Specifically, the *only* function missing from the non-donation OSX version of Ardour is support for AudioUnit plugins on the Mac. I have no problem with the Ardour model of distribution, and AFAIK you can still use your package manager in almost any Linux distro to avoid even being asked to help support development. Ardour is one of the best things coming out of the world of free software for audio production happening right now, and is well worth any support you can give.

I just want to clarify this Ardour stuff since it keeps coming up.

Paul David wrote in comments on CDM recently: " this is not 100% true. For the OS X prebuilt versions, if the inflow of cash for the month is low (I typically wait till the 15th, and if its not 50% of the goal, there’s typically going to be a problem …), then I disable the “pay nothing” download. This flips back at the end of the month. However, none of this changes the basic fact that you never *need* to pay for Ardour, since the source code is always available for free at all times. The work involved in creating a working binary, however, especially on OS X, might give you pause to realize that paying something for the prebuilt version is a good deal. this is not 100% true. For the OS X prebuilt versions, if the inflow of cash for the month is low (I typically wait till the 15th, and if its not 50% of the goal, there’s typically going to be a problem …), then I disable the “pay nothing” download. This flips back at the end of the month. However, none of this changes the basic fact that you never *need* to pay for Ardour, since the source code is always available for free at all times. The work involved in creating a working binary, however, especially on OS X, might give you pause to realize that paying something for the prebuilt version is a good deal."

So, talking points:

1. Pre-built Mac OS X versions are available for download free. A bit

like a public radio pledge drive here in the US, the free download is delayed each month to encourage donations.

2. It is not correct to say, even on a day when that binary is behind

a paywall, that Ardour is not free as in beer. You can indeed build from source - afaik including with the AU support - it's just a pain; see above.

3. All Ardour downloads for Linux are available free of charge, full

stop. It's in most repositories, and incidentally, on distros like Fedora and Ubuntu those are generally the best, latest stable build.

I'm not necessarily endorsing the same model for Pd, but it's worth observing. And the larger music community does need to get the message that freedom isn't free, as it were.

I love the donationware project idea; if there's one that fits our community, I'd be happy to promote it on createdigitalmusic. And while it's not entirely ready for primetime yet, I'd love to see more libpd projects that are themselves under a free license but use app store (lowercase) distributions to charge money. In fact, as far as I know you can still GPL a patch for an iOS project, for instance, just not the surrounding code. You can GPL the whole thing on Android.

I know Paul hasn't himself been entirely enthusiastic about donationware on Ardour; having a distribution outlet that explicitly charges is likely to be less confusing to users, where appropriate. And these outlets are proliferating, and not always with the kind of restrictions Apple has imposed. (Who knows, maybe someday the Ubuntu Store will be ready for primetime.)

Peter