You could statically link to the CSound libraries from C/C++, provided you license 
your program as GPL (I think).  You could also distribute a .csound dll with an 
application, which has the drawbacks of being windows-only and also subject to 
licensing restrictions.

I don't really see any benefit to this, though.  It's more work to maintain as you'd 
need versions for multiple platforms as opposed to a .csd which will work with any 
csound.

To answer the OP's question (assuming I understand it properly), I would say just 
distribute the .csd.  That is by far the most portable and concise option.  If you 
want a synth created in csound, then go ahead and distribute the code to that as 
well, but the end-user will still need to have csound installed to link to.

John W. Lato
Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station E3100
Austin, TX 78712-0435
(512) 232-2090

Michael Bechard wrote:
> Don't you still need the CSound libraries if you went with Python or any 
> of the other languages you mentioned?
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: victor 
> To: csound@lists.bath.ac.uk
> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 12:42:22 PM
> Subject: [Csnd] Re: Re: Beginners Question, Csound as stand-alone 
> softsynth / plugin?
> 
> With Python, TclTk, Java or C/C++ it is very easy to do a standalone for
> Csound.  MaxMSP standalones are not really standalones, they need
> the maxplay bit (or embeded). Of all current systems, Csound 5 is the
> one the offers the most flexibility in terms of choice of language for
> implementation. At the end of the day, it is a programming library.
>  
> There is also cabbage by Rory Walsh, which is a standalone builder. And
> on windows, his Lettuce can generate standalones as well (I think).
>  
> Victor
> 
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* peiman khosravi 
>     *To:* csound@lists.bath.ac.uk 
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:23 PM
>     *Subject:* [Csnd] Re: Beginners Question, Csound as stand-alone
>     softsynth / plugin?
> 
>     Perhaps this is not the place to say this. But I think it is very
>     easy to make a standalone application with RTcmix. And of course
>     with maxmsp. RTcmix in particular is very similar to csound in terms
>     of syntax, if you know csound you will find it very easy to learn as
>     they are both descendants of the Music V family of languages. I have
>     no idea how you would do this with csound maybe someone else can
>     say, but I would imagine that it would require some level of
>     extra-csound programing expertise. 
> 
>     Best
>     Peiman
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     On 22 Jul 2008, at 15:30, Andreas Jansson wrote:
> 
>>     Hi!
>>
>>     I'm an audio engineering student doing an essay on synthesiser design.
>>     I have not been using Csound for very long, but I want to submit a
>>     Csound instrument with my appendices. However I would rather not have
>>     to include the whole Csound library, in order to make it easier
>>     marked.
>>
>>     I have been reading about Csound VST and csLADSPA, but from what I
>>     understand, they also require the Csound library(?). Is there any way
>>     of "compiling" the .csd file as a VST-plugin, or a stand-alone
>>     solft-synth "application"?
>>
>>     I use an Intel Macbook, but I think could find me a PC if necessary.
>>
>>     All the best,
>>     Andreas Jansson
>>
>>
>>     Send bugs reports to this list.
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> 
>