Xenakios HourGlass discontinued

[Xenakios]

What is going on with HG? Hope all is well

Development of the V1.x series has effectively ended unfortunately...I am still thinking how I will proceed. There is an initial plan to drop using the Qt framework and switch to Juce. (Juce is the C++ library used by Tracktion and various known plugin developers.) This would involve rewriting probably 90% of the code. However the main benefit would be that a plugin version would finally be possible. There are various licensing issues which I have not yet thought out fully...I wonder if there'd be enough interest in a rewritten HourGlass 2 so that a Kickstarter project or such could be succesfully done for me to obtain the Juce commercial license...?

[Tricky-Loops]

Is the commercial JUCE license so expensive that you need a Kickstarter campaign?

Other developers use JUCE, too, for example WilliamK for his Wusik 4000 & 8000...

A commercial plugin version of HourGlass would be great; it's a nice sound design tool, I just didn't have enough time to work with it but I tested it a few times...

[Xenakios]

Is the commercial JUCE license so expensive that you need a Kickstarter campaign?

Unfortunately yes, it'd be a too big financial risk for me to buy the Juce license upfront without any certainty I could make the money back by making HourGlass 2 a commercial payware...

Certainly it wouldn't make any sense for me to buy the Juce license and keep HourGlass free of charge/donationware. Although some donations have indeed been done (tons of thanks to everyone who did!), there never has been enough to cover the Juce license, even if I had been able to accumulate all the donations.

[abstractcats]

What is going on with HG? Hope all is well

Development of the V1.x series has effectively ended unfortunately...I am still thinking how I will proceed. There is an initial plan to drop using the Qt framework and switch to Juce. (Juce is the C++ library used by Tracktion and various known plugin developers.) This would involve rewriting probably 90% of the code. However the main benefit would be that a plugin version would finally be possible. There are various licensing issues which I have not yet thought out fully...I wonder if there'd be enough interest in a rewritten HourGlass 2 so that a Kickstarter project or such could be succesfully done for me to obtain the Juce commercial license...?

Sorry to hear about V1 (I kinda had that feeling). but I understand. As for a kickstarter project..hmm.. sadly it seems that this kind of software has a pretty specific user base. But, if it had a more traditional GUI, it might gain enough attention from a wider user base. All though, I don't know well Steingerg has done with Padshop, its a great program and I own a copy of PSPro, but Hourglass is still my, go to, granluar type synth Juice looks great, and I know some devs. who use it, but it is pretty costly. But, a plug in version of HG would be great! And yes, I'd be pay customer And it might do very well. Oh yeah, I'm getting back into stuying C++ and DSP and HG is a very big influence on what I want do. Please keep up us updated as to your progress.

[abstractcats]

Is the commercial JUCE license so expensive that you need a Kickstarter campaign?

Unfortunately yes, it'd be a too big financial risk for me to buy the Juce license upfront without any certainty I could make the money back by making HourGlass 2 a commercial payware...

Certainly it wouldn't make any sense for me to buy the Juce license and keep HourGlass free of charge/donationware. Although some donations have indeed been done (tons of thanks to everyone who did!), there never has been enough to cover the Juce license, even if I had been able to accumulate all the donations.

And there is a subscription fee (in addition to the standared lic.)?

[Tricky-Loops]

How much would the commercial HourGlass plugin cost?

[abstractcats]

How much would the commercial HourGlass plugin cost?

Just an oppinion of course, but I'd say at least $75, to make it worth the effort and to stay competitve in the marktplace. But I'd pay around $100. To cover the Juice cost, I'd say the Kickstarter goal would be at least $3000.?

[Xenakios]

Is the commercial JUCE license so expensive that you need a Kickstarter campaign?

Unfortunately yes, it'd be a too big financial risk for me to buy the Juce license upfront without any certainty I could make the money back by making HourGlass 2 a commercial payware...

Certainly it wouldn't make any sense for me to buy the Juce license and keep HourGlass free of charge/donationware. Although some donations have indeed been done (tons of thanks to everyone who did!), there never has been enough to cover the Juce license, even if I had been able to accumulate all the donations.

And there is a subscription fee (in addition to the standared lic.)?

Just a one time cost (around 1000 euros) to get the commercial Juce license at this point. (There's also a cheaper license for one product, but I think using that option would need to be for a product that will be sure to sell enough...)

I am living in the hopes they will introduce for example a royalty based licensing scheme in the nearish future (I wouldn't mind giving them 10% or so of my sales), but of course that's very uncertain it will ever happen.

[Xenakios]

How much would the commercial HourGlass plugin cost?

Not too much for people not to buy it! But if there was the Juce license expense I'd have to think about covering, it would of course make it hard to have the price very low...

[abstractcats]

Is the commercial JUCE license so expensive that you need a Kickstarter campaign?

Unfortunately yes, it'd be a too big financial risk for me to buy the Juce license upfront without any certainty I could make the money back by making HourGlass 2 a commercial payware...

Certainly it wouldn't make any sense for me to buy the Juce license and keep HourGlass free of charge/donationware. Although some donations have indeed been done (tons of thanks to everyone who did!), there never has been enough to cover the Juce license, even if I had been able to accumulate all the donations.

And there is a subscription fee (in addition to the standared lic.)?

Just a one time cost (around 1000 euros) to get the commercial Juce license at this point. (There's also a cheaper license for one product, but I think using that option would need to be for a product that will be sure to sell enough...)

I am living in the hopes they will introduce for example a royalty based licensing scheme in the nearish future (I wouldn't mind giving them 10% or so of my sales), but of course that's very uncertain it will ever happen.

Ah, right! I kind of like the idea of the %...Hmm. But 1000Euro(about $1500) is steep. But for experienced devs. it seems like a good investmenyt. And at 1000Euro, a kickstarter project seems like a good idea! Maybe, there might be enough people who use it at kvr, Cockos and Gearslutz. You might get what you need.

[Tricky-Loops]

How much would the commercial HourGlass plugin cost?

Just an oppinion of course, but I'd say at least $75, to make it worth the effort and to stay competitve in the marktplace. But I'd pay around $100. To cover the Juice cost, I'd say the Kickstarter goal would be at least $3000.?

Didn't you say: "...sadly it seems that this kind of software has a pretty specific user base"? You won't find many sound design geeks who would pay $75 for it. With a lower price tag more people would be interested...

[abstractcats]

How much would the commercial HourGlass plugin cost?

Just an oppinion of course, but I'd say at least $75, to make it worth the effort and to stay competitve in the marktplace. But I'd pay around $100. To cover the Juice cost, I'd say the Kickstarter goal would be at least $3000.?

Didn't you say: "...sadly it seems that this kind of software has a pretty specific user base"? You won't find much sound design geeks who would pay $75 for it. With a lower price tag more people would be interested...

Hmm, maybe right.

[Xenakios]

If anyone wondered "why not just make HourGlass open source and use Juce with the free of charge GPL license?"...That could maybe otherwise be an option but there's the infamous Steinberg VST header files issue. It's been debated whether a GPL licensed VST plugin is "legal" to do. I'd rather not involve myself in anything like that, I have enough problems without Steinberg's lawyers sending me letters from Germany...

It would be quite sad if the rewritten HourGlass couldn't host VST plugins (like the V1 already does!) and couldn't be built to work as a VST plugin due to the licensing issues. (There's also OS-X AudioUnit plugins to consider, that'd probably be yet another can of worms...) That's why I am not inclined to go using Juce with the GPL license for HourGlass 2. Besides the Steinberg header files issue, there might also be other reasons why a GPL-licensed VST (or AU) plugin is not a feasible idea, too.

[abstractcats]

If anyone wondered "why not just make HourGlass open source and use Juce with the free of charge GPL license?"...That could maybe otherwise be an option but there's the infamous Steinberg VST header files issue. It's been debated whether a GPL licensed VST plugin is "legal" to do. I'd rather not involve myself in anything like that, I have enough problems without Steinberg's lawyers sending me letters from Germany...

It would be quite sad if the rewritten HourGlass couldn't host VST plugins (like the V1 already does!) and couldn't be built to work as a VST plugin due to the licensing issues. (There's also OS-X AudioUnit plugins to consider, that'd probably be yet another can of worms...) That's why I am not inclined to go using Juce with the GPL license for HourGlass 2. Besides the Steinberg header files issue, there might also be other reasons why a GPL-licensed VST (or AU) plugin is not a feasible idea, too.

I would very much miss, the vst hosting part of HourGlass.

[asksol]

Can you not both sell it *and* release it as open source at the same time?

If Juce is GPL then the commercial license is probably the fee required to keep your source
code a secret, but if you release it as open source then there is nothing in the GPL license
that stops you from also selling the work.

Most people will probably not bother with compiling from source, and buy it from you instead and get support, access to forum or whatever.

It may also be a good idea to finish most of the work on the product before starting the kickstarter (you don't need the commercial license to start this work). I'm sure people are more likely to pay for something they will receive imminently.