Ardour 9 was released recently and I think you should take a look at it.

[sellyoursoul]

I don't have anything against the project in general. I like every open source project.

But have you really not noticed the little contradiction in offering something “for free” while also asking for money, all in the same sentence? Even a single cent technically makes it commercial software, so it’s no longer fully free.

Open source doesn’t have to be free. You can absolutely sell it like any other commercial software, and many projects do that successfully. In that case, though, it might be clearer not to call it free. Otherwise it can feel a bit misleading.

Another thing that caught my attention as an open source developer is offering the source code while mentioning that compiling it is complicated, undocumented, and unsupported. That seems a bit at odds with the open source spirit. But of course, that’s just my personal perspective.

Either way, the running joke of “buy this free software for just a dollar” really made me smile

Problem here is with the term 'free software'.

“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.

You may have paid money to get copies of a free program, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.
Source: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw. ... -statement

[Tiles]

Okay, i see i have hit a nerve here

Yeah, this is the clean description, taken from the GNU GPL ideology. Ardour is licensed under the GNU GPL, so it can legitimately claim this kind of freedom.

What we are dealing with here, however, is this:

Free software, only 1€
100% free, buy now

These are unclean and misleading descriptions. In fact, this kind of wording could even be legally challenged as misleading advertising.

[Papuzzo]

Download Ubuntu Studio. Ardour gets installed with the OS and is ready to go. You don't have to pay even a cent.

[Spitfire31]

I'm familiar since many years with my preferred tools Digital Performer, Logic Pro X and Live in Mac OS X/macOS.

Spurred on by this thread, I downloaded Ardour 9 (macOS 15 Sequoia) and tried to make heads and tails of it after wading through pages and pages of preliminary explanations of standard DAW terminology. After 10 minutes, when the nagging starts, I still hadn't managed to index and find my standard AU noodling instruments (Pianoteq and Lounge Lizard).

So, I realised that Ardour is not for me, erased everything connected with the original download, happily returned to my Logic project and will not be back here.

/JHS

[Tiles]

Download Ubuntu Studio. Ardour gets installed with the OS and is ready to go. You don't have to pay even a cent.

This is misleading since at the web page for the Windows and Mac binaries and also the Linux binaries you have. Subscription starts with 1 dollar. You can download a free demo, which goes silent after a period.

Ardour is as commercial as it can be. I repeat i am fine with that. But it is not free in the sense it is claimed here.

[DRMR]

the little contradiction in offering something “for free” while also asking for money, all in the same sentence? Even a single cent technically makes it commercial software, so it’s no longer fully free.

It's Free as in speech, not free as in beer. That's the whole point of Free Software.
What you want is Freeware which is something completely different.

The FSF (Free Software Foundation) encourages commercial use.

[DRMR]

I've been following the project for over 15 years and it's really awesome to see it still around and improving on every release!

[ampetrosillo]

Download Ubuntu Studio. Ardour gets installed with the OS and is ready to go. You don't have to pay even a cent.

This is misleading since at the web page for the Windows and Mac binaries and also the Linux binaries you have. Subscription starts with 1 dollar. You can download a free demo, which goes silent after a period.

Ardour is as commercial as it can be. I repeat i am fine with that. But it is not free in the sense it is claimed here.

It's not misleading. Free software (or would you prefer libre software) can be distributed and redistributed at will, at any condition which preserves the original freedoms. You can sell Ardour yourself if you want, without even having to ask for permission. Still, you do need to provide the source code to whichever customer requests it, who can then give it away, in either source or binary form, to whomever he wants. The opposite of free software is not commercial, but proprietary. The general idea is that free software can be sold not for the software per se, but for all the rest that sale of a software should entail (support, bug fixing, addition of new features, etc.).

The point is, Ubuntu and all the other Linux distros can package Ardour and include it for free in the repositories because the GPL expressly allows so.

But of course you know all this.

[sellyoursoul]

Okay, i see i have hit a nerve here

Yeah, this is the clean description, taken from the GNU GPL ideology. Ardour is licensed under the GNU GPL, so it can legitimately claim this kind of freedom.

What we are dealing with here, however, is this:

Free software, only 1€
100% free, buy now

These are unclean and misleading descriptions. In fact, this kind of wording could even be legally challenged as misleading advertising.

No nerve hit here. I like the principles of 'free software', but I think that use of the term 'free software' to mean freedom is an exercise in futility. The most common use of that term carries the meaning of no monetary cost. And hundreds of presentations and discussions on the definition of 'free software' haven't changed that. By now, the wise thing to do would be to pick a different term. But on and on it goes in the same fashion. This isn't a hard problem. Call it 'freedom software', or something equally unproblematic, to get on with it. And if such a simple problem can't be solved, then likely there is a deeper problem at play.

On the topic of Ardour, I like that someone is developing a 'free software' daw, but I just don't like Ardour. It's hard to look at, not having the direction of someone with good visual sensibilities and UI design.

[Tiles]

Download Ubuntu Studio. Ardour gets installed with the OS and is ready to go. You don't have to pay even a cent.

This is misleading since at the web page for the Windows and Mac binaries and also the Linux binaries you have. Subscription starts with 1 dollar. You can download a free demo, which goes silent after a period.

Ardour is as commercial as it can be. I repeat i am fine with that. But it is not free in the sense it is claimed here.

It's not misleading. Free software (or would you prefer libre software) can be distributed and redistributed at will, at any condition which preserves the original freedoms. You can sell Ardour yourself if you want, without even having to ask for permission. Still, you do need to provide the source code to whichever customer requests it, who can then give it away, in either source or binary form, to whomever he wants. The opposite of free software is not commercial, but proprietary. The general idea is that free software can be sold not for the software per se, but for all the rest that sale of a software should entail (support, bug fixing, addition of new features, etc.).

The point is, Ubuntu and all the other Linux distros can package Ardour and include it for free in the repositories because the GPL expressly allows so.

But of course you know all this.

Of course i do. But it does not change the matter.

It is in the moment misleading where you offer it as free as in free beer, and ask the people for money.

[ampetrosillo]

If it were so misleading, there would have been at least some legal consequences on the matter. Not necessarily for Ardour, but for free software in general. As it stands, it's just you and a few others who are complaining.

Also, it's just a problem in English because of the duplicity of the word "free". Most other languages have different words. In Italian we call it "software libero".

[ampetrosillo]

Okay, i see i have hit a nerve here

Yeah, this is the clean description, taken from the GNU GPL ideology. Ardour is licensed under the GNU GPL, so it can legitimately claim this kind of freedom.

What we are dealing with here, however, is this:

Free software, only 1€
100% free, buy now

These are unclean and misleading descriptions. In fact, this kind of wording could even be legally challenged as misleading advertising.

On the topic of Ardour, I like that someone is developing a 'free software' daw, but I just don't like Ardour. It's hard to look at, not having the direction of someone with good visual sensibilities and UI design.

On this topic, I think that I can see where the Ardour devs are coming from. Many other DAWs insist on skeuomorphism and/or a graphical language that isn't really optimised for interaction with a mouse and keyboard first and foremost. All the sliders and pots are implemented as coloured bars. The idea is that you don't need to physically move a graphical element, but you just click where you want to set it, and maybe move it a bit for fine tuning. And you can see where each element is set because it's clearly depicted as a coloured bar. And the tooltips, being large transparent text, do not cover what's underneath. What's lacking, in my opinion, is the button style and general UI and text because it looks kinda dated and dull, but I find ProTools a relic of the '90s too (and Cubase as well, for that matter). With a bit of love and a more modern style it would work better.

[Tiles]

If it were so misleading, there would have been at least some legal consequences on the matter. Not necessarily for Ardour, but for free software in general. As it stands, it's just you and a few others who are complaining.

Also, it's just a problem in English because of the duplicity of the word "free". Most other languages have different words. In Italian we call it "software libero".

I wasn’t complaining, I was laughing at a joke. Seems it didn’t quite land for you.

Apparently, legal consequences are happening to open source software too. But most of the times people simply move on. And so will i. When you need to explain a joke, then this joke is not funny anymore.

US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2022)
OLG Koblenz (08.07.2025, Az. 9 U 443/25)
Kam­mergericht Berlin (Beschluss 11.02.2025, Az. 5 U 1/22)

[Tiles]

Okay, i see i have hit a nerve here

Yeah, this is the clean description, taken from the GNU GPL ideology. Ardour is licensed under the GNU GPL, so it can legitimately claim this kind of freedom.

What we are dealing with here, however, is this:

Free software, only 1€
100% free, buy now

These are unclean and misleading descriptions. In fact, this kind of wording could even be legally challenged as misleading advertising.

On the topic of Ardour, I like that someone is developing a 'free software' daw, but I just don't like Ardour. It's hard to look at, not having the direction of someone with good visual sensibilities and UI design.

On this topic, I think that I can see where the Ardour devs are coming from. Many other DAWs insist on skeuomorphism and/or a graphical language that isn't really optimised for interaction with a mouse and keyboard first and foremost. All the sliders and pots are implemented as coloured bars. The idea is that you don't need to physically move a graphical element, but you just click where you want to set it, and maybe move it a bit for fine tuning. And you can see where each element is set because it's clearly depicted as a coloured bar. And the tooltips, being large transparent text, do not cover what's underneath. What's lacking, in my opinion, is the button style and general UI and text because it looks kinda dated and dull, but I find ProTools a relic of the '90s too (and Cubase as well, for that matter). With a bit of love and a more modern style it would work better.

I think you see more planning than what is actually happening. It is the typical programmers design. Better said, the lack of any design. Feature works, on with something different ...

[ampetrosillo]

'twas a crap joke, though. There was no need to explain it, it was never funny.

As regards the design issue, I think that Ardour does indeed have a design; what it doesn't have is... a designer. (Graphical and/or UX). So you get the very generic looking widgets and buttons and text, because programmers don't have graphical design within their skills. The basic idea is there and it's sound, the graphical chops aren't.