It becomes an even bigger issue when you take into account anti-piracy measures being taken by many of these companies on their sound-production software, and even with the music itself in the form of DRM (consumers have already been left high and dry by online music stores peddling DRM-ladden music and subsequently going out of business). Open source becomes a much more sound investment when you take these things into consideration. I don't want to have to learn any other sound synthesis software with the depth and scope of CSound ever again, that's why I chose it over something proprietary like Reaktor.

I'm currently trying to make the move to an entirely Linux-based DAW, once I get a new machine. The core bits of audio software like a heavy-duty sampler, mixer, audio editor, etc. are all well on their way towards impressive feature lists and stability. I can't wait.

Michael Bechard



----- Original Message ----
From: Steven Yi 
To: csound@lists.bath.ac.uk; blue users mailing list 
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 12:22:29 PM
Subject: [Csnd] The case for open source

Hi All,

I just saw a link to this from a Linux Audio mailing list that Tascam
is ceasing development of Gigastudio:

http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=1738

This kind of thing has really been an issue for me, that closed source
software that goes into an unsupported state severely limits the
lifespan and history of computer music works.  I've discussed
long-term software in lectures and about considering what you are
investing time/money in in terms of future work.  I have referenced
the issues that affected Apple users moving from OS9 to OSX, then
again from PPC to Intel, how my friend was affected in half of his
plugins were never ported to Intel, thus severely limiting his ability
to open or reuse aspects of his project (basically he would need to
keep an OSX PPC machine around if he ever wanted to look at the
project again).

Anyways, it's these kinds of situations that I am very concerned about
when I think about computer music and the history of it.  I am a
strong advocate for open source as well as investing in technologies
based on virtual machines or interpreters where possible to protect
investments of time/work.  Just wanted to bring this up for discussion
as I think it's an important point involving our our work.

Thanks,
steven


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