> > Also, Supercollider has a very restrictive license,
> What? SuperCollider is GPL.
Exactly. That is a restrictive license, and no one is going to use it (it being Supercollider) in anything resembling a commercial product. A lot of these programmatic audio systems make their way into things like installations and video games. Supercollider can't be used in commercial instances except when you're just releasing music.
If you want to use SuperCollider as the audio engine of your video game, you would indeed need to comply with the GPL. At least if you want to use the C library (libscsynth). Alternatively, you could run scsynth as a separate process and communicate over OSC; this is a bit of a grey area.
However, most people use SuperCollider as a tool to create music; in this case the GPL does not apply.
> and no one is going to use it (it being Supercollider) in anything resembling a commercial product.
If you can convince Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, or any of the game studios to release the code for their games or systems, just so that they can use Supercollider for an audio subsystem, go for it.
If it's packaged with a game, even though it's running separately (is that even possible in a game console?), you would still have to distribute the binaries, would you not? And doesn't that break GPL?
I shouldn't have even mentioned licensing in my original comment, which was more of an aside that mattered to me in my selection of which system to use, but of course, it's been hyper and myopically focused on here with GPL proponents coming out of the woodwork to argue about it.
However, it is relevant because, as I said, a nice benefit of these sound engines is that they can be embedded in other languages and applications. Thus, when choosing such a sound engine, the licensing is an input to the decision, and other systems, such as Pure Data and Csound, have more permissive licenses. For example, the absolutely excellent iVCS3 app on iOS is built on Csound: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ivcs3/id665703927.
> preventing its use in basically anything besides small side and school project
That is what I (and others) took issue with. SuperCollider is used by professional artists (including myself). Just because you cannot use it in a proprietary app does not mean it is only for hobbyists!
I did say "in" and not "for", and in the context of discussing a non-permissive license, I think it should be relatively clear about my statement being about incorporating the engine into other software and applications that you may not want to open source. This is why I said side or school projects, because you usually don't care about having to open source those. I did not mean to imply that no professionals use Supercollider to make music and sounds. And really, I was just wanting to point out that Csound can be embedded in several different ways, with a license that is permissive for such uses in proprietary systems.
It's great people are using Supercollider in other ways to make money! But it's obvious that the license doesn't extend to music recordings and performance.
All that being said, do you have any links or descriptions on how you use Supercollider (or any other system)? I'm curious to hear about anything you're able to share.
If you could convince Sony and Nintendo to upstream everything they customised from FreeBSD (Sony), and clang/LLVM (both), the upstream projects would appreciate, given how they lag behind in GNU/Linux adoption, and GCC in standards compliance and architectures.
> […] and no one is going to use it […] in anything resembling a commercial product.
Ignoring the fact that this is demonstrably false, why would it be a problem if it was actually true?
There is nothing to stop a commercial interest writing their own, or licensing something from elsewhere. Depending on the contribution structure for this project (caveat: I've not looked into this at all) it may even be possible to license this project for non-GPL-compliant use. Or, you know, release the resulting project under the GPL.
The GPL is less restrictive than most commercial licensing, so judging it as restrictive because it can be difficult to justify in some (many?) commercial contexts is somewhat hypercritical IMO. Commercial licences can be just as "viral" and depending on the owner inadvertent infection (by using some code without properly verifying is origin & license first) can be more fatal to a project.
What commercial products are using Supercollider, since you mention this is demonstrably wrong? I'm honestly curious to know about them to read and learn about them.
You suggest that this is because of the GPL. That GPL covered code is used in many commercial products demonstrates that to be false.
You refrained from answering the question: if it was true, why would it matter?
Supplementary questions: If I release some software covered by, for instance, AGPLv3, why would it be a problem for me that commercial projects wouldn't use it? Why would it necessarily be a problem for my code's users?
We are talking about Csound and Supercollider here. I didn't make any general statement about GPL or licensing, nor would I like to. The entire point is if one wants to do something else with these programmatic audio systems besides just use them as they are to make music, which would almost surely include bundling the software into or distributing with an application, the projects that have more permissive licensing are more attractive for that purpose. And this particularly affects systems like game consoles or other such hardware like synthesizers.
Please just read my other comments and quit arguing about licensing to me. I am much more interested in just hearing about the features and applications of Csound and others.
Csound and Pure Data are more attractive, to me but likely others, because I can freely bundle them and apply them as I please without tiptoeing around a license, not to mention they have their own pros as far as sound generation goes. Supercollider was presented as an alternative to Csound, but I simply pointed out that if you care about embedding the system into something else, Csound is more friendly to that, as is Pure Data.
If you don't want to discuss something, may refrain from bringing it up?
If it isn't a relevant point when discussion these specific products then your mentioning of it in criticism of one of them seems [short pause to think of a more generous word than the first one that sprang to mind…] odd.
It's been discussed, people are bringing up irrelevant examples and generalizing what I said out of context, including you who quoted my comment by removing the context, and it's a fact that Csound has a more permissive license.
Did you read my original comment to understand the specific context and many followups? Because I was talking about embedding programmtic sound engines like Csound and Supercollider into other software and applications and distributing them, which the GPL license of Supercollider does indeed prevent unless you want to open source those applications.
What? SuperCollider is GPL, so it's 100% Free Software.
> preventing its use in basically anything besides small side and school projects
Typically, people use it to create music, so the restrictions of the GPL are no concern.