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Addendum: since this is getting downvoted, probably because I didn't explain why this matters beyond philosophical arguments, read my reply down the thread for

Addendum: since this is getting downvoted, probably because I didn't explain why this matters beyond philosophical arguments, read my reply down the thread for why the license means in practice I can't use this DAW as a live plug-in host (without a huge hassle). There's a practical concern for you. One that doesn't apply to most proprietary applications, it's very unique to the AGPL. This looks good, I've been making music with Ardour lately and this has a few features I wish Ardour did. But - too bad it's not free software. It's unfortunately licensed under an EULA, the GNU AGPLv3 - which, as much as the FSF would like you to believe otherwise, is not a Free Software license, as it violates Freedom 0, your right to use/run the software however you wish without conditions. The AGPL imposes requirements not only on people who distribute the software (like a simple copyright license, e.g. the GPLs, BSD, Apache, etc), but also on people who merely use it (it requires you to make the source code available to anyone who even uses the software indirectly, e.g. as a service). So I might use if it's good, but I won't be contributing patches to it, as I would with other software like Ardour, and I won't use it in a live setting. I can't in good conscience spend my free time contributing to software behind a EULA. (I haven't the foggiest clue why they picked this license either; its main purpose is to extend the GPL's virality to network services to the detriment of user freedom, but this isn't a network service.)

coldtea 6y ago
This reads more like a general diatribe against AGPLv3 than a critique of the program. I don't like GPL licenses myself, I prefer BSD/MIT/etc. But that aside, this has very little to do with this program, and it very little (if any) impediment to using this kind of program. It might prevent a company from building a commercial closed source version (which is fine, we have plenty of commercial DAWs already), and it might prevent a company from somehow turning this into SaaS. Both of those seem like very remote and unlike possibilities, even if this was non GPLv3.
- marcan_42 6y ago
  It's certainly a critique of the AGPL. I was just rather shocked to see the AGPL here, of all places. It doesn't make any sense, and it puts me off of considering it as a general free software DAW, and more in the same category as the proprietary plug-ins that I use (because there's no FOSS alternative). I'll use them, but not consider them a community project I can contribute to. It may not be obvious how the AGPL would impact your ability to use a DAW, but it does. Just two days ago I was at band practice with a band I play in, and we decided that for one song the guitarist, who didn't have a part on it, would play a synth running on my computer, via a MIDI keyboard. That's a computer network by most definitions. That means the guitarist is now a user of the software on my computer. I was using Carla (LGPLed) as a plug-in host, but had I been using this instead, I would've been obligated to inform him of the fact and offer the source code. In other words, this means I would never consider using this DAW in a live environment with any external interaction at all (no inputs other than my own, that includes no microphones or analog inputs that might pick up third party signals), lest I become legally obligated to start explaining what I'm running and where to get the source to everyone around me. Now I bet the authors of this software didn't think of such use cases and don't care about them - and this is why the AGPL is evil, because it encroaches on users' rights well beyond you might think at first glance.
  - boudin 6y ago
    You only have to make the source code available if you run a modified version of an AGPL app. And you have to make the source code available to the user of the app, not give a medium with the source code to any user that communicate with the modified software each time they do.
    - marcan_42 6y ago
      This is a broken argument when you consider how the AGPL interacts transitively. If this argument is based on users not modifying the code themselves, then you could use this loophole: * I make changes to an AGPL app and distribute it to you * You take my version verbatim and run it as a SaaS. You do not have to provide the source, as you yourself didn't modify it. If this is the case, then the AGPL is meaningless, and equivalent to the GPL. Alternatively, the "modified version" property persists across distribution. In this case, any time a third party contributes code upstream (without copyright assignment), they would be making upstream itself become a "modified version" in perpetuity. There is no concept of "upstream" in the license itself to provide an out here. If this is the case, all users of the software are required to disclose that fact to their network users and provide source. So pick your poison. Either the AGPL is broken and equivalent to the GPL, or it actually requires all users to follow the requirements of that section, regardless of whether they themselves have modified the code. The real answer here is that the AGPL is a horribly vague license, the SaaS viral provision is extremely poorly written, nobody knows what it'll mean when interpreted by a judge, and you just should never use it. It's a bad license. A bad EULA.
      - boudin 6y ago
        I think you should read more about the licence before criticizing it so harshely. AGPL was created as an answer of this exact loophole that existed in the original GPL. Not saying that those licences are perfect an there is definitely grey areas, but what you are stating is not true.
        marcan_42 6y ago
- squarefoot 6y ago
  "I don't like GPL licenses myself, I prefer BSD/MIT/etc." The GPL may deserve some criticism from a business point of view, but how many of the businesses that criticize it openly, or attempt to dodge it covertly, were brought to success thanks to developers who could become what they are by studying and modifying code that without the GPL would have never been published?
  - trasz 6y ago
    Such as? It's actually a common misconception: that companies publish code because GPL forces them to. In practice, it works the other way around: first you make the decision whether to publish the code or not, only then you choose software with appropriate license.
- oneplane 6y ago
  This is definitely a limitation of AGPL: you cannot interact with it (VST) unless your interactions are also public and free. A program (DAW) that is built on integrating with third party code but limits what code you can integrate with is rather contradictory.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    How does it limit what code you are allowed to integrate with? Do you think that running someone else's code on your machine obliges you to somehow acquire the code to the module that you loaded and share it somehow?
    - oneplane 6y ago
      It does when the license says so. Of course, such a document cannot override the local law, and it might be hard to enforce. For the AGPL, you cannot link against something that isn't also (A)GPL. That means that if you integrate it any tighter than 'running it standalone on an OS' you're probably linking it.
      - michaelmrose 6y ago
        In order to run afoul of it don't you have to provide it to another user either by distributing it or making it available as a service?
        oneplane 6y ago
        Isn't that the entire model of commercial VST plugins?
        michaelmrose 6y ago
        I believe that such plugins are run locally by the user who then delivers the edited sound file. You know as opposed to being run as SAAS.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
michaelmrose 6y ago
To me free usage of the software means I can use a piece of software in any fashion I use for any purpose I use it. I cannot understand how the requirement to share your modifications prevents any lawful or reasonable use. Most end users don't modify their software after all. The sole and only wrinkle is that a requirement to share your code may in some instances keep you from adding some secret sauce to the software, using it to derive profit, and not sharing it with the party that created 99% of the value by providing you the software in the first place. Which seems to be literally complaining that it works as intended. If we accept the premise of copyright and licensing software in the first place I'm not sure where you derive the justification for complaining that they are merely interested in giving you some rights to their efforts and not others. After all they could give you none. Regarding existing free software you already can't take GPL software and make it part of your AGPL software. The kind of software that can be incorporated in AGPL software is software that is allowed by license to be incorporated with software that adds additional restrictions like BSD licensed software. Many would term that "more free" but would somehow manage to differentiate between taking "more free" software and using it to build proprietary software that gives downstream no privileges and taking "more free" software and using it to build software with restrictions that gives some privileges and somehow find the latter wanting.

coldtea 6y ago

This reads more like a general diatribe against AGPLv3 than a critique of the program. I don't like GPL licenses myself, I prefer BSD/MIT/etc. But that aside, this has very little to do with this program, and it very little (if any) impediment to using this kind of program. It might prevent a company from building a commercial closed source version (which is fine, we have plenty of commercial DAWs already), and it might prevent a company from somehow turning this into SaaS. Both of those seem like very remote and unlike possibilities, even if this was non GPLv3.

marcan_42 6y ago
It's certainly a critique of the AGPL. I was just rather shocked to see the AGPL here, of all places. It doesn't make any sense, and it puts me off of considering it as a general free software DAW, and more in the same category as the proprietary plug-ins that I use (because there's no FOSS alternative). I'll use them, but not consider them a community project I can contribute to. It may not be obvious how the AGPL would impact your ability to use a DAW, but it does. Just two days ago I was at band practice with a band I play in, and we decided that for one song the guitarist, who didn't have a part on it, would play a synth running on my computer, via a MIDI keyboard. That's a computer network by most definitions. That means the guitarist is now a user of the software on my computer. I was using Carla (LGPLed) as a plug-in host, but had I been using this instead, I would've been obligated to inform him of the fact and offer the source code. In other words, this means I would never consider using this DAW in a live environment with any external interaction at all (no inputs other than my own, that includes no microphones or analog inputs that might pick up third party signals), lest I become legally obligated to start explaining what I'm running and where to get the source to everyone around me. Now I bet the authors of this software didn't think of such use cases and don't care about them - and this is why the AGPL is evil, because it encroaches on users' rights well beyond you might think at first glance.
- boudin 6y ago
  You only have to make the source code available if you run a modified version of an AGPL app. And you have to make the source code available to the user of the app, not give a medium with the source code to any user that communicate with the modified software each time they do.
  - marcan_42 6y ago
    This is a broken argument when you consider how the AGPL interacts transitively. If this argument is based on users not modifying the code themselves, then you could use this loophole: * I make changes to an AGPL app and distribute it to you * You take my version verbatim and run it as a SaaS. You do not have to provide the source, as you yourself didn't modify it. If this is the case, then the AGPL is meaningless, and equivalent to the GPL. Alternatively, the "modified version" property persists across distribution. In this case, any time a third party contributes code upstream (without copyright assignment), they would be making upstream itself become a "modified version" in perpetuity. There is no concept of "upstream" in the license itself to provide an out here. If this is the case, all users of the software are required to disclose that fact to their network users and provide source. So pick your poison. Either the AGPL is broken and equivalent to the GPL, or it actually requires all users to follow the requirements of that section, regardless of whether they themselves have modified the code. The real answer here is that the AGPL is a horribly vague license, the SaaS viral provision is extremely poorly written, nobody knows what it'll mean when interpreted by a judge, and you just should never use it. It's a bad license. A bad EULA.
    - boudin 6y ago
      I think you should read more about the licence before criticizing it so harshely. AGPL was created as an answer of this exact loophole that existed in the original GPL. Not saying that those licences are perfect an there is definitely grey areas, but what you are stating is not true.
      - marcan_42 6y ago
squarefoot 6y ago
"I don't like GPL licenses myself, I prefer BSD/MIT/etc." The GPL may deserve some criticism from a business point of view, but how many of the businesses that criticize it openly, or attempt to dodge it covertly, were brought to success thanks to developers who could become what they are by studying and modifying code that without the GPL would have never been published?
- trasz 6y ago
  Such as? It's actually a common misconception: that companies publish code because GPL forces them to. In practice, it works the other way around: first you make the decision whether to publish the code or not, only then you choose software with appropriate license.
oneplane 6y ago
This is definitely a limitation of AGPL: you cannot interact with it (VST) unless your interactions are also public and free. A program (DAW) that is built on integrating with third party code but limits what code you can integrate with is rather contradictory.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  How does it limit what code you are allowed to integrate with? Do you think that running someone else's code on your machine obliges you to somehow acquire the code to the module that you loaded and share it somehow?
  - oneplane 6y ago
    It does when the license says so. Of course, such a document cannot override the local law, and it might be hard to enforce. For the AGPL, you cannot link against something that isn't also (A)GPL. That means that if you integrate it any tighter than 'running it standalone on an OS' you're probably linking it.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      In order to run afoul of it don't you have to provide it to another user either by distributing it or making it available as a service?
      - oneplane 6y ago
        Isn't that the entire model of commercial VST plugins?
        michaelmrose 6y ago
        I believe that such plugins are run locally by the user who then delivers the edited sound file. You know as opposed to being run as SAAS.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

michaelmrose 6y ago

To me free usage of the software means I can use a piece of software in any fashion I use for any purpose I use it. I cannot understand how the requirement to share your modifications prevents any lawful or reasonable use. Most end users don't modify their software after all. The sole and only wrinkle is that a requirement to share your code may in some instances keep you from adding some secret sauce to the software, using it to derive profit, and not sharing it with the party that created 99% of the value by providing you the software in the first place. Which seems to be literally complaining that it works as intended. If we accept the premise of copyright and licensing software in the first place I'm not sure where you derive the justification for complaining that they are merely interested in giving you some rights to their efforts and not others. After all they could give you none. Regarding existing free software you already can't take GPL software and make it part of your AGPL software. The kind of software that can be incorporated in AGPL software is software that is allowed by license to be incorporated with software that adds additional restrictions like BSD licensed software. Many would term that "more free" but would somehow manage to differentiate between taking "more free" software and using it to build proprietary software that gives downstream no privileges and taking "more free" software and using it to build software with restrictions that gives some privileges and somehow find the latter wanting.