Selling VST2 after October 2018: Steinberg agreement

[VladK]

The whole thing seams to me like an unintentional implicit push for people to use Juce. They are the practical beneficiary of all this as far as I can see it.

Let's see how long it takes for PACE to announce that JUCE 6 (or 7) requires iLok for activation.

[discoDSP]

Got my iLok already just in case

[Rockatansky]

The whole thing seams to me like an unintentional implicit push for people to use Juce. They are the practical beneficiary of all this as far as I can see it.

JUCE is not an open (as in libre) plugin platform. It's (become) a proprietary capitalist API/toolkit, just like VST. They have no control over what happens to which proprietary plugin formats. If Steinberg announces VST4 and discontinues VST3, or if Apple ditch AU to establish AU3 more on desktop systems, then JUCE can do f*ckall about it. The JUCE people are not responsible (or able) to guarantee you anything with regard to what other developers decide to do with their own intellectual property, nor do they have any say in the matter. They'll just have to oblige, like everyone else. PACE are not a major player in the 'libre' and open source scene, they are all about secrecy and income. What do you think happens if PACE decide JUCE is just too much trouble, because it's too expensive to keep its code base current with all the constant changes and developments in third party frameworks and formats? You believe they'd think twice about sawing that dead arm off? Ask Cakewalk, or since recently the JUCE folks themselves, if something like that happening is really that unrealistic. As long as there's no truly 'libre' open source alternative that is developed and improved by a free community, you'll always depend on what some intellectual property owner decides is the best for you. And even a 'libre' world wouldn't be perfect. It'll be a year before there are too many individual branches to count or keep apart. Good luck getting the major players in the DAW market (Steinberg, Avid and Apple) to support 25 new plugin format variationss, which are all vaguely based on the same idea but somehow different, rather than just staying true to their own proprietary formats. I too think it's shit that Steinberg is closing down VST2, because every developer new to the scene instantly loses a large portion of potential customers, who work with DAWs that maybe don't support VST3. But it's up to Steinberg, VST is their product. If they want to create that problem, then that's well within their right.

[Markus Krause]

There was/is a reason why VST3 did not establish properly and why still many users prefer v2.4.

- Incomplete MIDI support for a very long time
- No real advantages compared to VST 2.4 for synthesizer-plugins
- A SDK that compiles with errors/examples that crash/or even doesn't compile at all
- A SDK that ships with one bloated project-file that contains many gui-less examples, instead of a slim one with a single plugin with GUI
- Deprecated technology (OpenGL)
- CMake is necessary to build the SDK
- Too complicated for beginners
- Technical problems in many hosts for a long time

Hopefully Steinberg will discontinue VST3 and create VST4 instead. This time a slim SDK with properly working examples, Midi 2.0 support, DirectX drawing on PC, Metal drawing on Mac

[discoDSP]

Hopefully Steinberg will discontinue VST3 and create VST4 instead. This time a slim SDK with properly working examples, Midi 2.0 support, DirectX drawing on PC, Metal drawing on Mac

Too good to be true

[Vokbuz]

- A SDK that ships with one bloated project-file that contains many gui-less examples, instead of a slim one with a single plugin with GUI
- Deprecated technology (OpenGL)
- CMake is necessary to build the SDK
...
DirectX drawing on PC, Metal drawing on Mac

Don't confuse VSTGUI and other parts of SDK with the VST3 spec. You can make VST3 plugins using only pluginterfaces. Everything else is optional.

- Too complicated for beginners
- Technical problems in many hosts for a long time

This will be true for any new API.

[fuo]

Why should they buy another DAW? Which of the major DAWs doesn't support VST3? The last one I thought of was Ableton and they've added it.

Ableton support is one year old. Many users still have older versions, with no real reason to update.

Many DAWs are still not compatible with VST3 in there current version, like Reason, MPC software, or Native Instrument Maschine.

Btw there are plugins available as VST2 like BlueCatAudio Patchwork which are able to host VST3 plugins. So even if there is a host without VST3 support, you can easily get around it and load newer plugins.

Sure, but that is a 99€ entry ticket, arguably doing more things than what is needed here.

What else are you planning to do? Creating your own standard which then is just another standard as discussed many times in here? Or are you trying to still develop for VST2 without a proper license? Or are you trying to take legal actions? What's the plan?

That is my question.
VST2 is a defacto standard, and should not be restricted.

I asked this same question on the JUCE forum and proposed two possible scenarios:
https://forum.juce.com/t/how-to-offer-v ... -now/39195

First proposal (in first post) would be to have another company provide the VST2 version, second proposal would be to have someone provide a free (for the end user) VST2/VST3 wrapper: https://forum.juce.com/t/how-to-offer-v ... w/39195/16

[S0lo]

If Steinberg announces VST4 and discontinues VST3, or if Apple ditch AU to establish AU3 more on desktop systems, then JUCE can do f*ckall about it. The JUCE people are not responsible (or able) to guarantee you anything with regard to what other developers decide to do with their own intellectual property, nor do they have any say in the matter. They'll just have to oblige, like everyone else.

You're right. But if Juce is making more than enough money. They'll be compelled to make their developer base happy. That is, upgrade their back-end to support VST4 with no need for their customers (developers) to rewrite any old code. That is partly what their platform is all about after all. An abstraction so we don't have to worry about the details.

There is obviously no rock solid guarantee even with a payed product. But at least some level of confidence.

[wikter]

YGRabbit from Steinberg on Forums, relating a press article published in 2018 October, answering to Jeroem Breebhart in Juce forums.

https://forum.juce.com/t/steinberg-clos ... d/27722/24

Concerning VST2:
Plugin developers having already signed a VST2 license agreement with Steinberg could continue to develop VST2 after the first of October 2018.
After this date NEW developers (the one having not signed the VST2 license agreement until this date) will be not allow to distribute VST2 plugins.
Note that distributing or reverse engineering the VST2 SDK (partially or fully) is NOT allowed by the current Steinberg VST2 license agreement.
Thanks for your attention
Yvan

I was posting this in another thread... How did it ended here????

[Urs]

Well, obviously they changed their mind. And their terms.

[Milkman]

Steinberg got CLAP'ped though, so its all working out in the end.

[Tone2 Synthesizers]

reverse engineering the VST2 SDK (partially or fully) is NOT allowed by the current Steinberg VST2 license agreement.

I didn't check out my contract if such a passage exists at all. But in the end it would just mean that you should not have signed a VST2 license agreement before you reverse engineer it. Otherwise your license can get invalid.
VST2 is a plugin format from a German company (Steinberg). In Germany there does not and never existed somehing like 'software patents'. VST2 is just an interface. Not even the idea for audio plugins was new back in the days. DLL files are a basic functionality of Windows and DX plugins and other plugin formats existed before VST. According to various court decisions it is legit to write software for an interface by reverse enginerring it (see SAP, Oracle et al).

Well, obviously they changed their mind. And their terms.

Luckily you only can change the terms of a signed contract with the written agreement of both parties.

There whould have been an easy solution for their debacle a decade ago:
Provide a slim and properly working SDK with a documentation and full Midi support

[S0lo]

Steinberg got CLAP'ped though, so its all working out in the end.

Imagine if it was named SLAP'ed . Seamless Link Audio Protocol

[ghettosynth]

Steinberg got CLAP'ped though, so its all working out in the end.

Imagine if it was named SLAP'ed . Seamless Link Audio Protocol

Sucks Less Audio Protocol.

Talk about a missed opportunity, SLAP slaps.

[mystran]

Steinberg got CLAP'ped though, so its all working out in the end.

Imagine if it was named SLAP'ed . Seamless Link Audio Protocol

Sucks Less Audio Protocol.

Talk about a missed opportunity, SLAP slaps.

Fork CLAP, call it SLAP, that's how open source works.