Re: [LAD] Aeolus

On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Fons Adriaensen <fons@email-addr-hiddenwrote:

> Hello all,
>
> It has come to my attention that there are ATM at least two
> 'forks' of Aeolus. The first by the MuseScore team, the second
> by one Maurizio Gavioli.
>
> Neither of them even had the decency to let me know of their
> work, and both are taking Aeolus in a direction I do not
> approve of. Gavioli has even added his 'copyright' to the
> sources of the libraries that Aeolus depends on but which
> are not part of its source distribution. Apparently the
> intention is to release incompatible versions of those as
> well.
>
> If this is typical for the attitude taken by the Linux Audio
> community then my motivation to contribute to it will take
> a serious blow.
>
> As announced previously, there will be a fully reworked
> release of Aeolus next year (on the occasion of its 10th
> birthday). Apart from major improvements to the audio code
> it will be completely OSC controlled. None of this will be
> compatible with the forks of course, they'll find themselves
> instantly obsolete. And I will make sure that this sort of
> thing won't happen again, even if that means a more restrictive
> license.
>
> Ciao,
>
>
Respectfully, you granted people the right to fork your code in the first
place. Now you say you might take this right away, but why? How has it
harmed you or anyone else? Why should you have been notified that a fork
took place? The whole point of free software is that people can adapt it to
their needs and share their changes with those with similar needs. If those
forks are better suited to the task at hand than your original code, then
people may well use them (and that's a good thing!). If your new release is
better, people may well use that. Isn't that the point? To help people?
Plus, if the forks did/do make any improvements that you value, hey, that's
great merge them, not that I think you'd ever do that ;-)

We can't all be all things to everybody all the time. The value of your
projects isn't necessarily in the complete package with your name on it. If
someone takes your engine and slaps a new interface on it that people like
better, well, they still use your engine, right? It's hard to put your ego
aside sometimes, but I really recommend that you do. You've contributed a
lot to Linux Audio and I'd hate to see that ruined by bruised egos and
non-free licenses.

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Received on Thu Sep 19 12:15:02 2013