Re: [fluid-dev] Another application using FluidSynth announced

[David Henningsson]

On 09/14/2011 06:11 AM, Element Green wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 8:49 PM, Matt Giuca<address@hidden>  wrote:
> > Element:
> > > For this reason I wouldn't even mind if FluidSynth became
> > > BSD licensed, if it would help FluidSynth to continue to flourish as
> > > it has.
> >
> > It sounds like you're saying "if we don't support iPhone, nobody will
> > continue working on FluidSynth." I strongly hope that isn't the case
> > (all software in the future runs only on Apple devices?)
>
> Not at all.  I was referring to the moral of those involved.  I could
> care less about Apple devices and the more I hear about their
> policies, the more I dislike them.  It sounds like at least David
> would be disheartened by a change of the license to favor being able
> to use it on that OS, so that means a lot to me, since he is a very
> significant part of FluidSynth development.

Thanks for the support. Yeah, I would be disheartened by the fact that 
we would indirectly letting Apple dictate our license terms.

My position should be seen in the context that I'm biased - I work for a 
free software company that is a direct Apple competitor (Canonical), and 
I also realise that the project is bigger than me, and that a working 
iPhone implementation might bring in other, new contributors.

Just to clarify; it's not iPhone in itself that is the problem here, and 
I can even stand a proprietary compiler ($99 per year + $1200 for a Mac 
if you don't have one already), but the fact that the result of that 
compiler is something that can not be spread to more than 100 devices 
per year is just too much.

I would, however, encourage and happily merge patches for iOS - that 
helps people distribute FluidSynth based applications through e g Cydia.

> Your feedback is appreciated, thanks for filling me in on some of the
> details I missed.  I still feel that I would potentially re-licence my
> contribution if that was decided upon, but it does indeed sound pretty
> lame to me.  So I also wouldn't mind if either an official statement
> was made, that FluidSynth should not be used on Apple's OSes

Just to clarify, it's the App Store distribution mechanism (in 
combination with the crippled executable you get if you compile/sign 
yourself) I've mainly having a problem with, rather than Apple itself or 
its operating systems.

> so long
> as those restrictions exist or some other clarification to aid those
> who in the future consider using it for such purposes.  At any rate,
> I'm going to step out of this discussion.  Please email me directly if
> anyone wants any specific clarification from me.

// David