[PD] Re: [PD-dev] SourceForge "Donations"

Frank Barknecht fbar at footils.org
Sun Jan 25 12:11:12 CET 2004


Hallo,
Olaf Matthes hat gesagt: // Olaf Matthes wrote:

> That's a good point. I have some code (i.e. externals) I don't want to 
> give away for free (because it took so much time to code them), but the 
> impression about the average Pd user one gets when reading the mailing 
> list suggest that selling closed-source Pd externals is something one 
> would get 'killed' for.
> My solution was to switch to Max/MSP. There seems to be a completely 
> different attitute towards open-source among Max/MSP users. Nobody cries 
> "where is the source code?" in case I release an external without 
> sources and nobody complains when I decide to sell my stuff instead of 
> giving it away for free.

I just want to point out that there are two different "free"s
involved: On is free as in beer, the other free as in freedom. Max/MSP
users - Reaktor users seem to be even worse - often don't want this
freedom to look at and change the source. They feel that they don't
need it, and in fact they do not need it. Thus they are less inclined
if at all to demand it. Many Reaktor users even buy patches, go
figure!

But at least in the Windows world, it is certain, that a *lot* of
users just want the "free" as in beer. There are hundreds or thousands
of cracked copies of Reaktor, Live, Cubase and similar tools
installed. When I saw Robert Henke from Ableton explain "Live" in a
presentation, he was asking the audience to at least look for a crack,
that works, because a bad crack leading to crashes would have a bad
impact even on Ableton's image: "I know you do this, but make sure you
do it right."

I just don't want to be a part of this habit. This simply is another
world I don't want to be involved in (anymore). This might also
explain your impression of getting 'killed'. Doing closed source
software is not part of this world, it's like: "On December 3rd 2001,
he tragically left our world". 

ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__




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