commercial templates bad for the community?

Hahaha, sure, no prob and no further comments at least on this side.
A bit of an irony though, isn't it?: The legal whiny-whines and the army of lawyers (!! ) that magically popped up... Wasn't that the worst evil sin before?

Peace out.

this m127 guy is "not very polite" to say the least...Feeling ashamed while reading this thread. Doesn't listen to arguments, attacks AB without any prooven argument, should have been banned I think. I certainly hope not everybody on this forum is like him.

Pff. Never attacked AB. On the contrary. I am one of his FRIENDS since the JM days.

Nonetheless we are trying to just drop it on the attacks, same goes to you.

I am willing to collaborate.

Two way street though (includes lawyers and volunteer legal interns).


So let me reiterate: peace out.

Shure.

As far as making a better community, well designed software will raise the standard of things. And usually if it's well designed, it should be paid rather than free. Good software shows possibilities, and hopefully creates goals for others to strive towards, and eventually be rewarded for. There are thousands of free devices, but most are just minor deviations from a core theme. Nothing new. The same function with a different look. At the other end are things like Hadron, Ircamax, or Razor, skanner etc. Something worth paying for that pushes the boundaries of the platform.

Hi
This discussion is not necessarily about whether things are free or not - but the potential effect it may have on the community which so far has had a largely 'open-source' ethic . . .

There is plenty of extremely well-designed, well-implemented, free content - and now the potential that some of it will be re-packaged with minor deviations as 'commercial' offerings . . .

From memory Hadron is not only free but also open-source ( though there may be additional paid content available), as is CSound upon which it is built - Not the best example for your argument but supportive of the opposite view . . .
I know there is a free version of Skanner, (not sure about Razor), as well as a paid XT (extended?) version - and they are both by NI, a very large company that sells most of it's synths any way . . .
IrcaMax similarly has free versions, and plenty of other excellent high-level free content - you only pay for the bits that contains objects they have invested a hell of lot in (millions?) and which were/are otherwise only available by subscription . . .

I think level of pricing is also something that deserves to be discussed/questioned, the Lemur app is $50 and contains most of the time/work that enables 'paid' content to exist.
If a 'commercial' project is half the Lemur price, have they really done half of the work? Or even a third if you use the compound price? Would the project be as attractive/justified at $75 as a standalone app?
Perhaps developers selling paid content should pay Liine a percentage of their sale price, or buy a substantially priced Commercial Developers License from Liine, or maybe Liine should create a suitably priced Developers Edition . . .

Just because something is free does not mean it is poor quality, nor does something being paid for mean that it is a quality original non-copyright infringing product . . .
I think the main point of this discussion is more to do with whether the majority of open-source providers on this forum should risk having their work appropriated for someone elses gain . . .

Macciza wrote:Perhaps developers selling paid content should pay Liine a percentage of their sale price, or buy a substantially priced Commercial Developers License from Liine, or maybe Liine should create a suitably priced Developers Edition . . .

I'd give them a cut in exchange for a distribution network that also prevented piracy. Distribution is the last thing any of us want to handle. I'd also pay extra for a Developers Edition, presuming the editor didn't have so many quirky crashes and a more definite direction as far as where they intend to take the language. With the latter one though, the market share discussion comes back up, show me the potential for ROI and I'll make the investment. Maybe drop the price of the app to increase market share, re-code and sell the editor to make up the costs? Lemur at $5 a copy will soak up the dying (sorry hexler ) TouchOSC market, at which point the user gets access to the library, default package, and paid premium content from liine and third party devs? Interesting direction, on paper at least.

I think level of pricing is also something that deserves to be discussed/questioned, the Lemur app is $50 and contains most of the time/work that enables 'paid' content to exist.
If a 'commercial' project is half the Lemur price, have they really done half of the work? Or even a third if you use the compound price? Would the project be as attractive/justified at $75 as a standalone app?
Perhaps developers selling paid content should pay Liine a percentage of their sale price, or buy a substantially priced Commercial Developers License from Liine, or maybe Liine should create a suitably priced Developers Edition . . .

I think two versions of lemur would be better. The current one and a free or low cost player. I think this same model is part of the success of NAtive instruments with their reaktor and kontakt players. Ableton seems to be moving this way too with M4L now included in the suite version.

Right now the commercial arguments over someone else's gain etc. seem more theoretical than actual reality when it comes to Lemur templates. There's not a big enough market so no lemur template maker needs to worry about much money-wise since there's none to be made. Added to this, every potential customer has the means and some knowledge on how to build the same product themselves. Just doesn't seem like an ideal situation for the long term. Having two versions of software would clear at least some of this up, make roles more clearly defined, etc.

Im not sure Im following the logic here....Lemur is, up to now, marketed and sold as a "control surface designing" application.....I wouldnt have bought it if it was only a "extended library of control surfaces" application....What I wanted was to design the thing myself.....

Of course I understand that many people may just want to have the "extended library" without designing, and this would be the selling point of the "player" but frankly I think it messes up with the current perception of what Lemur is.....well at least according to my own personal opinion.....

Also, M4L is indeed included now in Ableton Live suite, but its not a "locked player" - it still has its dedicated editor - regardless if people will be usign it or not.....

For other comments, Macciza has said everything I was thinking!

Damn it !! i just did it again - Lost a couple of hundred words and a whole heap of late night when I should be asleep trying to deal with this issue . . .
Anybody want want to compensate me for all the time and energy that I have put into this issue? Will try and write it all up again tomorrow . . .
Goodnight/morning .. . . . .
MM

Ok lets try this again, though shorter and more to the point . .

My suggestion was that 'commercial developers' pay some sort of premium price, not that there be a cheaper or free version - Weren't you arguing against 'free' stuff earlier . . .

The free versions of NI stuff are meant as a means to get you to buy other paid content so you can really use the 'free' bit - Kind like the 'free' apps that basically require you to buy add-ons for proper functionality. It is a marketing ploy designed to make money by a company that makes lots of money. . .
Cycling '74's M4L is not 'included' with Live Suite for free - you pay for! Live Suite $750, Live Standard $450, add M4L to StandardLive $200; Max 6 $400, with Gen $500 etc . . . .

With M4L there have been cases of unscrupulous developers repackaging free content with 'minor deviation' or 'same function. different look' as paid content - some have even barely changed the initial free offering, and the consumer, as well as the original developer, are often last to know . . .
Within Lemur we have already seen a few cases of other peoples work being repackaged with little attribution to original developers - to the point that new users may think it was in fact the second persons work and not realising the original developers at all - this 'might' then be leveraged for later 'commercial offerings . . .

The discussion is not really against others gain, which can be substantial - 100 copies of a $25 project is $2500 - $25 is half of Lemurs price but have they done half of the work in making their project? I don't think so. Perhaps they should develop in Xcode and sell through iTunes and pay Apple, rather than using Lemur . . .
The discussion is about "what effect all this has on the 'community'?" which has traditionally been more 'open source' than 'commercial' - and despite any 'contribution' that may be made by commercial developers, I think overall it has a potentially negative effect on the open source side . . .
Already several contributors have decided to add copyright to their creations in the hope that they will not be exploited commercially despite the fact that it does not offer much 'real' protection, and some discussions are occurring off-forum for similar reasons . . .
I know I, and others, have spent substantial time providing solutions to various peoples problems, without knowledge of whether they are working towards commercial release or not - and 'lurkers' could easily grab and use any or all of this info . . .
For all we know, you may be working towards a commercial release and despite requiring/utilising the assistance being freely provided by this Forum - Perhaps we should be charging for our technical support, though that really goes against the ideals of many of us . . .

Cheers

When I started learning to program and networked with other programmers about 20 years ago, we simply took pride in helping each other. Nobody ever asked if his solution was beeing used in a commercial project, nobody really cared.

From a programmers point of view, using third party solutions is a must and has always been part of software development. Even an operating system is a huge third party library of ready made solutions. Imagine every single new software would have to implement a mouse driver, keyboard driver, storage I/O and display system to be usable.

The basic misconception I see here is that it's "bad" to use solutions provided by other members for your own projects. From my point of view it would be stupid not to do so, and it's always been part of commercial sofware development.

And I doubt you can invent anything completely new with the very limited scripting language of Lemur. I remember artsUNMUTED having to defend his bank system (page 13)... really, writing a few values to an array/vector and retrieving them at a button click, that's a revolutionary concept - it should've been patented 20 years ago when arrays where introduced in programming languages.

Rolix wrote:The basic misconception I see here is that it's "bad" to use solutions provided by other members for your own projects.

nobody said that. Only if someone makes money with it, but that should be clear anyway because this is theft.

Damsn it!!! I did it again - went to hit preview and hit send and for some reason lost another couple of hundred words . . .. . . . ..
But I guess that just goes to show in part the effect this can have on the community , or me at least . . .
I probably could have spent the past half hour or more and all the mental effort on something far more productive then this discussion . . .
I don't know why it keeps happening - I have to be logged in to write the post and then it suddenly decides that I need to be logged in to post
What a waste of time . . .. ..
MM %-{

Phil999 wrote:

Rolix wrote:The basic misconception I see here is that it's "bad" to use solutions provided by other members for your own projects.

nobody said that. Only if someone makes money with it, but that should be clear anyway because this is theft.

The correct quote reads: "The basic misconception I see here is that it's "bad" to use solutions provided by other members for your own projects. From my point of view it would be stupid not to do so, and it's always been part of commercial sofware development." And by commercial software development I mean making money with it.

Macciza wrote:Damsn it!!! I did it again - went to hit preview and hit send and for some reason lost another couple of hundred words . . .. . . . ..
But I guess that just goes to show in part the effect this can have on the community , or me at least . . .
I probably could have spent the past half hour or more and all the mental effort on something far more productive then this discussion . . .
I don't know why it keeps happening - I have to be logged in to write the post and then it suddenly decides that I need to be logged in to post
What a waste of time . . .. ..
MM %-{

Happened to me too in the past in many BBS. Solution: create a new textfile on the desktop, take whatever time it takes to write the answer, copy and paste into the BBS and hit send. Quoting Goethe: "Sorry for the long letter, my friend, I didn't have the time for a short one"

I read this discussion a week ago, didn't want to take part in it but couldn't get it out of my head.

EDIT: these BBS all seem to have a timer which logs you out automatically after a certain amount of time.

Hi
Usually I try to make sure I copy the whole thing just before posting so if it bugs out I can just paste it back in and all is good . ..

Anyway, all software has always been covered by some sort of license/copyright system and with various requirement - allowing or imparting limitations on use . .
Requirements that people should abide by - whether that mean not to use it commercially, or to return your developments to the community, etc etc etc

Just because you are a commercial developer does not give you any particular rights over and above whoever developed the work in the first place.
If anything it perhaps puts a greater onus upon commercial developers to conduct themselves properly.

If the 'commercial developers' want to dictate what can or can't be done with there work, ie not release for free , then the opposite must apply as well . ..
If I wish to apply certain restrictions to how my stuff gets used then surely that is equally valid a point to be respected . .
I have some substantial library type work that I want to have control over, the same as they do over there stuff. . .
The only difference is they don't want people to use their stuff for free and I don't want them to make money of me . . .

The biggest problem with this discussion is the fractured non-realtime nature of internet communications and the inability to seek clarification as points are being made . . .

I was talking about the attitude of helping for the sake of helping, at least that's what I experienced in my early developer days.

Where did I mention particular rights resulting from my job?

Can you give me an example for a Lemur script that's so unique that it's use must be restricted, and can you proof that the techniques used in it have not been coded in any other programming language or software system before?

To be more specific: I started programming Lemur two weeks ago and, as a learning project, decided it should be something to experiment with chords and scales. I implemented a row of pads to play scales and a chord bank wich stores chords when at least 3 scale pads are released and automatically switches to the next slot for the next chord to be stored. You can play along a progression and all gets stored while you play. I did NOT use any template from the library since I have fun in developing my own solutions.

Now would I want to restrict the use of my chord bank, would I accuse others of theft if they used it? No, never, ever. There's not a single piece of code or a single concept inside it that's new in any way, or ingenious, there's nothing inside that's not allready been used in countless software products in other contexts.

Would I accept beeing accused of having stolen the concept of a chord bank? No, never, ever What should I have stolen? Storing a few pich values in a vector, retrieving them at a pad press and sending them with noteout()?

Where do we draw the line?

Hi
Sorry I did not mean to to imply you directly as a 'commercial developer' - I probably should have said 'someone' which is what I meant . . . .
And helping people for the sake of helping is what I have been doing freely for more than a year now on this Forum .. .

An example would be any of the 'commercial' projects mentioned in this thread where the developers have claimed copyright for them.
They are claiming restrictions on the use of their material . . . Not to be further commercially developed or modified and released for free . . .
What proof they have regarding their originality I don't know as I have not seen their projects or the code it contains . . .

There is probably a lot of open-sourced / public domain approaches that are used in many of the projects available . .
If it falls under those umbrellas then it does not particularly matter if they have been coded previously . .
Unless of course I claim them to be my personal work and claim proprietary ownership of them in breach of those general license conditions

Cheers