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

[marce]

For someone that just wants record, without messing with configuration, is ok? Or is something you need to enter in nerd mode on? I dont dislike the last option, but i would like to know.

BTW, is there such a thing like an online compiler that gives you the option to compile and download the result?

[dawhead]

Paul Davis is not exactly the friendliest or most agreeable person on Earth,

Well ain't that the truth? Or is that a role I play online? Who really knows ...

In essence, Ardour is a DAW that tends to work well (or best) in one precise setting: the professional studio, with little/less reliance on plugins and lots of outboard gear. That kind of workflow is well addressed. More ITB workflows, perhaps not as well.

Very fair assessment, with the proviso that this is changing ...

[dawhead]

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

It is depressing to once again see yet another KVR thread on Ardour degenerate into a bunch of English language speakers bickering about what "free software" means. As has been noted by others, the word "free" in English has (at least) two meanings and it tends to be hard to differentiate them with adding a lot of verbiage that many people complain about ("Why can't they just say what they mean?")

So let's add the verbiage right here so that you hopefully understand it better:

1. As programmers, "software" is source code to us, and Ardour's source code is available to anyone, without cost, at any time. Moreover, you can take that source and do whatever you want with it, so long as, if you distribute the results to anyone else, you give them the same rights that we give you.

2. We are aware that for most computer users, "source code" is useless, and that they would prefer to access a pre-built binary that is ready to run. We provide a build service for that purpose, and ask people to pay any amount starting at US$1 for it. Once you have the binary that we built for you, you are free to copy it, redistribute it, modify it and use it for any purpose on any number of computers, in perpetuity.

3. If you know someone with a copy of Ardour, or you know how to build Ardour from source, or you use a version of Linux that packages Ardour, there is no reason for you to pay anything at all for Ardour, unless you choose to donate to the project.

4. We charge for this build service because we decided many years ago that it was probably the best way to generate revenue that allows us to keep developing the software, as a full time job rather than a hobby squeezed into spare time. We are one of the only GPL-licensed software projects to successfully fund all development from our users, rather than grants and/or support contracts.

5. In general, we do not refer to Ardour as "free software", but many other people do, because it is licensed under the GPL which in English typically tends to be be described this way (in other languages, the difference is made clearer by the use of terms like "libre"). We cannot stop other people saying "Ardour is free!" and to be honest it gets pretty tiring having to continually answer/address this question again and again in a variety of online contexts. We have often said that we'd prefer it if people called it "libre software" but for some reason that does not seem to have stuck.

Hopefully that will clarify a few things.

[dawhead]

. What's lacking, in my opinion, is the button style and general UI and text because it looks kinda dated and dull

The problem is that what looks "modern and cool" seems to keep changing, and we're really not that interested in spending the limited developer resources that we have on keeping up with latest iOS/macOS/Google driven verdict on "what's cool today" . Rounded buttons? Square buttons? Sheen? No Sheen? Heavy text anti-aliasing? Or not? Pastel or saturation? Texture (this was considered really cool at some point in the early 2000s) or flat?

I don't know how much you've played with Ardour, but for example here's a screenshot with flat buttons & boxy buttons enabled and the Xcolors theme that a lot of people think looks very different from our defaults:

[audiojunkie]

A free open source software for the price of one dollar? Too expensive ...

As has always been the intention of Open Source, yes, you can make money off of open source. The source code is and always well be there for you. You are perfectly free to download it right now and compile it. The business model that Ardour run, is to charge for the compiled binaries, the development and the support--the source code is free. Even Richard Stallmen agrees with this. This IS the proper business model for sustained open source software, exactly as he envisioned it. If all open source developers did this, there would be less open source projects that die by the way side. Ardour is a model of a proper open source business.

[audiojunkie]

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

He he.... I can see your point. But at the same time, I really feel that open source developers could learn some things about running a successful business while still providing the source for free.

[audiojunkie]

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.

It totally depends on semantics. Gratis or Libre? <--these don't have the same meaning, yet English does not have a word that truly separates the two meanings. That's why Gratis and Libre are beginning to be adopted in the English speaking world. But make no mistake--the meanings between Gratis and Libre are completely different.

[dawhead]

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.

Building Ardour itself is pretty easy on any platform it runs on. If your build environment is setup, you open a terminal, cd to the folder where you put the Ardour source code, and run 3 commands:

./waf configure
./waf
./waf install

Done!

The "complicated, undocumented, unsupported" part is getting the 80 or so other libre software libraries that we rely on installed on your computer and ready for use when compiling Ardour. On macOS, homebrew sort of kind of makes versions of them available, but we have patches for a couple of them. So just using brew has a (minor) negative impact on the Ardour you get to build.

On Windows ... you're basically screwed because of the historically antagostic relationship Microsoft had with libre software. We do have a quite energetic user/developer right now who has been working really hard on finding a solution for Windows, and it looks as if it might just work - still not clear.

It just isn't realistic for us to be responsible for being able to easily build nearly 80 3rd party libraries on platforms that have chosen to not integrate themselves into the libre software "universe". At one time, for a brief period, we did offer prebuilt archives of the build stack, but it's on the order of 4GB and we weren't willing to keep doing that for this purpose. Others have volunteered to do the same, but then fail to update those archives when we change what is in the build stack.

[ampetrosillo]

. What's lacking, in my opinion, is the button style and general UI and text because it looks kinda dated and dull

The problem is that what looks "modern and cool" seems to keep changing, and we're really not that interested in spending the limited developer resources that we have on keeping up with latest iOS/macOS/Google driven verdict on "what's cool today" . Rounded buttons? Square buttons? Sheen? No Sheen? Heavy text anti-aliasing? Or not? Pastel or saturation? Texture (this was considered really cool at some point in the early 2000s) or flat?

I don't know how much you've played with Ardour, but for example here's a screenshot with flat buttons & boxy buttons enabled and the Xcolors theme that a lot of people think looks very different from our defaults:

Well, this screenshot looks "better" (cleaner, somewhat "fresher") than the defaults, although the colour scheme is maybe a little bit dull. But the thing is. You can say all you want about design languages being 1) somewhat arbitrarily dictated by one of the large megacorporations in fashion today and 2) being a moving target. But my rebuttal is as follows:

- 1) is true, but this also means that, unfortunately, you either somewhat conform or you look out of place. And you do need a very good reason to look out of place. And what do users do when all the other applications look one way and yours looks completely different?

- 2) the various design languages are not 100% arbitrary. Some elements are tech-driven, really. High res displays with vibrant colours make cleaner lines and shaper contrast possible. Faster GPUs make complex transparency effects relatively less computationally intensive. Other design trends were dictated by the place occupied by tech in society. For instance, skeuomorphism sort of made sense at a time when computers were seen as stuff for nerds and geeks. Adding textures to stuff was an attempt at making tech less intimidating and more fun. To dismiss this as just a fad is myopic in my view.

Of course, I do appreciate that an "ugly" (for sake of argument) application that runs and works well is much better than a cute one that runs badly and has tons of bugs and half the features. But the point still stands.

[dawhead]

Well, this screenshot looks "better" (cleaner, somewhat "fresher") than the defaults, although the colour scheme is maybe a little bit dull.

Ardour ships with 11 different color themes, with a least a couple cheekily named after the DAWs they emulate ("UnaStudia" and "Cainville" for example). I'm guessing that you haven't tried them all? The flat and boxy button options have existed for much more than a decade too.

- 1) is true, but this also means that, unfortunately, you either somewhat conform or you look out of place. And you do need a very good reason to look out of place. And what do users do when all the other applications look one way and yours looks completely different?

I don't personally consider the gap between (say) Ardour and Reaper to be any bigger than the gap between Reaper and Bitwig, or the gap between Ardour and Logic to be any bigger than the gap between Live and FL Studio.

So I'm not really sure what "conforming" would mean here? Sure, if you happen to love the look of the DAW you use now, switching will likely be a bit distressing initially. But that's true whether the target of the switch is Ardour or something else.

[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.

It totally depends on semantics. Gratis or Libre? <--these don't have the same meaning, yet English does not have a word that truly separates the two meanings. That's why Gratis and Libre are beginning to be adopted in the English speaking world. But make no mistake--the meanings between Gratis and Libre are completely different.

That is the crux of the problem. The term should convey what the central principle of free software is, and 'free' just doesn't do that within the context of a world of products and software. 'Libre' or 'freedom' would be much better choices for conveying the meaning.

[audiojunkie]

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.

It totally depends on semantics. Gratis or Libre? <--these don't have the same meaning, yet English does not have a word that truly separates the two meanings. That's why Gratis and Libre are beginning to be adopted in the English speaking world. But make no mistake--the meanings between Gratis and Libre are completely different.

That is the crux of the problem. The term should convey what the central principle of free software is, and 'free' just doesn't do that within the context of a world of products and software. 'Libre' or 'freedom' would be much better choices for conveying the meaning.

Agreed. And the words "Gratis" and "Libre" are being accepted more and more into the mainstream English vernacular, which means that as long as everyone keeps using these borrowed words in English usage, they will eventually be considered part of the English language. And then we English speakers will be able to better differentiate between the two meanings of the word, Free.

[dawhead]

Wouldn't it be awesome if we could actually talk about the new (or old!) features and bugs and good and bad workflows in Ardour 9.0 ?

[audiojunkie]

Wouldn't it be awesome if we could actually talk about the new (or old!) features and bugs and good and bad workflows in Ardour 9.0 ?

I agree, Paul. Hopefully now that things have been explained about how open source works, we can get this thread back on track.

[Tiles]

Delete, double post