Ardour DAW - Open Source and you must pay for a it?

Installation & Configuration Mac OS X
#1

Ardour - Open Source = Free to use or not?

Today (April 26/2011) (Sweden)

When i tried to download this DAW, the main reason where that it where Open Source and free.
When i tried 2 download it, it said i have 2 pay for it because it had a “free download limit” thats been reached for the time(?)
I am a qualified Music producer and i support the open source idea, but the developers can´t say it´s free when you have to subscribe with paypal!

I am 24 and because i have health problems (i have a kind pension because of this!) i do not have the economy for it.
i get 7000 SEK = 1 098,37 USD!!!
Other Open Source Software in this quality are made by on the developers free time. why do the Ardour Dev. Team ask for money when other Open Source Developers do not?

I am Dissapointed because of this…

Please comment this Topic!!!

CYAA // Bassemann

#2

I just subscribed to Ardour cause this is one of the best and most promising DAW systems to come along! Been using ProTools for years and purchased Mixbus a few months ago and am very excited about the sonic quality and functionality… I have spent thousands on DAW software over the years and while ProTools has served me well, Ardour/Mixbus is the future in my humble opinion.

Thank you for your hard work Paul!!!

#3

Why do you think open source absolutely, categorically means free as in no money? The GPL does not preclude charging for your product. The main point behind open source is that the source code is freely available ie free as in freedom to do what you want with the source. Ardours source code is always available for download from the SVN server for no money and under the GPL so you can do what you like with it.

Ardour is a professional product, not a part time hobby, the fact that the main developer, who’s project it is, has decided to make it open source shouldn’t mean that he is somehow barred from making a living.

The amount you were being asked to pay is minute in comparison to similarly capable commercial products which can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, at this price it is still incredibly good value.

If you do want it for zero cost then then you can download the source and build it yourself.

1 Like
#4
  1. Paul works full-time on this project.
  2. Could you name one software “in this quality”, which was developed without any funding/donations/sponsorship?
#5

I think to have only reached (as of 26 Apr) about 70% of the funding required for the month is very disappointing, especially in a month that has seen not one, but four Alpha Releases of Ardour3 and an incredible amount of work on this project.

#6

@basseman: as others have noted, but I will repeat, there is never any requirement to pay for Ardour - you can download the source code at all times and build it yourself. If this is too much work (and believe me, on OS X in particular, it is a lot of work), then you can consider paying something to have that work done for you. The amount can be as little as US$1, which is less than you will be asked to pay for any comparable software.

As for the word “Free”, it has always been a problem in English when discussing GPL-licensed software. Its why many people prefer to use the French word “Libre” to distinguish it from “Gratis”, or use the phrase “free as in speech, not free as in beer”. It is important that you understand this. Ardour is Libre software - the source code is always available and you may do whatever you want with it as long as you grant the same rights to anyone you give it to. It is not “free as in beer”, although you can get it for less than the cost of any decent concoction of fermented hops, and if you build from source, even at zero (financial) cost.

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#7

What is a “qualified music producer”?

#8

Sorry!
oh, sorry!, maybe i used the wrong words;) English is not my first language, its swedish. and used a translating site that i thing dont where so good…
i my papers i can read “Music Producer”, and in high school i was in the Music producer program, and you learn all things about sound: mixing, mastring, recording, Live Concerts and the Mixing/producer part of it, hardware and Software learning, Radio Broadcasting and deep digging in how the art of sound works. i spend more than 3 years learning that so i think i am a Producer of Music!

and it was´nt my wish 2 offend you!, if thats was the case(?).

Have A Nice Day :slight_smile: // Bassemann

#9

I Know That!!!

I know a alot of open source, and i know that you can take a fee/charging for a OS product like Ardour! I am 24 not 13, so dont thing i stupid.
but in most cases you can read on OS software webbsite´s that you can Donate, i never see the word buy in this kind of pages! do you?
i give an example:
a OS game called Cube 2: Sauerbraten (www.sauerbraten.org)
you can´t find any “Subscribe” or Donate Buttons…!
and the dev. team doing that in their free time, at home, after thier ordinary jobs/work!
and they don´t make you have to get a paypal-acount or other kinds of that “stuff”.
they don´t do it for the money either…

One more tip: search on wikipedia.org for “Free or open source Digital audio workstations” or “DAW”, you even can get a list of both free/OS and Payware DAW´s and more.

sure, i could compile it by myself; but i do´nt know how 2 do it (but i can learn!), and it´s even harder to make a Mac OS X Version in that case!
and if you think Apples Logic-DAW´s is cheap, you´re wrong.
in sweden Apple products i the most expensive hardware/software you can get. even for “cheaper” Logic Express you have to pay 349,67 USD.
A Mac Mini costs 1 113,09 USD or about 7000 sek!
if i was living in the US i could afford it, but i don´t. in USA the prices are much lower than here so even get a mac it´s hard for me!

and don´t think i´m not want to buy this software, but when i read about ardour on wikipedia it didn´t say you have to donate.

if you want other 2 pay, send a message 2 other forum members, all of them. and it´s not you´re personal economy!

First: Pay for yourself!(if you do´nt have done it allready)

Bye // Bassemann

#10

Sure, they could simply do things in their free time after their ‘normal’ jobs. A lot of Ardour devs do that as far as I understand.
But if there was no one working full time (and therefore paid) on Ardour, we could wait for new versions for a painfully long long time, not to mention what would happen to the fast support and bug fixing. Looking at the financial status, I kinda fear that is where we are leading - and we should take the other direction, pay and donate more so there could be 2 full time devs one day. Hopefully midi support will attract a lot new users willing to pay.

Benjamin

#11
but in most cases you can read on OS software webbsite´s that you can Donate, i never see the word buy in this kind of pages! do you?

Yes on occasion you do, though typically it is referring to a support agreement and you get the code/binary for free.

Here is the thing, you are comparing something that people do in their spare time purely for fun, and enjoyed by it’s users for fun and relaxation(A game), to something that people are using professionally to make a living. Many different funding models have been tried, and depending on the circumstances they succeed or fail. This is just one of those, that thus far has done better than most, but still not good enough to reliably pay a SINGLE full time developer to work on the project that many other people depend on to make a living. It is the last day of the month, and not even 85% of the income of said developer was given to him. Many of us support this software financially by donating or subscribing. In the end all we are doing is donating however, as we can ALWAYS get the source code for free, and in many cases get the binaries for free as well.

Some projects by the way choose to refuse donations at all. Handbrake is like that, they do not want any financial donations. The people are literally doing that project int heir spare time, noone depends on it for a living, and it is just to raise the quality of what is available out there. But that isn’t the same as with Ardour, where we(The users, of whom some of us use this to make a living as I mentioned earlier) like to see continual progress made, there are very few developers at all, and if there was noone working full time, the project would tend to stall(In fact this has been seen in the past IIRC).

  Seablade
#12

You are wrong!

You do’nt know who the founder project??? He is a pro game designer/programmer and have developed Far Cry, and i know that not just/only for fun!!!
He is a professor and even use the 3D engine when he teach.
many developers use it for Making games that you must pay for.
Look at wouters site, and see for yourself.
He even have a company for support for the engine.
And last: to make things you have to be creative and have fun. I think it’s fun and creative to work with music. If you think it’s boring to work with music, you should get new job(?)

is not that i dont want to pay for it, bcz i really want to pay for things i use. But like i wrote before i have never compiled before so if you dont want to be nice to give a Hint how i should do that, you can shut up!

Be nice, i am new here and from the start you guys have been talking about money, (not the dev. Guy!!!), it was only a question and you could have help me how i can compile. The SC!

#13

to bassemann: note that in fact you are the one who started talking about money from the very beginning. it is not really clear that you are asking for help with building from source code, it sounds more like showing your disappointment, complaining about ardour’s (very benevolent) business model and comparing it with incomparable (what does some game dev, professor or not, with his code, has really nothing to do with what ardour devs do or should do).

i’m sorry to say that, but the confrontational tone you’re using is unusual on this friendly and helpful forum and can be easily felt like offensive and inappropriate (and i don’t think it is a language barrier issue).

if you seek help with compiling the source code, you should:
(i) search in the forum and ardour web, you would find some pretty detailed instructions
(ii) if you can’t find anything useful for you, you should write something like this:
“hi, i’d like to self-compile ardour and i’m new to this, can you please give me some info to start with? thanks”.
can you notice the difference to what you keep writing, like
“if you dont want to be nice to give a Hint how i should do that, you can shut up! Be nice, i am new here” etc.?

info about building ardour from source here:
http://ardour.org/building

#14
You do'nt know who the founder project??? He is a pro game designer/programmer and have developed Far Cry, and i know that not just/only for fun!!!

I never said that he wasn’t professional, or that other professionals aren’t also involved. I said that people are not depending on it (Meaning the game you linked to) for income to my knowledge…

He is a professor and even use the 3D engine when he teach. many developers use it for Making games that you must pay for.

He even have a company for support for the engine.

So his income is coming from teaching presumably? Not from the game itself, though I will be the first to say that it could be a useful tool to demonstrate with. And yes a company to support the product is great, but is only a small part of things and likely a small part of his income though again I could be wrong, I would need to ask him. Technically Paul gets a small part of his income from a similar setup as he gets a portion of Mixbus’s revenue IIRC. But I am fairly certain that portion is probably even less than the income from donations/subscriptions around here, but again I would have to ask to be certain. And he has in the past worked with other companies in a similar fashion(Look up SAE sometime) but those incomes are neither steady, nor are they typically large.

Of course there is a difference between the engine, which is a part of the game, and the game itself, which is what you linked to(See the quote below of the website description), but I will ignore that for the moment.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten is a free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of the Cube FPS.
I think it's fun and creative to work with music. If you think it's boring to work with music, you should get new job(?)

Who said anything about it being boring? Where did this even come from? I know for a fast Paul, who is the lead developer of Ardour and the majority of donations, etc. goes to, works with music often, though not as often as he would like since starting Ardour. I certainly make my living working with Ardour, meaning using it as a tool not developing for it, though I have been known to submit patches on occasion and help out in other ways in my spare time, much like many people I suspect support that game.

But like i wrote before i have never compiled before so if you dont want to be nice to give a Hint how i should do that, you can shut up!

First off I would strongly suggest you not get offensive. And secondly I will say this is the FIRST time you have asked for help in compiling or shown an interest in doing so in any of your posts. If you don’t ask you won’t get an answer, period.

For either OS, there are basic instructions on Ardour’s website, and simply googling “How to compile Ardour” would get you a fair amount of documents. In fact the first link returned by google for me is…

http://ardour.org/building

Which links directly to here…

http://ardour.org/building_ardour2

Which in turn has a link to here…

http://ardour.org/building_osx_native

NOTE: Paul is not joking when he wrote that the process of compiling on OS X is painful, in fact very few people have succesfully done it, and it is a process that can take a day or two to complete, thus part of why the OS X binary is more strongly enforced downloading, it really takes a LOT of time out of someone’s life to complete the build process properly on OS X, and make a distributable binary.

  Seablade
#15

To seablade:

Offensive, yes i agree!
But in My opinion some answers where negative or offensive.

You Said:
“his income is coming from teaching presumably? Not from the game itself, though I will be the first to say that it could be a useful tool to demonstrate with.”

the Answer about where he got his money from:
The company he own take care off engine-licenses to buyers to commersial projects.
there you have the support if you want to make a payable software!
The engine itself is open source and when you click on the download button you dont get a subscribe page!
And it have no restrictions and you dont need to donate.

By the way
the first answer i wrote was to answer to a question about my “qualified” sentence…!
The second is that you use it in your job, but in my case i should use it on My own computer at home, if i had used it in to make a living i promise i should pay for ardour!

I apologize for the bad additude! Good luck with your job, and thanks for the tip;).
When Paul wrote that i could compile it myself i thougt i would get a hint after that…

CYaa! // Bassemann

#16

@basseman; the audience for paid-for audio software, particularly stuff that pays attention to the details that professionals need, is at least an order of magnitude smaller than the one for paid-for games. the strategies that work to create a revenue flow for games and game engines are totally different (at least in the sense that is being discussed here) from the ones that work for pro-audio software. if that wasn’t true, then companies like Steinberg would not have nearly gone bankrupt a few years ago, and Avid would be making huge sums of money from sales of ProTools. But Steinberg did nearly go bankrupt (they are now owned by Yamaha) and Avid does not make much money from the sales of ProTools. I happen to be doing a bit of consulting work for a company in the game industry right now and it is truly amazing how much money there is floating around there. In the USA last year, sales of games finally eclipsed the movie industry. Its therefore a bit pointless making comparisons of these two “worlds”.

I don’t like having to repeat myself, but I will say again: you do not and never have had to donate in order to get Ardour. What you get without donating may, at times, not be an executable and you need to so some work to build one. So you get to choose under those circumstances: pay for a prebuilt executable, or pay nothing and do the work yourself. I have no interest in spending any of my time supporting people who want to build it themselves (beyond providing a web page that outlines the necessary steps), not because I think there is anything wrong with them doing this, but because I have too much work to do and such people are not contributing to the work that gets on Ardour. If you don’t want to pay anything for the work I do, either doing development, or creating executables, then do the work yourself (using google to find out how), and carry on …

1 Like
#17
The company he own take care off engine-licenses to buyers to commersial projects. there you have the support if you want to make a payable software! The engine itself is open source and when you click on the download button you dont get a subscribe page! And it have no restrictions and you dont need to donate.

Yes, but as I mentioned above, this strategy is already in effect with Ardour, and does not provide enough income to pay a single developer by a long shot(In fact may bring in less income than donations but I haven’t asked). For reference, as I mentioned before, look up SAE Ardour, or Harrison Mixbus.

And while I honestly don’t have any foundation to base this on, I would be willing to bet that the majority of his(Lead Developer[s] for Cube) income does in fact come from teaching, moreso than the consulting side of his business. That doesn’t mean no income comes from there, just that my money is on the income he budgets his living expenses from probably comes from teaching.

But in My opinion some answers where negative or offensive.

Language barrier may be coming into play here, offensive not quite as much, but short to the point of seeming like that possibly. This is not the first time this discussion has come up about Ardour here and elsewhere, and many people have had to post the same thing[s] over and over again, so they don’t feel like writing out a long explanation each time:)

I don't like having to repeat myself, but I will say again: you do not and never have had to donate in order to get Ardour. What you get without donating may, at times, not be an executable and you need to so some work to build one. So you get to choose under those circumstances: pay for a prebuilt executable, or pay nothing and do the work yourself.

I will clarify Paul’s statement here and attempt to explain how this falls under open source. In every case, and at all times, you can get the source code for Ardour. This is in fact Ardour, but needs to be compiled. Compile scripts are always provided with the source code, but that doesn’t mean that setting up the environment is easy, and that is what many new people get confused on. Building Ardour itself once the environment is set up typically isn’t difficult, it just takes a little time(20-30 minutes on a modern machine once you start the build scripts). But setting up the environment, especially on OS X which it appears you are on, can be significantly more difficult. On OS X it is a good day or two’s of solid work to do so. I say this as one of the few people that has in fact done so. It is a lot of work, just to compile, much less to create a distributable executable of it. But no matter whether you get an executable or source code, you always have Ardour itself, and for the source code you never have to pay, donate, or subscribe, for it if you don’t want to. But you do need to put work into it to get it to what you can use yourself to make music, that is the tradeoff.

In actuality, technically to be qualified as ‘open source’ even that much doesn’t need to be true, the source code just has to be provided on request to those that obtain the open source license for a product, but it doesn’t mean that in order to obtain said license you couldn’t charge for it. This is a commonly confused part of open source, that it doesn’t always mean no charge.

At the moment I need to get going, Ill respond more later most likely.

Seablade

#18

Even if old, I need to chime in to bring up some points here for later readers, which I think are important.

  1. A professional music producer is somebody how has long term skills in MANY different sections of music styles, genre, music types, techniques and more and knows a lot about how hard it is to have all tools needed at hand any time. Such a person knows by her/his skills and long term experiences how hard it is to achieve this by developing software and has much respect for it and tries to support it as much as possible.

  2. Even if I don’t use Ardour sometimes for longer than a year because of long term sessions/projects, which have been started with something else by others and came on my table later, I always try to support this project with at least a small subscription, because it is important to do! Paul and all others working on it are very diligent and hard working people with the idea that professional working artists need professional software. But they are still artists, not business men or bankers. This software makes it possible for them to have professional tools at hand, and I can’t repeat enough how important this contribution is to the whole. For me Paul is far more important for the whole idea of today then some Facebook or Google guy. And I am not a self-proclaimed music producer, but an internationally working music composer/director/conductor and producer (digidog is just my OSS supporter and contributor name in dev communities) who has build 3 studios with many stations of work in Berlin, Paris, London, New York, Moscow and more combined with film and other art work. I am not an emotional complaining advocate of something, I just take a realistic look on it and can say that Ardour is one the most reliable and redeemable professional pro audio software available and the source code is open for every eye!

  3. Closed source software like Pro Tools or Cubase cost about 500 or more and is not supported on all platforms. Logic Pro X costs 200 and is limited to one platform. There are some other noteworthy contributions but most of them on single platforms and closed source which have not such an interesting eco system like Ardour has with Harrison MixBus for example. Ardour costs you less than a beer only one time a month IF YOU WANT. BTW: This subscription concept has been adapted lately from other closed source companies.

#19

hi,
I’ve been always sort of offended when Ardour, the application (program) asked me to make a donation. Consequently, I felt totally shocked when wanted to download it and there were only non-free (non-free-of-charge) options. AND, consequently I came here to argue, to make some point. BUT… after 5 minutes of reading others’ arguments, I realized that I was more concerned about the sustainability of this wonderful software than perhaps paying a little…

It is all a matter of context, and approach.

When you want to download your next amazing quality DREAM application for your amazing, also free and free-of-charge Linux machine, like myself, you’re sure to be offended when asked to pay.

But when it comes to talking about recording music…
wanting to record music at industry top quality…
everything changes…
you’re already thinking, well, if only I could have such a tool, I’ll pay for it…

and there is a third approach, too… (my case exactly)

when you see (I see) “Ardour Finance” in a right column on the page (on my desktop),
with amounts having been donated like $ 1-20 USD / day…
all of a sudden, although I’m totally flat… (yet happy and aspiring with great outlooks)
I’ll want to defend Ardour…

cause I see that the wrong approaches, and people with wrong approaches, like myself, are killing it… or at least putting it in danger of extinction…
when in fact, open source and community is the future…

MY CONCLUSION:

I’m definitely on the supporting side by now, I mean, I’ve arrived :slight_smile:
and I’m also really appreciating that one can give an atomically basic / small amount, too… (which most community projects don’t offer)

we are traveling in one boat, or aboard one ship…

open source and community is the future, sure…
we already have the open source, only need the community…

thank you for developing Ardour! :heart:
which I’ve been using for years already…

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