Posted by
Roblimo
on from the musicians-rejoice! dept.
Patrix writes "Looks like Jazzware will release under an open source license the next version of their Jazz++ MIDI sequencer! They will also release a GTK+ version for Linux. No info yet on which license they'll use."
Does saying 'Open Source' (with capital letters) always mean a license compatible to the Open Source Definition? Wouldn't it be more accurate to talk about OSI Certified licenses? (the article talks about 'Open Source', but I was just wondering..)
I read on the opensource.org website's FAQ the following:
While there is agreement on the broad term `open source' as meaning approximately what is captured in the Open Source Definition the term has, ironically, now become so popular that it has lost some of its precision. We strongly encourage everyone who cares about open software to use the term only to describe licenses that conform to the OSD, or software distributed under such licenses; but since the term has passed into more general use, we also encourage people to refer to the ``OSI Certified'' mark, which has precision and legal force in identifying software distributed under licenses that are known to meet the OSD requirements.
Finally. The one thing Linux needs and is severely lacking is good multimedia studio software. Correction. Any multimedia studio software. The only projects are not really in active development from what I can tell, except Melys, and that's fairly new. KeyKit is pretty cool, although a bit ugly by modern standards, but it has a few problems, especially the license.
As you can see from general searching and The Linux Sound and MIDI page, there isn't much else going on. I don't even see an attempt at a nonlinear video editor.
Also there are some unfortunate driver issues. I requested specs for the Motu MTP AV after purchasing one, only to get a reply that the information wasn't available to the public... so I can't write a driver, and am forced to use it like a cheap MIDI switch. (I'm going to continue to bug them, of course. It would benefit them and the Linux community to at least have open drivers. They sell more, we get software support and better, more capable studios.)
This really is a step in the right direction for the Jazz people, though, since they don't have a lot of regular updates. Hopefully they will use a Free(tm) license like the GPL. I applaud them in their decision, though, this is something I've been hoping for for awhile. Thanks guys!
--
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Re:...but they're still charging for Version 3!
by
jbrw
·
· Score: 2
From the website: "We give this information some time in advance to give new Jazz++ users a chance to decide whether to wait for the Open Source release. It will of course be possible to buy licenses for version 3.x up to the time of the new release in order to be able to use the current version. There will however be no refund of licenses bought in this period."
Sounds as though they're being pretty upfront with potential (paying) customers about the situtation, which is good enough for me. (Not that I matter in the slightest, you understand)
...j
Rosegarden : maintained but not enhanced
by
LizardKing
·
· Score: 2
The original authors of Rosegarden have recently issued a patched up release that fixes a number of bugs. Personally I haven't had it crash on me, but I do agree that aRts/Brahms is a bit buggy at present. There again, I stopped using Cubase because Steinberg seem more interested in adding new features than sorting stablility issues. Thank god for the decent hardware sequencer in my W-30!
I'm surprised theres's been so many posts already without any mention of Rosegarden
When i first started playing around with midi on Linux, the first program i found was Jazz++. It's got plenty of features if you like editing music on what looks and feels like a piano roll.
Unfortunately, I've been cursed with the knowledge of how to read music, so the piano roll feels clumsy.
Rosegarden is GPL'd and includes a well developed notation editor, it's own scripting language for the technically inclined, and will even help you print sheet music.
It's known to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Irix, and even OpenVMS. And yes, it's completely free and open source.
Jazz++ does have some nice features, like GS compatibility, but for my purposes it would be incredibly obtuse to use for anything other than final touch-ups to the score.
What i need, and what i suspect most musicians prefer, is a midi sequencer with a notation editor - and there's already a pretty good one out there with a GPL license.
-- This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Wanted: a full suite of digital audio apps
by
SurfsUp
·
· Score: 2
I invaded a Windows machine with Linux over the holiday - the spare machine in a basement digital recording studio. It only has 45 gig of disk whereas the main machine has 100+:-) - anyway, there was room to put in Linux on one of the ide drives - I guess 13 gig should be enough room for now:-). The machine got Mandraked.
Unfortunately, we seem to be some distance away from being able to replace the rather awesome digital audio software running on the main machine under Win98. This is German-made software the name of which escapes me at the moment. Suffice to say that the Win98 drives are not going to get fdisked until Linux can do *everything* the Win98 machine can. (Except crash "once a week" of course.)
So, please help me, what have we got *now* that can be evaluated, and falls into the professional digital audio category? What's coming down the pipe?
Software is needed to:
do 12 + tracks of real time mixing/filtering/other processing at 96 khz, 24 bits/sample quad
support a-d input 24 bits/sample stereo interfaced through a high-end card I forget the name of (hey, I wasn't expecting the issue to come up today, I'm just the mechanic, ok?)
do all kinds of other neat, wizbang digital studio stuff
I apologize for the imprecise definition of the problem, but please, help me anyway. Goodness me, if we don't liberate this machine soon it could get sucked into the Win2000 black hole.:-o
-- Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Re:...but they're still charging for Version 3!
by
SurfsUp
·
· Score: 2
Who's going to buy it? Of those who really have to have it right now, who's going to buy it and not throughly resent it?
People who need it and don't think the price is too high. People who want to wait can do that too: it's a free world, at least as far as that goes. This is nothing but good for all concerned.
We already have a "more self-descriptive" term - free software. There would be less of this ambiguity if we all just called a spade a spade. As you rightly point out Open source software is not necessarily the same as free (speech not beer) software.
The interesting point here is that often when the term "free software" is mentioned, the example of "speech not beer" is also tagged on. There's a reason for that. "Free" means many things. In business, its usually closer to the free beer than free speech.
Enter "open source". Good attempt. Avoids abiguity over the pricing issue. Opens up a different can of worms (as this thread has pointed out).
We need a new term.
Or maybe we need to continue playing by the business world's rules. That's what true "open" licenses do. They use the license tool business usually use to lock away code to open it up (no jihad on licenses, please). The next logical step is to define what this software is (ie: Open Source) and protect that definition with legal tools. Be that trademark or what have you.
I know, I know... its nasty work. Its something we'd rather not soil or ideology with. But we either do it or allow profiteers to muddy the waters for their own gain.
...but they're still charging for Version 3!
by
Paul+Crowley
·
· Score: 3
They hope to release Version 4.0 as Open Source by mid-Feb, but until then they're still charging for Version 3 just as before.
Who's going to buy it? Of those who really have to have it right now, who's going to buy it and not throughly resent it? When Netscape announced the open sourcing of Netscape 5, they had the sense to make Version 4 gratis at the same time.
I'm not in the audience for this software anyway, it just seems a curious decision... --
"open source" by itself doesn't say much anymore
by
jetson123
·
· Score: 3
The term "open source" really doesn't mean much anymore, other than that you get the sources in one way or another. I don't necessarily fault companies for that. The common sense meaning of "open source" is that you easily get the sources somehow, nothing more. I think the term is not well chosen, and we should abandon it. Many licenses that can be reasonably called "open source" do nothing to encourage sharing and joint development; in fact, they may outright prohibit it.
The "official" Open Source Definition tries to define "open source" more tightly. But since the term isn't trademarked and since it has a different common sense meaning, it fails. Furthermore, even the "Open Source Definition" has some holes in it.
In the short term, I suggest people stop getting excited just because a company announces releasing something "open source". We should wait until the sources and the license are available for everybody to look at.
In the long term, I think we need to replace the term "open source" with something more self-descriptive.
Two up and coming alternatives
by
LizardKing
·
· Score: 4
There's aRts and Brahms for KDE which provide a virtual synthesiser and sequencer respectively. There is even talk of adding direct to disk recording (think Cubase VST) as aRts provides the means to do this. The URL's are:
For the GNOME fans among us, there is Beast which has been in devlopment for a long time but only recently saw the light of day. This gives similar functionality as aRts/Brahms. It's URL is:
http://beats.gtk.org/
Also check out news.gnome.org for the official announcement of a Beast snapshot.
There is also a venerable package called Rosegarden. Development has been a little bit spradic in the last couple of years, and it may be a little bit archaic to those used to GNOME or KDE interfaces. It is IMHO the best looking X Window application that doesn't rely on a true toolkit. Check it out at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~masjpf/rose.html
There was talk of a new Rosegarden using the GNOME framework, but it hasn't progressed beyond the conceptual stage yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Does saying 'Open Source' (with capital letters) always mean a license compatible to the Open Source Definition? Wouldn't it be more accurate to talk about OSI Certified licenses? (the article talks about 'Open Source', but I was just wondering..)
I read on the opensource.org website's FAQ the following:
While there is agreement on the broad term `open source' as meaning approximately what is captured in the Open Source Definition the term has, ironically, now become so popular that it has lost some of its precision. We strongly encourage everyone who cares about open software to use the term only to describe licenses that conform to the OSD, or software distributed under such licenses; but since the term has passed into more general use, we also encourage people to refer to the ``OSI Certified'' mark, which has precision and legal force in identifying software distributed under licenses that are known to meet the OSD requirements.
Finally. The one thing Linux needs and is severely lacking is good multimedia studio software. Correction. Any multimedia studio software. The only projects are not really in active development from what I can tell, except Melys, and that's fairly new. KeyKit is pretty cool, although a bit ugly by modern standards, but it has a few problems, especially the license.
As you can see from general searching and The Linux Sound and MIDI page, there isn't much else going on. I don't even see an attempt at a nonlinear video editor.
Also there are some unfortunate driver issues. I requested specs for the Motu MTP AV after purchasing one, only to get a reply that the information wasn't available to the public... so I can't write a driver, and am forced to use it like a cheap MIDI switch. (I'm going to continue to bug them, of course. It would benefit them and the Linux community to at least have open drivers. They sell more, we get software support and better, more capable studios.)
This really is a step in the right direction for the Jazz people, though, since they don't have a lot of regular updates. Hopefully they will use a Free(tm) license like the GPL. I applaud them in their decision, though, this is something I've been hoping for for awhile. Thanks guys!
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
From the website: "We give this information some time in advance to give new Jazz++ users a chance to decide whether to wait for the Open Source release. It will of course be possible to buy licenses for version 3.x up to the time of the new release in order to be able to use the current version. There will however be no refund of licenses bought in this period."
Sounds as though they're being pretty upfront with potential (paying) customers about the situtation, which is good enough for me. (Not that I matter in the slightest, you understand)
...j
The original authors of Rosegarden have recently issued a patched up release that fixes a number of bugs. Personally I haven't had it crash on me, but I do agree that aRts/Brahms is a bit buggy at present. There again, I stopped using Cubase because Steinberg seem more interested in adding new features than sorting stablility issues. Thank god for the decent hardware sequencer in my W-30!
Chris Wareham
I'm surprised theres's been so many posts already without any mention of Rosegarden
When i first started playing around with midi on Linux, the first program i found was Jazz++. It's got plenty of features if you like editing music on what looks and feels like a piano roll.
Unfortunately, I've been cursed with the knowledge of how to read music, so the piano roll feels clumsy.
Rosegarden is GPL'd and includes a well developed notation editor, it's own scripting language for the technically inclined, and will even help you print sheet music.
It's known to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Irix, and even OpenVMS. And yes, it's completely free and open source.
Jazz++ does have some nice features, like GS compatibility, but for my purposes it would be incredibly obtuse to use for anything other than final touch-ups to the score.
What i need, and what i suspect most musicians prefer, is a midi sequencer with a notation editor - and there's already a pretty good one out there with a GPL license.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Unfortunately, we seem to be some distance away from being able to replace the rather awesome digital audio software running on the main machine under Win98. This is German-made software the name of which escapes me at the moment. Suffice to say that the Win98 drives are not going to get fdisked until Linux can do *everything* the Win98 machine can. (Except crash "once a week" of course.)
So, please help me, what have we got *now* that can be evaluated, and falls into the professional digital audio category? What's coming down the pipe?
Software is needed to:
do 12 + tracks of real time mixing/filtering/other processing at 96 khz, 24 bits/sample quad
support a-d input 24 bits/sample stereo interfaced through a high-end card I forget the name of (hey, I wasn't expecting the issue to come up today, I'm just the mechanic, ok?)
do all kinds of other neat, wizbang digital studio stuff
:-o
I apologize for the imprecise definition of the problem, but please, help me anyway. Goodness me, if we don't liberate this machine soon it could get sucked into the Win2000 black hole.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Who's going to buy it? Of those who really have to have it right now, who's going to buy it and not throughly resent it?
People who need it and don't think the price is too high. People who want to wait can do that too: it's a free world, at least as far as that goes. This is nothing but good for all concerned.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Enter "open source". Good attempt. Avoids abiguity over the pricing issue. Opens up a different can of worms (as this thread has pointed out).
We need a new term.
Or maybe we need to continue playing by the business world's rules. That's what true "open" licenses do. They use the license tool business usually use to lock away code to open it up (no jihad on licenses, please). The next logical step is to define what this software is (ie: Open Source) and protect that definition with legal tools. Be that trademark or what have you.
I know, I know... its nasty work. Its something we'd rather not soil or ideology with. But we either do it or allow profiteers to muddy the waters for their own gain.
http://beast.gtk.org, also heard good things about SLab but haven't used it myself.
The only Good System is a Sound System
They hope to release Version 4.0 as Open Source by mid-Feb, but until then they're still charging for Version 3 just as before.
Who's going to buy it? Of those who really have to have it right now, who's going to buy it and not throughly resent it? When Netscape announced the open sourcing of Netscape 5, they had the sense to make Version 4 gratis at the same time.
I'm not in the audience for this software anyway, it just seems a curious decision...
--
Xenu loves you!
The "official" Open Source Definition tries to define "open source" more tightly. But since the term isn't trademarked and since it has a different common sense meaning, it fails. Furthermore, even the "Open Source Definition" has some holes in it.
In the short term, I suggest people stop getting excited just because a company announces releasing something "open source". We should wait until the sources and the license are available for everybody to look at.
In the long term, I think we need to replace the term "open source" with something more self-descriptive.
There's aRts and Brahms for KDE which provide a virtual synthesiser and sequencer respectively. There is even talk of adding direct to disk recording (think Cubase VST) as aRts provides the means to do this. The URL's are:
a hms/
http://www.arts-project.org/
http://lienhard.desy.de/mackag/homepages/jan/Br
For the GNOME fans among us, there is Beast which has been in devlopment for a long time but only recently saw the light of day. This gives similar functionality as aRts/Brahms. It's URL is:
http://beats.gtk.org/
Also check out news.gnome.org for the official announcement of a Beast snapshot.
There is also a venerable package called Rosegarden. Development has been a little bit spradic in the last couple of years, and it may be a little bit archaic to those used to GNOME or KDE interfaces. It is IMHO the best looking X Window application that doesn't rely on a true toolkit. Check it out at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~masjpf/rose.html
There was talk of a new Rosegarden using the GNOME framework, but it hasn't progressed beyond the conceptual stage yet.
Chris Wareham