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Audacity Aquired by Muse Group
- ectopod 5y agoDoes anyone know what this means? The code is GPL v2. It has 126 contributors on github. The project doesn't seem to use copyright assignment. What has been acquired?
- jchw 5y agoMuseScore is also GPL, so I assume there is no intent to attempt to change the license. This probably is more about the organization, funding, direction, etc.
- Ecco 5y agoYes, but concretely, what did they buy? And from whom?
- Conan_Kudo 5y agoThey likely now own the copyrights held by the primary developers and all the trademark rights to the Audacity name and logo.
- anyfactor 5y agoHow does trademark work when the license is essentially "do whatever you want to do"?
- detaro 5y agoThe license covers the code, not the trademark. You can use the code/software as long as you observe the license, you can use the trademark as long as you follow the rules set out by the trademark owner. E.g. you can totally use the code to make your own audio editor and distribute it, but the trademark terms might not allow you to call it "Audacity".
- irtigor 5y agoIceweasel is a good example, Debian used repackage Firefox wihtout the trademarked stuff.
- meowface 5y agoI'm curious: does the WTFPL also let you appropriate a trademark? Or does it not encompass trademark rights?
- detaro 5y agoI doubt any license that doesn't explicitly address trademarks would be found to cover them, but I'm not a license lawyer.
- johannes1234321 5y agoCopyright law and trademark law are different topics and have different ruling. Most software licenses (except 4 clause BSD or PHP License and few others) don't make any claims about names. One might try to argue that a name used in software code and distributed under some open source license also gives rights to the name by being source ... but to my knowledge there are no court decisions.
- chrisseaton 5y agohttps://www.audacityteam.org/copyright/ https://www.audacityteam.org/copyright/ > The name “Audacity” is a registered trademark. It's a regular trademark - it's been acquired. The trademark isn't covered by the GPL.
- globular-toast 5y agoGPL isn't "do whatever you want". It's "do whatever you want, as long as you let future users do whatever they want". That's what makes it such a good licence for the community.
- aasasd 5y agoTrademarks are actually still useful for open-source software, since they ensure that a malicious or incompetent party can't ruin the name of your software by shipping a modification that does bad things. Jason Rohrer ran into this very issue when other developers made their own client for his game, using a variation on the game's name. They didn't respond to him asking that they don't use the name, and eventually he was convinced that trademarking the name is the right tool to project it. The original game client is still open-source (and maybe the server too, dunno).
- aasasd 5y ago(Not to imply that copyright isn't useful: OSS licensing, and especially restrictive copyleft licenses, literally piggyback on copyright law.)
- redwall_hp 5y agoThis is how the Bukkit disaster happened. Microsoft "bought" the leading Minecraft server software, hiring some of the major developers and I guess not telling anyone else, and some of them were unamused that they were (in their eyes) doing free work for Microsoft when their colleagues got hired. So they rescinded their GPL licensing of their contributions and sent DMCA notices. Which pretty much ended the project, except for Spigot continuing development in the form of patches that the server operator applies with a script.
- ericpauley 5y agoIt should be noted that the authors didn't rescind any licenses, per se. Rather, distributing binary versions of Bukkit was always in violation of the GPL (since the bundled Mincraft code did not have source available). The former author simply started enforcing this. Important distinction since rescinding the license would be a far more legally/ethically dubious action.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- franga2000 5y ago*Mojang, not Microsoft. EvilSeph was hired in 2011, Microsoft bought Mojang in 2014.
- bemmu 5y agoWell, imagining it from the buyer's perspective, if I bought Audacity then now I can make changes to it and while there may be other forks, these changes will be likely be recognized as "the" Audacity. So if for example I wanted to cross-promote my other products or add a "pro" paid version of some sort, I could do that, and those would end up in the main version most people are downloading.
- tyingq 5y agoNot saying they are doing this, but the copyright owner can fork the GPL work and create a closed source version if they want to. The GPL doesn't restrict the copyright owner in any way.
- Denvercoder9 5y agoBut as GP mentioned, the project has 126 contributors on GitHub who each own part of the copyright. So Muse Group doesn't own the full copyright of Audacity now.
- tyingq 5y agoYes, I suppose they would have to back up time and take an earlier branch where the number of significant contributors was much smaller and easier to cull down.
- irtigor 5y agoIf they wanted to do that there's no need to get an ok from 100 or so devs, because you only need a working version, not to be able to use avery single release with the new license. VLC was able to do it (albeit the change was from gpl to lgpl), there's probably 10 or so devs that owns 80% or so percent of the copyrighted code from the current version, once you get those to agree with the change, in the worst case you have to rewrite 20% of your software.
- coldtea 5y ago>But as GP mentioned, the project has 126 contributors on GitHub who each own part of the copyright Not sure about this case, but iirc you can have contributors to a project without them owing "part of the copyright" for the stuff they wrote. You just have to make them assign the copyright to you if they want to include their code in the project (they can always fork if they don't like that, but the original authors still get the copyright to the core project). Also, and orthogonal, a lot of time there are 1-2-5-10 core devs, and the rest 100s are just some small changes here and there, fixes to the documentation, some plugin contribution, etc. In other words, easily writen out, if it comes to that.
- ekianjo 5y agoTrademark maybe?
- rubin55 5y agoHow does one aquire FOSS software?
- arbitrage 5y agoAcquihire the maintainer.
- ekianjo 5y ago> acquire Audacity should be "hire the key developer of Audacity"
- p49k 5y agoA big argument/selling point of the FOSS model has always been that it's compatible with capitalism. You are allowed to sell your software and build it as part of a commercial entity; the only difference is that you have to share the source code to anyone you sell to. There's no reason any company developing FOSS can't be bought/sold.
- JeremyBanks 5y agoSure, but what are they acquiring?
- mnd999 5y agoSeems like they’re just hiring the maintainer and maybe their copyrights. Given the number of contributors, not sure how useful one persons contributions are. Sounds like they want to connect it to their cloud services and improve the UI. They say in the comments they’re not looking to relicense and it’s hard to see how they could.
- hvis 5y ago> Given the number of contributors, not sure how useful one persons contributions are. OTOH, they are probably not spending too much money as a result. While acquiring better visibility and (hopefully) more goodwill from the audio enthusiast community.
- dkdbejwi383 5y agoTantacrul who has been working with Muse Score for a while now to improve their UX will also be working on Audacity. They also plan to hire some full time devs. Source: https://youtu.be/RMWNvwLiXIQ https://youtu.be/RMWNvwLiXIQ Well worth watching his other videos too, even if you don’t use musical notation software. Funny and insightful commentary on software usability in general.
- wexq 5y agoOSS needs more UI/UX people, and I think Tantacrul is fantastic for this. His twitter (https://twitter.com/Tantacrul https://twitter.com/Tantacrul) and youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/martinthekearykid https://www.youtube.com/user/martinthekearykid) are full of interesting tidbits, an you can tell he's passionate about things. Even if you don't do music/notation his video on Sibelius, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI , is ridiculously funny, but also on point.
- throw_m239339 5y ago> OSS needs more UI/UX people, and I think Tantacrul is fantastic for this. True, Blender really exploded when they re-designed the interface. I hope someday GIMP team understand that. The software is solid, but the interface isn't great. Some very simple workflow changes made Blender easier to use.
- shawnz 5y agoI would say the GIMP team does understand that and they often put a high focus on UI improvements on their roadmaps. I suppose they just have limited resources to work with.
- open0 5y agoI find the UI of recent versions of GIMP to be very nice for the simple image editing / processing that I do.
- schmorptron 5y agoRelevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMWNvwLiXIQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMWNvwLiXIQ
- jarcane 5y agoDoes someone have any actual text explaining this without the marketing preamble and cute Youtube speak?
- calt 5y agoOnce you get past the cute intro it’s a really great history of audacity, interview with some of the creators, and an overview of the ui challenges the new head of ui/ux has to face (keep it simple, but make it powerful, etc.)
- jarcane 5y agoI don't need that, I need to know what is going to happen to an important piece of software I rely on to do my work, and which is one of the only quality free software options for.
- shawnz 5y agoAnd previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26995610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26995610
- spamalot159 5y agoMy first reaction was "oh no..". Audacity has to be one of the most beloved and widely recommended software of all time. It's not often that an aquisition like this goes well for very long. After looking at MuseScore and UltimateGuitar, however, it looks like they are also free and have a similar aesthetic to Audacity. Maybe this will work out after all.
- arbitrage 5y agoBeloved is a little too strong of word choice for me. The UI is garbage. The plugin architecture is rough. It's difficult to workflow -- no automation is really available. Audacity produces good results, at the cost of an insanely high requirement for patience and experience. What you are actually in love with is the creative process of editing and creating audio. As a project, audacity has languished for a long time. It has the potential to be great -- but it's not there, now.
- spacemanmatt 5y agoMuch agreed on the history of Audacity. It has so much capability, but it's high time we fixed UIs that inspire anger or still depend on Athena widgets.
- formerly_proven 5y agoAudacity uses wxWidgets (though almost everything of the primary UI is custom painted, so it doesn't really matter which toolkit is used).
- javchz 5y agoThe great about Audacity it's that it's a great DAW starter. You can record, edit, multitrack, mix and apply effects. It's fast, out of the box, multiplatform... and I haven't used it in years, but that's mostly because Reaper it's too great, the only thing I miss it's audacity loading times. Now I think Audacity has only a few bottlenecks, the main workflow it's not that broken. If what they say it's accomplished and they prioritize VTS non-destructive effects, improve the Timeline management and other UX details. I could see Audacity present in the majority of home studios and the software behind a lot of professional works (not big studios, but enough for self publish). I now a couple of local bands that recorded their demo with audacity, a cheap interface and a sm57 mic. ...and if I can ask maybe add support for ASIO (something hard to happen becauses licences, but I can dream).
- bumbada 5y agoMuse Group hires Audacity team is simpler and much better said, nobody can acquire Audacity.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nvr219 5y agoAudacity is one of the best open source products of all time. GOAT
- jtbayly 5y agoMaybe I missed it, but will it remain open source?
- IshKebab 5y agoYes.
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y agocourse of actions: - go to github - download all source code - download last installation version ... - say farewell to audacity ...
- IshKebab 5y ago- Miss out on the improvements they're planning?
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y agoI those will come now with significant price tag.
- slver 5y agoSource on your random claim?
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y agoNone, what so ever, just guess, if someone acquires something it means he wants some gain out of it, what kind of gain we will see along the lines ...
- slver 5y agoYes, don't look up who Muse Group are. Don't wait for anything to happen at all. Just knee jerk.
- mmastrac 5y agoThere's an example up higher in the thread of them being jerks to a developer and threatening to send the government of a user after them for providing access to things via APIs they provided
- sitkack 5y agoThis is excellent news! Looking forward to the lens of Tantacrul being applied to Audacity the way it was to MuseScore. Wow, non destructive stackable VST effects https://youtu.be/RMWNvwLiXIQ?t=773 https://youtu.be/RMWNvwLiXIQ?t=773 The levity and the pragmatic focus make a great combination.
- TheRealPomax 5y agoIf this means a better UX, only good things can come of this.
- avipars 5y agoI thought it was open source
- freedomben 5y agoI'm quite concerned about this. I use Audacity quite heavily and have for many years. It's become an important part of my workflow. I'm not opposed to it in theory but after seeing how they handled Muse Score, I really worry about how Muse Group will attempt to monetize Audacity. If anybody has insight into the plans, I'd love to hear them.
- unicornporn 5y agoTantacrul is hiring. That's a pretty clear indication they will attempt to monetize.
- class4behavior 5y agoRead the comment from Daniel Ray under the article. In short, Muse Group seems to be planning to continue their established business model for Audacity and possibly other future acquisitions. That is, offering standalone open source software with optional paid cloud services.
- stephencoyner 5y agoAudacity is some of the best software for ripping vinyl. Really hoping they don’t cut the free access
- highspeedbus 5y agoAudacity lacks very few features IMO. Maybe a revamp on broken plugins and suport to drum sequencing. More than that will force the daw to change UI paradigm, a thing that will hurt badly in usability. The big reason Audacity is so successful is how easy it is to beginners to use.
- berlbear 5y agoDamn.