I'm giving a presentation this week. In a way, it's a counter argument to a recent presentation on Max/MSP. One of the things that I want to highlight is the "open sourceness" of PD. libpd presents a very good argument and I'll be highlighting a project I was involved with that produced an IOS app that used libpd as the audio engine. Is there anything else I should be considering besides the obvious points of open source being open source. Concrete examples of PD's open sourceness trumping proprietary technologies?
Thanks, Pall
What App Pall?
Patrick Pagano B.S, M.F.A Audio and Projection Design Faculty Digital Worlds Institute University of Florida, USA (352)294-2020 ________________________________ From: pd-list-bounces@iem.at [pd-list-bounces@iem.at] on behalf of Pall Thayer [pallthay@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, February 09, 2014 7:53 PM To: pd-list Subject: [PD] Is open source better?
I'm giving a presentation this week. In a way, it's a counter argument to a recent presentation on Max/MSP. One of the things that I want to highlight is the "open sourceness" of PD. libpd presents a very good argument and I'll be highlighting a project I was involved with that produced an IOS app that used libpd as the audio engine. Is there anything else I should be considering besides the obvious points of open source being open source. Concrete examples of PD's open sourceness trumping proprietary technologies?
Thanks, Pall
--
Pall Thayer artist http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
On 10/02/14 11:53, Pall Thayer wrote:
I'm giving a presentation this week. In a way, it's a counter argument to a recent presentation on Max/MSP. One of the things that I want to highlight is the "open sourceness" of PD. libpd presents a very good argument and I'll be highlighting a project I was involved with that produced an IOS app that used libpd as the audio engine. Is there anything else I should be considering besides the obvious points of open source being open source. Concrete examples of PD's open sourceness trumping proprietary technologies?
IOs is an odd choice for talking about open source when the only way to install such an app in a device (without jailbreaking it or paying the developer tithe) is by licensing the binary closed source (on their terms) to Apple to distribute via their platform-monopoly app store, which will not distribute the sources or GPL or LGPL apps?
Certainly licenses such as libpd's BSD like one do allow reuse of the code in any app, open source or otherwise, but then is that use still open source???
Simon
This is where things enter into the odd world of academia. In all honesty, I think our application for the particular grant that was available was an "outlier". The grant came with caveats. Projects were to target technology that would likely be used by faculty and students and the resulting work (publications or, in our case, software) would be released under open licenses. As far as I could tell, ours was the only project that was producing actual software. We were able to pay the Apple Dev fee for one year from our funds but our application wasn't ready for distribution within that time so we never submitted it to the app store and have released the source code instead. We were never big fans of distributing it through the app store anyway.
On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 9:21 PM, Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/02/14 11:53, Pall Thayer wrote:
I'm giving a presentation this week. In a way, it's a counter argument to a recent presentation on Max/MSP. One of the things that I want to highlight is the "open sourceness" of PD. libpd presents a very good argument and I'll be highlighting a project I was involved with that produced an IOS app that used libpd as the audio engine. Is there anything else I should be considering besides the obvious points of open source being open source. Concrete examples of PD's open sourceness trumping proprietary technologies?
IOs is an odd choice for talking about open source when the only way to install such an app in a device (without jailbreaking it or paying the developer tithe) is by licensing the binary closed source (on their terms) to Apple to distribute via their platform-monopoly app store, which will not distribute the sources or GPL or LGPL apps?
Certainly licenses such as libpd's BSD like one do allow reuse of the code in any app, open source or otherwise, but then is that use still open source???
Simon
Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/ listinfo/pd-list
On 10/02/14 13:36, Pall Thayer wrote:
This is where things enter into the odd world of academia. In all honesty, I think our application for the particular grant that was available was an "outlier". The grant came with caveats. Projects were to target technology that would likely be used by faculty and students and the resulting work (publications or, in our case, software) would be released under open licenses. As far as I could tell, ours was the only project that was producing actual software. We were able to pay the Apple Dev fee for one year from our funds but our application wasn't ready for distribution within that time so we never submitted it to the app store and have released the source code instead. We were never big fans of distributing it through the app store anyway.
Well I guess the target platform is jail-broken Apples then.
Re academia ... I spent the last few years studying in an Australian university, maths and computing ... the students were a reasonable mix of linux, mac and windows users, not sure about the android/iOS split, while the staff and teaching had a somewhat stronger emphasis on linux and open source than the students. Matlab was the main exception to this.
As a target platform android certainly has a much bigger user base worldwide than jail-broken iOS, though the apples may be much better for some audio uses.
Simon
This was a faculty grant at a US arts-focused college. I would say that 95% of students, 80% of faculty use Apple products. That really doesn't matter though. The project is out there. It can be ported to any platform if people want. More than anything, it was a proof-of-concept project.
If it bothers you that this was developed as an IOS app then, by all means, take it and turn it into an Android app.
On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 10:29 PM, Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/02/14 13:36, Pall Thayer wrote:
This is where things enter into the odd world of academia. In all honesty, I think our application for the particular grant that was available was an "outlier". The grant came with caveats. Projects were to target technology that would likely be used by faculty and students and the resulting work (publications or, in our case, software) would be released under open licenses. As far as I could tell, ours was the only project that was producing actual software. We were able to pay the Apple Dev fee for one year from our funds but our application wasn't ready for distribution within that time so we never submitted it to the app store and have released the source code instead. We were never big fans of distributing it through the app store anyway.
Well I guess the target platform is jail-broken Apples then.
Re academia ... I spent the last few years studying in an Australian university, maths and computing ... the students were a reasonable mix of linux, mac and windows users, not sure about the android/iOS split, while the staff and teaching had a somewhat stronger emphasis on linux and open source than the students. Matlab was the main exception to this.
As a target platform android certainly has a much bigger user base worldwide than jail-broken iOS, though the apples may be much better for some audio uses.
Simon
https://github.com/pallthayer/gesturalmusic
On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 10:45 PM, Pall Thayer pallthay@gmail.com wrote:
This was a faculty grant at a US arts-focused college. I would say that 95% of students, 80% of faculty use Apple products. That really doesn't matter though. The project is out there. It can be ported to any platform if people want. More than anything, it was a proof-of-concept project.
If it bothers you that this was developed as an IOS app then, by all means, take it and turn it into an Android app.
On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 10:29 PM, Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/02/14 13:36, Pall Thayer wrote:
This is where things enter into the odd world of academia. In all honesty, I think our application for the particular grant that was available was an "outlier". The grant came with caveats. Projects were to target technology that would likely be used by faculty and students and the resulting work (publications or, in our case, software) would be released under open licenses. As far as I could tell, ours was the only project that was producing actual software. We were able to pay the Apple Dev fee for one year from our funds but our application wasn't ready for distribution within that time so we never submitted it to the app store and have released the source code instead. We were never big fans of distributing it through the app store anyway.
Well I guess the target platform is jail-broken Apples then.
Re academia ... I spent the last few years studying in an Australian university, maths and computing ... the students were a reasonable mix of linux, mac and windows users, not sure about the android/iOS split, while the staff and teaching had a somewhat stronger emphasis on linux and open source than the students. Matlab was the main exception to this.
As a target platform android certainly has a much bigger user base worldwide than jail-broken iOS, though the apples may be much better for some audio uses.
Simon
--
Pall Thayer artist http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
On 10/02/14 14:46, Pall Thayer wrote:
It's GPL, so no enterprising re-distribution allowed.
I'll give it a try if I get time with an iOS device.
Thanks,
Simon
On 10/02/14 14:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
This was a faculty grant at a US arts-focused college. I would say that 95% of students, 80% of faculty use Apple products. That really doesn't matter though. The project is out there. It can be ported to any platform if people want. More than anything, it was a proof-of-concept project.
If it bothers you that this was developed as an IOS app then, by all means, take it and turn it into an Android app.
No, it doesn't bother me (and if it is BSD licensed or similar then any enterprising person with a developer account could reasonably make it available for a dollar or so to the rest of the apple user base, and split the revenue with Apple, so it isn't really restricted to jail-broken devices).
Apple is a good platform for lots of audio, I've used it a lot in the past. I was more interested in the Apple-centric academic world your choice implied, and the contrast to the situation here.
Simon
Interesting points. I posted it to github as GPL. It probably doesn't conform to true GPL though as I didn't put that in all of the source files. Truth is, I really don't care. If Apple requires a BSD license, that never would have happened anyway. But this is all getting far away from my original question.
On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 10:55 PM, Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/02/14 14:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
This was a faculty grant at a US arts-focused college. I would say that 95% of students, 80% of faculty use Apple products. That really doesn't matter though. The project is out there. It can be ported to any platform if people want. More than anything, it was a proof-of-concept project.
If it bothers you that this was developed as an IOS app then, by all means, take it and turn it into an Android app.
No, it doesn't bother me (and if it is BSD licensed or similar then any enterprising person with a developer account could reasonably make it available for a dollar or so to the rest of the apple user base, and split the revenue with Apple, so it isn't really restricted to jail-broken devices).
Apple is a good platform for lots of audio, I've used it a lot in the past. I was more interested in the Apple-centric academic world your choice implied, and the contrast to the situation here.
Simon
Hi Pall,
On 10/02/2014 04:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
This was a faculty grant at a US arts-focused college. I would say that 95% of students, 80% of faculty use Apple products. That really doesn't matter though.
As you asked for feedback.. I think it does. I'm not proposing the usual (sterile) apple vs. xyz flame, but I've noticed this "mac for music" thing in academia and conservatoires over here (Italy). One thing that surprised me is the attachment to this ecosystem in the electoacoustic music landscape, where one would expect people to experiment as much as possible with unknown and unfamiliar tools in all directions. What is also interesting is to understand if the use of Apple products and software (e.g. MAX/MSP) is truly justified by creative/artistic needs or if it's just a matter of habit/convenience (this question in a neutral way, i.e. nothing against convenience).
I'm not sure how (much) this fits in the topic you're going to address, but I think it's an interesting angle to take into account. And I'll be happy to share my personal experiences further if you think it's interesting (as I guess my email was already rather long)
Ciao, Lorenzo.
The project is out there. It can be ported to any
platform if people want. More than anything, it was a proof-of-concept project.
If it bothers you that this was developed as an IOS app then, by all means, take it and turn it into an Android app.
On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 10:29 PM, Simon Wise <simonzwise@gmail.com mailto:simonzwise@gmail.com> wrote:
On 10/02/14 13:36, Pall Thayer wrote: This is where things enter into the odd world of academia. In all honesty, I think our application for the particular grant that was available was an "outlier". The grant came with caveats. Projects were to target technology that would likely be used by faculty and students and the resulting work (publications or, in our case, software) would be released under open licenses. As far as I could tell, ours was the only project that was producing actual software. We were able to pay the Apple Dev fee for one year from our funds but our application wasn't ready for distribution within that time so we never submitted it to the app store and have released the source code instead. We were never big fans of distributing it through the app store anyway. Well I guess the target platform is jail-broken Apples then. Re academia ... I spent the last few years studying in an Australian university, maths and computing ... the students were a reasonable mix of linux, mac and windows users, not sure about the android/iOS split, while the staff and teaching had a somewhat stronger emphasis on linux and open source than the students. Matlab was the main exception to this. As a target platform android certainly has a much bigger user base worldwide than jail-broken iOS, though the apples may be much better for some audio uses. Simon--
Pall Thayer artist http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
On 10/02/14 20:27, Lorenzo Sutton wrote:
Hi Pall,
On 10/02/2014 04:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
This was a faculty grant at a US arts-focused college. I would say that 95% of students, 80% of faculty use Apple products. That really doesn't matter though.
As you asked for feedback.. I think it does. I'm not proposing the usual (sterile) apple vs. xyz flame, but I've noticed this "mac for music" thing in academia and conservatoires over here (Italy). One thing that surprised me is the attachment to this ecosystem in the electoacoustic music landscape, where one would expect people to experiment as much as possible with unknown and unfamiliar tools in all directions. What is also interesting is to understand if the use of Apple products and software (e.g. MAX/MSP) is truly justified by creative/artistic needs or if it's just a matter of habit/convenience (this question in a neutral way, i.e. nothing against convenience).
15 years ago editing video was very much better on a mac than any other comparably priced system, this certainly helped encourage many AV people to learn the mac way. While they still used powerPC chips there were a lot of advantages to OSX over linux for working with video in pd. A few good audio apps have been available on mac for a lot longer than that, and macs have been pretty consistently easy to set up for common audio workflows ... providing you stick with mac friendly hardware purchases and adapt your practice those workflows. Much earlier Apple had got a lot of designers on board in a similar way with desktop publishing.
Learning to use an OS is a lot of invested time, changing OSes means a new investment of time. Apple understands this and has often made it quite cheap for educational institutions to get macs to teach on and has kept transitions between versions reasonably easy for the user, so a lot of students and artists with a bit of cash to throw at good equipment learn OSX, then go on to use it rather than learn another and when it comes time to pick a platform to teach on or recommend to others ...
Habit and already invested time, plus decent equipment and effective tools available without changing OS are a quite persuasive combination. Now on a hand-held level apple hardware is again significantly better than other stuff for some media and audio uses.
But you miss out on quite a lot too, and educational institutions should try to broaden their students' experience rather than just go with what is easiest.
Simon
I'm not sure how (much) this fits in the topic you're going to address, but I think it's an interesting angle to take into account. And I'll be happy to share my personal experiences further if you think it's interesting (as I guess my email was already rather long)
Ciao, Lorenzo.
Hi Pall,
First off I would make the distinction between Free Software and Open Source (sorry to bring that one up again:). Secondly, the big thing for me is that this is really all about social-relations - how do I wish to be treated and how will I treat others.
I could bang on and on but that's the big one.
This is worth checking out http://texts.bleu255.com/preface-flossart/ as is the rest of the book which should be freely floating about online. (can't put my finger on it straight away but there was/is an online version which included all the books sources which was a nice touch)
Bit of shameless self-promotion here too: http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/15006/
Regards,
Julian
On 10 February 2014 12:12, Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/02/14 20:27, Lorenzo Sutton wrote:
Hi Pall,
On 10/02/2014 04:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
This was a faculty grant at a US arts-focused college. I would say that 95% of students, 80% of faculty use Apple products. That really doesn't matter though.
As you asked for feedback.. I think it does. I'm not proposing the usual (sterile) apple vs. xyz flame, but I've noticed this "mac for music" thing in academia and conservatoires over here (Italy). One thing that surprised me is the attachment to this ecosystem in the electoacoustic music landscape, where one would expect people to experiment as much as possible with unknown and unfamiliar tools in all directions. What is also interesting is to understand if the use of Apple products and software (e.g. MAX/MSP) is truly justified by creative/artistic needs or if it's just a matter of habit/convenience (this question in a neutral way, i.e. nothing against convenience).
15 years ago editing video was very much better on a mac than any other comparably priced system, this certainly helped encourage many AV people to learn the mac way. While they still used powerPC chips there were a lot of advantages to OSX over linux for working with video in pd. A few good audio apps have been available on mac for a lot longer than that, and macs have been pretty consistently easy to set up for common audio workflows ... providing you stick with mac friendly hardware purchases and adapt your practice those workflows. Much earlier Apple had got a lot of designers on board in a similar way with desktop publishing.
Learning to use an OS is a lot of invested time, changing OSes means a new investment of time. Apple understands this and has often made it quite cheap for educational institutions to get macs to teach on and has kept transitions between versions reasonably easy for the user, so a lot of students and artists with a bit of cash to throw at good equipment learn OSX, then go on to use it rather than learn another and when it comes time to pick a platform to teach on or recommend to others ...
Habit and already invested time, plus decent equipment and effective tools available without changing OS are a quite persuasive combination. Now on a hand-held level apple hardware is again significantly better than other stuff for some media and audio uses.
But you miss out on quite a lot too, and educational institutions should try to broaden their students' experience rather than just go with what is easiest.
Simon
I'm not sure how (much) this fits in the topic you're going to address, but I think it's an interesting angle to take into account. And I'll be happy to share my personal experiences further if you think it's interesting (as I guess my email was already rather long)
Ciao, Lorenzo.
Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/ listinfo/pd-list
To answer your last question: have a look at webpd: https://github.com/sebpiq/WebPd
There's a simple demo patch here: http://sebpiq.github.io/WebPd/sound-check/sound-check.html
That's Pd's basic audio engine and message passing system running in javascript. So in terms of open source, the efficiency is undeniable. To run Max/MSP in a web page, they'd have to figure out some complex way to protect their proprietary code while still making it possible to make sounds by adding a script in the html. The only practical thing I could think of is running a centralized service, but again that costs money and maintenance where a decentralized lib like webpd runs on the user's device.
Addressing the oddity of using proprietary software (IOS) to point out the benefits of open source:
Unfortunately the open source definition was designed to subtly hide the ethical reasons for doing open source development. The reasoning for this was quite straightforward-- "share with your neighbor" doesn't attract business dollars. So open source advocates focus on efficiency, like the ability to plug a 3-clause BSD-licensed library into just about any device you want, even a device that is locked down and requires the final app to be proprietary.
This is equivalent to teaching the scientific method, but downplaying the importance of reproducibility for some seemingly practical purpose. If enough scientists are weak on such a fundamental aspect of their job due to bad education it will degrade their ability to carry out meaningful, reproducible experiments.
So open source advocates can't have it both ways. If they purposely exclude the golden rule and "user freedom" from their marketing materials because it's such a drag, I don't see how they can complain when the efficiency of their dev model takes users and business to places the initiative didn't want them to end up. Whether it's Google's centralized services or Apple and Android smartphones that spy on the user, you can't fight back if you aren't willing to state the fundamental principle that users must be free to determine how the devices they own actually operate.
If anyone wants to read a principled statement on user freedom, it's here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
-Jonathan
On Sunday, February 9, 2014 9:24 PM, Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/02/14 11:53, Pall Thayer wrote:
I'm giving a presentation this week. In a way, it's a counter argument to a recent presentation on Max/MSP. One of the things that I want to highlight is the "open sourceness" of PD. libpd presents a very good argument and I'll be highlighting a project I was involved with that produced an IOS app that used libpd as the audio engine. Is there anything else I should be considering besides the obvious points of open source being open source. Concrete examples of PD's open sourceness trumping proprietary technologies?
IOs is an odd choice for talking about open source when the only way to install such an app in a device (without jailbreaking it or paying the developer tithe) is by licensing the binary closed source (on their terms) to Apple to distribute via their platform-monopoly app store, which will not distribute the sources or GPL or LGPL apps?
Certainly licenses such as libpd's BSD like one do allow reuse of the code in any app, open source or otherwise, but then is that use still open source???
Simon
Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
Hi Jonathan, Thanks. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. I thought WebPD was dead. Nice to see it alive and kicking.
On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Jonathan Wilkes jancsika@yahoo.comwrote:
To answer your last question: have a look at webpd: https://github.com/sebpiq/WebPd
There's a simple demo patch here: http://sebpiq.github.io/WebPd/sound-check/sound-check.html
That's Pd's basic audio engine and message passing system running in javascript. So in terms of open source, the efficiency is undeniable. To run Max/MSP in a web page, they'd have to figure out some complex way to protect their proprietary code while still making it possible to make sounds by adding a script in the html. The only practical thing I could think of is running a centralized service, but again that costs money and maintenance where a decentralized lib like webpd runs on the user's device.
Addressing the oddity of using proprietary software (IOS) to point out the benefits of open source:
Unfortunately the open source definition was designed to subtly hide the ethical reasons for doing open source development. The reasoning for this was quite straightforward-- "share with your neighbor" doesn't attract business dollars. So open source advocates focus on efficiency, like the ability to plug a 3-clause BSD-licensed library into just about any device you want, even a device that is locked down and requires the final app to be proprietary.
This is equivalent to teaching the scientific method, but downplaying the importance of reproducibility for some seemingly practical purpose. If enough scientists are weak on such a fundamental aspect of their job due to bad education it will degrade their ability to carry out meaningful, reproducible experiments.
So open source advocates can't have it both ways. If they purposely exclude the golden rule and "user freedom" from their marketing materials because it's such a drag, I don't see how they can complain when the efficiency of their dev model takes users and business to places the initiative didn't want them to end up. Whether it's Google's centralized services or Apple and Android smartphones that spy on the user, you can't fight back if you aren't willing to state the fundamental principle that users must be free to determine how the devices they own actually operate.
If anyone wants to read a principled statement on user freedom, it's here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
-Jonathan
On Sunday, February 9, 2014 9:24 PM, Simon Wise simonzwise@gmail.com wrote: On 10/02/14 11:53, Pall Thayer wrote:
I'm giving a presentation this week. In a way, it's a counter argument
to a
recent presentation on Max/MSP. One of the things that I want to
highlight
is the "open sourceness" of PD. libpd presents a very good argument and I'll be highlighting a project I was involved with that produced an IOS
app
that used libpd as the audio engine. Is there anything else I should be considering besides the obvious points of open source being open source. Concrete examples of PD's open sourceness trumping proprietary
technologies?
IOs is an odd choice for talking about open source when the only way to install such an app in a device (without jailbreaking it or paying the developer tithe) is by licensing the binary closed source (on their terms) to Apple to distribute via their platform-monopoly app store, which will not distribute the sources or GPL or LGPL apps?
Certainly licenses such as libpd's BSD like one do allow reuse of the code in any app, open source or otherwise, but then is that use still open source???
Simon
Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
On 11/02/14 04:40, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
Unfortunately the open source definition was designed to subtly hide the ethical reasons for doing open source development. The reasoning for this was quite straightforward-- "share with your neighbor" doesn't attract business dollars. So open source advocates focus on efficiency, like the ability to plug a 3-clause BSD-licensed library into just about any device you want, even a device that is locked down and requires the final app to be proprietary.
If you consider attracting business dollars actually spent on ongoing development of open source code then the GPL, explicitly stating its aims and with strict copyleft terms has been quite successful (not denying that BSD, Apache and similar have also, in many cases) ....
If anyone wants to read a principled statement on user freedom, it's here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
-Jonathan
On 02/10/2014 05:31 PM, Simon Wise wrote:
On 11/02/14 04:40, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
Unfortunately the open source definition was designed to subtly hide the ethical reasons for doing open source development. The reasoning for this was quite straightforward-- "share with your neighbor" doesn't attract business dollars. So open source advocates focus on efficiency, like the ability to plug a 3-clause BSD-licensed library into just about any device you want, even a device that is locked down and requires the final app to be proprietary.
If you consider attracting business dollars actually spent on ongoing development of open source code then the GPL, explicitly stating its aims and with strict copyleft terms has been quite successful (not denying that BSD, Apache and similar have also, in many cases) ....
That's true, but an open source advocate could still reframe that in terms of efficiency, cost-savings, etc., rather than freedom for the end user. An open source advocate could even make the argument that the GPL actually gets in the way even for the most successful projects that are licensed with it, creating unnecessary bureaucracy and copyright sign-off requirements in what would otherwise be a post-license digital utopia.
I don't buy those arguments, but the point is that if there are enough voices framing everything in those terms then fundamental principles about user freedom get lost. I mean, if I'd never heard much about freedom of the press then who knows if I'd find it reasonable to prosecute journalists who receive classified information and "sell" it to their publishers in the form of news. Instead, that sounds like tyranny to me. And that's more likely due to a long line of teachers with the integrity to explain those principles than to living in a country licensed under the Constitution. :)
-Jonathan
If anyone wants to read a principled statement on user freedom, it's here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
-Jonathan
Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
On 11/02/14 10:46, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
On 02/10/2014 05:31 PM, Simon Wise wrote:
On 11/02/14 04:40, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
Unfortunately the open source definition was designed to subtly hide the ethical reasons for doing open source development. The reasoning for this was quite straightforward-- "share with your neighbor" doesn't attract business dollars. So open source advocates focus on efficiency, like the ability to plug a 3-clause BSD-licensed library into just about any device you want, even a device that is locked down and requires the final app to be proprietary.
If you consider attracting business dollars actually spent on ongoing development of open source code then the GPL, explicitly stating its aims and with strict copyleft terms has been quite successful (not denying that BSD, Apache and similar have also, in many cases) ....
That's true, but an open source advocate could still reframe that in terms of efficiency, cost-savings, etc., rather than freedom for the end user. An open source advocate could even make the argument that the GPL actually gets in the way even for the most successful projects that are licensed with it, creating unnecessary bureaucracy and copyright sign-off requirements in what would otherwise be a post-license digital utopia.
looking from a commercial perspective (since it is helpful to understand how others may think, in this case the managers of business dollars) ... one fear that some businesses have about open source is that they don't want to pay for development that can then be used by other businesses chasing the same sales revenue. An advantage of copyleft to them is that it is a two-way arrangement ... another such business is obliged to give their own improvements back in return since selling a privatised, moderately improved version of a copyleft work is not allowed.
I don't buy those arguments, but the point is that if there are enough voices framing everything in those terms then fundamental principles about user freedom get lost. I mean, if I'd never heard much about freedom of the press then who knows if I'd find it reasonable to prosecute journalists who receive classified information and "sell" it to their publishers in the form of news. Instead, that sounds like tyranny to me. And that's more likely due to a long line of teachers with the integrity to explain those principles than to living in a country licensed under the Constitution. :)
indeed, I agree that the stronger GPL position is the better one in a world entangled with dubious copyright laws, or even one which simply embraces trade secrets and a market economy. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the biggest software systems are beyond the capacity of even giant corporations to maintain alone and collaboration is the only feasible way.
Simon
On 10/02/14 11:53, Pall Thayer wrote:
is the "open sourceness" of PD. libpd presents a very good argument and I'll be highlighting a project I was involved with that produced an IOS app that used libpd as the audio engine. Is there anything else I should be considering besides the obvious points of open source being open source. Concrete examples of PD's open sourceness trumping proprietary technologies?
Well before libpd there was a port to Sony's gaming platform, and the audio engine was used for at least a game or two. Mark Danks of GEM fame ended up with a job at sony, the port was apparently available to sony partners. It was pd, but the port was not open source, so no-one outside got any access to it.
http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2007-11/056300.html
Don't quite know where that fits as an example of the advantages of open source code, and since it became closed in the process there wasn't much trumping going on and hasn't been heard of since.
Simon
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Jonathan Wilkes -
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Pagano, Patrick -
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Simon Wise