Subject: [linux-audio-dev] reborn aborted
From: jfm3 (jfm3_AT_ouroboros-complex.org)
Date: Thu Aug 15 2002 - 09:11:58 EEST
This whole thing is shady as hell. You can't copyright a user interface.
We've been through that already (see
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Copyright/copyright.html). You can copyright
specific graphics, but Reborn only looks similar to that other program.
In fact, there are explicit facilities for making Reborn look like
whatever you want.
I'm guessing that Mr. Singer realized too late that using Gsynth code in
Reborn would make it so he would have to open up the rest of the code,
which he wanted to sell. Of course, he could open the source and still
sell Reborn quite legally on a CD with a pile of mods and sample songs,
and make probably as much money as he would if he kept the source
closed, albeit not much either way. But he doesn't get it. Why else
would he put "DO NOT SELL" stickers all over it's legal bits? So instead
of giving out his precious code, which he is still obliged to do under
the law, he's trying to back out of it all by claiming that lawyers are
biting him. This will give him enough time to remove the Gsynth code and
close the rest of the source. He pretty much admits this if you read
between the lines of what he wrote on his web page. The old FAQ for
Reborn was quite flippant about the whole open source thing as well.
I'd be very interested to see what kind of email he got (if it actually
exists) to make him drop the project like this.
It so gets under my skin. If I was a Gsynth author, I'd be furious out
of my mind right now.
I do take comfort in the fact that Reborn was awful. The sliders didn't
respond to mouse motion even nearly as well as the clunky 80's style
Tcl/Tk interface in Pd. There was no MIDI control. The -p option was
implemented incorrectly (of course). It didn't use ALSA or JACK. I
crashed it twice in the hour I toyed with it. And any moron with half of
one remaining ear could do a better 303 emulation given the Gsynth code.
Feh.
-- (jfm3 2838 BCBA 93BA 3058 ED95 A42C 37DB 66D1 B43C 9FD0)
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