[PD] Creating auidioengines for games using PD

[IOhannes m zmoelnig]

Thomas Jeppesen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> If I wanted to use PD to build an audio-engine for a game, how would the 
> copyrights work if the game I was creating the engine for were commercial?
> 
> Also, and I know this is going to be sensitive to some people in this 
> community, but lets have the discussion anyway, I don't like the idea 
> about anybody being able to open the audio-engine that I have created 
> for a commercial game, as easy as they would any PD-patch out there. And 
> I'm sure the people I would be working for would hate the Idea. Is there 
> an easy or ”normal” solution to locking a patch so it can't be opened by 
> anybody?

the first idea that comes to my mind is by "binarizing" the pd-files 
(that is: make the files non-human readable); and write a small 
converter that will revert your changes before Pd parses the file.
the simplest way would probably just add a constant offset to each 
character, does making the file not recognizable on first glance.
more sophisticated solutions would involve encryption.

but then, what do you really want to protect?

> 
> I read a post from Andy Farnell on the sound design mailing list, that 
> EA had created their own version of PD for Spore, is that the only way 
> to go about it if
> you wanted to use PD in a commercial production?
> 

creating your own version of Pd is probably the most simple way to 
achieve a "locked" version.
another reason for this is probably to include all "external" objects 
into a single binary and strip all the objects not needed.

btw, "commercial" is not contradictory to "open source".


mfga,sdr
IOhannes