On 03/18/2011 11:46 PM, Pierre Massat wrote:
I agree that this is quite cryptic. I think i've read somewhere that the functionality that's missing has to do with the plugins.
The missing features of ardour from last i checked related to the packaged OSX version and its ability to support the native Audio Units plugins. The crippled version does not allow loading or saving of presets for said format. There maybe a variant of this with VST support.
Ardour supports its endeavours through appeals for donations and sponsored feature developement. The OSX version was rushed along with the help of a commercial sponsor. A hardware partner provides a customized commercial Ardour, 'Mixbus', the dsp extensions are to my knowledge closed source proprietary - there is an arrangement to commit open source changes to the base.
Ardour itself continues to be completely open-source, and the 'donationware' tag comes from an attempt to put a value on the compiled and packaged binary, which is obviously circumvented by the numerous linux distros which decide to compile and package it themselves. As HCS can probably vouch for, preparing a professional package is still a lot of work!
These are the numerous ways that Ardour developers are attempting to recoup the cost of development, which they for better or worse have committed to as a full-time-job. None of these techniques have any relation to the open-source nature of the product, however the open-source nature of the product probably has a bearing on the way they recoup costs. Still I believe Ardour has had limited contributors to the code, so if they wished to band together as a copyright collective they would be well within their rights to create a commercial fork for evermore, leaving us with what we have at present.