more restricted ones. -Michael |