[Musix-usuarios] Re: [Freepats] Breaking silence and the road to free musical instruments

Dom Mayo 6 00:58:33 CEST 2007

El Sáb 05 May 2007 22:53, Roberto Gordo Saez escribió:
 | On Fri, May 04, 2007 at 03:49:34AM +1000, Mark Constable wrote:
 | > Wow, this is exciting news. Well, any news is good, as it's been
 | > very quiet on this list, but this is particularly good news.
 |
 | Indeed, it's been very quiet on this list. There are only few
 | contributions and based on the responses I usually get, I know that main
 | offenders are all those "semi-free" soundfonts out there. They are the
 | real evil. People do not feel urged to contribute. They are discouraged
 | to produce real free soundfonts. Why bother?
 |
 | Creating instruments takes a lot of time, and is difficult to do. It is
 | a lot easier to download one of those General MIDI soundfonts available
 | everywhere. But it turns out that those soundfonts are also loaded with
 | unlicensed samples. It is very common to recognize samples from Emu,
 | Roland and others inside them.
 |
 | There are many people who cares about free software, being very picky
 | about licenses and imposed restrictions when using software; but
 | surprisingly enough, this same people usually chooses to ignore the
 | nasty restrictions, ugly agreements and the whole copyright law for
 | sounds or other works beside software, turning a blind eye, just like
 | if the problem had never existed. I've had some strong words with some
 | people at Debian for this reason.
 |
 | Months ago, Mark told me about an interesting orchestral sample
 | collection:
 | http://www.soundsonline.com/EWQLSO-Platinum-Bundle-pr-EW-155PROB1.html
 |
 | For those corrupted souls like myself who have cowardly installed the
 | proprietary flash plugin, please hit the play button to listen the
 | example. This is how a high end, good digital sample collection is
 | supposed to sound nowadays. The first time I've listened to it, I felt a
 | need to cry.
 |
 | Could be possible that we ever manage to build something similar with
 | free samples? And even if we get the opportunity, how many years could
 | we need to carefully record, process, balance and fine tune such an
 | enormous amount of samples? Maybe 10 years, 20 years... never? I'm
 | unable to answer those questions, but I can say what I will do.
 |
 | I was tempted to purchase those instruments, and still I am. I've
 | already purchased other proprietary samples in the past. While a price
 | about $3000 may seem a bit high, it is not uncommon for me to spend very
 | high quantities of money on hobbies, toys or other recreational
 | activities that are much less useful than a good sample collection. It
 | may be not a problem for me, just I need to buy those instruments,
 | possibly together with other sets like the GM kit from the same site,
 | and I will be happy. No need for spending lots of time making free
 | instruments, no need to care about fine tuning, and no need to wait
 | forever.
 |
 | But they are NOT FREE. And I'm not referring to the PRICE, I'm referring
 | to the FREEDOM. And yes, this is an annoyance for me, much more than the
 | price. They come with a license agreement:
 |
 | "you are NOT obtaining OWNERSHIP of the sound samples - you are in fact
 | purchasing a LICENSE to use the sound samples within your musical
 | composition" [...]
 |
 | I can only use them on the operating system imposed by the manufacturer.
 | I can't share modifications. My own compositions are a derived product,
 | so they are also infected, there is also a list of conditions which are
 | passed to my own compositions, I'm required to use loops "in a musical
 | context with at least two other instruments that contribute
 | significantly to the composition", just to mention one particular
 | condition. I can't publish my compositions under certain free licenses
 | of my choice, because they may be incompatible with the requirements.
 |
 | The requirements themselves are common to proprietary sample collections
 | and digital instruments (including hardware instruments). Some of them
 | may have additional clauses, and may even require to pay royalties when
 | distributing your music commercially. They are developed to produce
 | proprietary music according to current commercial practices, and they
 | work well in this context.
 |
 | It means that composers and music enthusiasts with less resources will
 | be condemned to produce music that sounds poor, or to violate licenses.
 | Many people choose between both options, but this way things would never
 | change. I choose neither.
 |
 | I may purchase those samples in the future, depending on my mood; time
 | is a finite resource for humans. But I will always continue searching
 | for free instruments anyway, or I will never be completely happy. No
 | matter how much time will take. No matter how much of an idiot I will
 | look to the eyes of those people who do not see any problem, or who are
 | completely happy with their semi-free soundfonts or proprietary
 | products. I will continue to support free instruments. I'm grateful with
 | people who has contributed (currently only a few, it seems). Even the
 | simpler things like testing a soundfont or giving an opinion does
 | matter. Thanks to all who are interested.
 |
 |
 | PS: Sorry for such a political kind of email. I just had a depressing
 | day today...
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 | Freepats en opensrc.org
 | http://opensrc.org/listinfo/freepats

I liked your mail, it's one of the best I had ever readed (sorry again about 
my fucking english)

Look: as more people uses Free Software as in freedom, there are more chances 
that they think about freedom

I was testing you freedom piano soundfont yesterday, and I LIKE IT, we just 
have to include some more layers, maybe only the bright one!! (and retouch 
some things). I am too busy on making Musix GNU/Linux for now, but maybe I 
could help.

And, then, we must search for students at university, artistic schools, etc., 
that could study and make soundfonts as a part of their studies... this would 
be the best I think, so , experiences like Gustavo Chico in Spain should be 
an example about how we can make it if we collaborate: we need more people 
thinking about freedom, and, this issue needs some work and time.

-- 
Marcos Guglielmetti  
* Director del desarrollo de Musix GNU+Linux, 100% Software Libre
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* http://autosus.wordpress.com/

«No te tomes en serio nada que no te haga reír» [un amigo de E. Galeano]
... tampoco sigas al pie de la letra ninguna de estas frases...