Correct me if I'm wrong (and I am not a lawyer so I might be) but isn't one of the main points of the GPL that if something has once been GPL, it must always be GPL?
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I am not a lawyer so I might be) but isn't one of the main points of the GPL that if something has once been GPL, it must always be GPL?
You can always fork the last version for any open source license. Also, the difficulty of relicensing is similar for any open source license where they didn’t do copyright assignment up front....
You can always fork the last version for any open source license. Also, the difficulty of relicensing is similar for any open source license where they didn’t do copyright assignment up front. (There might be less reason to relicense the whole project, though.)
Incidentally, it looks like Musescore does copyright assignment and they are moving from GPLv2 to GPLv3. The tricky bit is that they depend on third party libraries that didn’t do copyright assignment and didn’t grant the “any later version” permission, so those dependencies need to be removed.
Could simply be management. From what I've seen, the Lead Designer of MusicScore (another project which got acquired by Muse Group in 2017), Martin Keary, wants to help with designing Audacity....
Could simply be management. From what I've seen, the Lead Designer of MusicScore (another project which got acquired by Muse Group in 2017), Martin Keary, wants to help with designing Audacity. So, that's part of the acquisition.
There seems to be much confusion about what actually happened and what "to acquire" would mean in the matter of a FOSS. Audacity's own website does not mention anything remotely related to this...
There seems to be much confusion about what actually happened and what "to acquire" would mean in the matter of a FOSS.
Audacity's own website does not mention anything remotely related to this "acquisition".
This could be one of those cases where corporate mumbo-jumbo reaches a copywriter with limited abilities for understanding.
Hm, interesting. I don't use Audacity much any more (I've been using Ardour instead for a few years now), so my greater concern is about MuseScore, which I use for notation. I didn't know it was...
Hm, interesting. I don't use Audacity much any more (I've been using Ardour instead for a few years now), so my greater concern is about MuseScore, which I use for notation. I didn't know it was acquired. Anyway, it doesn't look like I have much to be concerned about, but hopefully MuseScore doesn't take any wrong turns in terms of UX or pricing or licensing.
MuseScore is a bit odd in that there is musescore.org (the open source software) and musescore.com (the score-sharing website). It’s never been clear to me what their relationship is.
MuseScore is a bit odd in that there is musescore.org (the open source software) and musescore.com (the score-sharing website). It’s never been clear to me what their relationship is.
I never looked into it, but I always assumed that it was the same person/people developing MuseScore the FLOSS and maintaining musescore.com, and I considered musescore.com just an honest attempt...
I never looked into it, but I always assumed that it was the same person/people developing MuseScore the FLOSS and maintaining musescore.com, and I considered musescore.com just an honest attempt at making a little money by offering a service related to MuseScore the FLOSS. I never really got on the musescore.com bandwagon, but I do use MuseScore a lot. I'd be disappointed to see it (the software) tainted by business interests, so hopefully that doesn't happen.
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I am not a lawyer so I might be) but isn't one of the main points of the GPL that if something has once been GPL, it must always be GPL?
You can always fork the last version for any open source license. Also, the difficulty of relicensing is similar for any open source license where they didn’t do copyright assignment up front. (There might be less reason to relicense the whole project, though.)
Incidentally, it looks like Musescore does copyright assignment and they are moving from GPLv2 to GPLv3. The tricky bit is that they depend on third party libraries that didn’t do copyright assignment and didn’t grant the “any later version” permission, so those dependencies need to be removed.
If they're not going to close the code, than what is motivation to acquire it at all?
Could simply be management. From what I've seen, the Lead Designer of MusicScore (another project which got acquired by Muse Group in 2017), Martin Keary, wants to help with designing Audacity. So, that's part of the acquisition.
I feel like this video could deserve it's own post.
There seems to be much confusion about what actually happened and what "to acquire" would mean in the matter of a FOSS.
Audacity's own website does not mention anything remotely related to this "acquisition".
This could be one of those cases where corporate mumbo-jumbo reaches a copywriter with limited abilities for understanding.
Hm, interesting. I don't use Audacity much any more (I've been using Ardour instead for a few years now), so my greater concern is about MuseScore, which I use for notation. I didn't know it was acquired. Anyway, it doesn't look like I have much to be concerned about, but hopefully MuseScore doesn't take any wrong turns in terms of UX or pricing or licensing.
MuseScore is a bit odd in that there is musescore.org (the open source software) and musescore.com (the score-sharing website). It’s never been clear to me what their relationship is.
I never looked into it, but I always assumed that it was the same person/people developing MuseScore the FLOSS and maintaining musescore.com, and I considered musescore.com just an honest attempt at making a little money by offering a service related to MuseScore the FLOSS. I never really got on the musescore.com bandwagon, but I do use MuseScore a lot. I'd be disappointed to see it (the software) tainted by business interests, so hopefully that doesn't happen.
There seem to be a lot of contributors, but the original founders retired in 2019.