[PD] software license for pd general patch?

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Mon, 5 Jul 2010, João Pais wrote:

> that point was more about the "general interest of the comunity" 
> argument. in any case it's good you don't get that many complaints, 
> which shouldn't mean that there are less users.

If you had your own webserver, you would be able to count the number of 
downloads.

> exactly, that's a great merit. that's why I always ask someone who 
> hasn't put their code in there if he wants to - it makes it much more 
> centralised, and easier to access.

Yeah, though it makes more sense for externals than abstractions, it makes 
more sense for small libraries than big ones, and it also depends on the 
library structure and class naming (ask anyone who installed pd-extended 
and then recompiled iemmatrix from scratch because they can't use the 
version bundled with pd-extended).

> this isn't part of my abstractions (at /extra/jmmmp), it's a "full program". 
> it doesn't come with pd-ext, it's on my pd page. I would say that it's as big 
> as all my abstractions together, but never measured it.

Ok, now it brings this question to my mind : is there anything you can 
break away from your full programme such that the full programme becomes 
smaller and the abstractions library becomes bigger, in a manner that the 
new abstractions are really things that can be useful for any other 
purpose than the one of the full programme ? It's a big key for making 
your full programme worth doing : recycle as many parts as possible, or at 
least make them recycling-ready.

> the next time I try to update my object list (you might know the "short 
> version" from the floss manual, the original is an xls file), I would try to 
> include a list of the gridflow objects.

http://gridflow.ca/svn/trunk/doc/index.pd is a list of everything, in a 
manner quite similar to Pd's own class index. This is what appears when 
you click the GridFlow Index item that GridFlow adds in Pd's Help menu. It 
currently lists 211 classes, but it's possible that I forgot to list a 
few. (Considering the features of GridFlow, 211 is a rather small number).

> I had started talks with a friend that does data visualisation to make a 
> patch to automatise the listing, but he bailed out. so I have to do the 
> work by hand.

The GridFlow Index is auto-generated by 
http://gridflow.ca/svn/trunk/doc/make_index.tcl (which also includes a 
list of exceptions that have to be made in that patch). You could use that 
as an idea for building the index in a wiki format or csv format, 
whichever you need for flossmanual.

> my jmmmp abstractions are very simple utilities, most of them to spare 
> some repetitive code

In the end, every abstraction can be thought of as replacing some 
repetitive code, but some give that impression more than others. I think 
it has to do with how unthinkable it is to be doing a certain task without 
those abstractions (or externals, etc.).

> if you don't want just to do 10m of 4/4

Well, I don't, but the problem with that, is that I usually want to do 10m 
of 7/4 instead. ;)

But once I know what it's about, then I have more of a chance of finding a 
use for it and using it as an answer to a question.

> but that goes back to the initial point: this program was made for 
> persons that play complex music from score, and can need the help of a 
> click track system that lets them reherase/play in concert. that's why I 
> said in the beginning that in this list almost anyone fits into that 
> category

what's the definition of "almost anyone" ? Don't underestimate the number 
of video-centric people. I wonder how many people came to pd because of 
something else than audio. I am one of them for sure. It took me years 
before I tried to do any audio at all with pd and... I'm probably not 
alone. I don't know about your pd club, but my pd club has quite a lot of 
video in it, and sometimes I can guess that some people hardly do any 
audio ever ; and I never tried to skew the pd club towards video, and I 
never heard *anyone* ever suggest that we'd be overrepresentating video.

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| Mathieu Bouchard, Montréal, Québec. téléphone: +1.514.383.3801