new tutorials, official and 3rd party modules and hardware ports are also something to looking forward to, and it doesn’t need to wait for v2 to happen 
we are fed with at least one new module every week, I don’t think we can say that the community is desperately waiting for something new since months
6 Likes
gonna respectfully disagree. The whole reason I have been writing modules is to use them within a VST context. The fact that so many other people are wondering what is going on indicates there is a lot of interest in the VST version as well. Just because stuff is being released, doesn’t mean we aren’t waiting for something else. These activities are orthogonal.
I think we can in fact say, the community is desperately waiting for the VST version, especially since it was announced that it was “coming soon” 2 years ago. I get that Andrew is dealing with some stuff, but that doesn’t make other folks frustration any less valid
6 Likes
It sounds more serious than “some stuff”. I think someone’s health is more important than hitting a release date, so if that means waiting, fine by me.
5 Likes
Andrew does not do all the stuff. There are some parts made by other contributors. Check all the repositories available in GitHub and see them all.
There are moral and legal issues to deal when accepting code contributions to a code base. One small example, in the main Rack code base, imagine that I contributed with some code. Now that version 2 will cost money, am I entitled to some of that money? if not, am I a sucker because I worked for free?
I respect his decision of not accepting contributions for the Rack. That makes sorting out the legal issues simpler. There are very few audio music companies that allow you to see part of their source code.
Some of the coding has been done by third parties and paid by the community (some of the MI ports). Other developers have collaborated with VCV when developing plugins, for example Valley with Sound Stage.
I don’t know what you expect. A lot of successful software and hardware projects are driver by a single person. Rack, even since it was a beta, has been a good and fun piece of software. VCV as a company will grow as it is needed and if it is needed. Personally, I don’t need big marketing campaigns and Facebook/YouTube ads to let me know that I should like it. I simply enjoy it.
Vult in perpetuum!
25 Likes
Completely agree with you on nearly every point. VCV is a joy, Andrew is a wizard, the collection of modules is amazing.
Reason why I think we’re at a point where a change is needed is because 3 things coïncide: Big delay Apparent (near) burn out Reports of developers not feeling welcome
For my personal use vst + improved stability is essential, so the sum of all parts means I am investing my time elsewhere.
1 Like
My point of view on those three points.
- Software estimations are hard and projects are usually late. That’s why most software companies do not publish timelines or future plans until they are about to be released.
- Everybody gets tired of work, even when one is doing fun things. Additionally, past year has been emotionally tough, specially for the people that have had to deal with hospitals and passing of relatives. Taking time off and taking vacations is good. But that will add to the delay of projects.
- I have read some of the post made by the disappointed developers. I can understand the concerns of both sides and it is not hard to point out the misunderstandings. But personally, I’m a very practical person and I don’t let drama affect me. My objectives since day one have been: to develop things that I enjoy, share them with other people that may like them. I don’t need anyone to like me or welcome me, but it makes me happy that people like the Vult creations. Dr. Leonardo Laguna Ruiz sucks, but Vult rules.
31 Likes
I do not want to sound rude about this, but it brings to the table the flaws of the software is fine, but announcing that you are going to stop using it does not matter to me, just as I do not care what brand of detergent you use, it is pointless
6 Likes
Usually, the simple and robust way projects handle that is copyright assignment. You contribute code and hand over the ownership of it to the project, for them to do with it as they see fit.
Sure. Depends on whether you want to look at VCV as an open source project or an “audio music company”. Plenty of good open source projects, also in the space of sound/audio/music.
2 Likes
Just read Andrew’s post from yesterday and then the last three days of posts here. Personally, for what it’s worth, I could easily work the rest of the year with VCV v1 and have no regrets. Also, because of rediscovering VCV this past year around october, I’ve finally put out my first two albums of music that I’m really happy with after fifteen years of working on music in various forms and never feeling happy with it.
VCV v1 is really working well for me and has brought a lot of happiness and some desperately welcomed mental stability to my life in the past seven months or so. And I don’t find myself outgrowing it, really I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I can do with it.
Anyway, at least as far as I’m concerned, if the coder(s) could use some time off and well-deserved vacation, I say take it. v2 sounds fancy and nice, but I put vcv down for a while after discovering it, and I got back into a focus on guitar for a while, but picking it back up was awesome and life-changing in a good way. I don’t think a few people working on some other things because v2 isn’t available is a good reason for people to push themselves deeper into burnout or unhappiness, in whatever form it comes.
I think the thing is cool enough that even if it takes another year, it will still be super valuable and worthwhile. There are a ton of options for electronic musicians. Nobody’s life is being ruined by someone else’s free music software being put on hold for a bit.
And, as I like to say, in geological time, we basically already have it and have probably played with it happily for a thousand years or more easily.
11 Likes
This does sound rude, even if you tried not to. That someone leaves the community and stops supporting the product, around which the community is organized, could be of interest for at least a couple of people (like the author, community manager, etc.). More so, if the said product’s main attraction is community content.
I don’t think that stating that you don’t care, furthers the conversation, unless this thread is about things we don’t care about. Stating this is even less relevant, than the original statement. Unless you are a community manager (I’ll go with my guess, that you are not), which in that case would make in not just irrelevant, but downright unadviseable.
Retaining customers and/or community members might be important in the long run for VCV’s bottom line (and by extension, continuing existence, which I think we can all agree on, is preferrable), and knowing why this might be failing is very useful information, even if it hurts our cognitive dissonance a little.
2 Likes
that’s your opinion
1 Like
It is. I thought that was pretty clear.
1 Like
yes, also is nice to see you just joined to answer my post, some people leaving , some people coming in, some people doing both…
I was around for a while now, lurking, but yes, this was my first post all right. Can you elaborate on the last part?
nup , it is pointless too
2 Likes
GPL is a drive by licence. You see some code, you see a fix, you submit a patch and you know what the implications are. That’s in the nature of GPL and a few alike (Apache 2). MIT/BSD are more difficult, you have to sign of rights. Public Domain is even more complex.
If you do not accept patches etc. the choice of licence should not be GPL. If you envision a commercial, not open, part of the source you should not use GPL. How could you not open the commercial part of the product? (and it is not even about whether it is ‘legal’ or not, it’s about opions) If you choose GPL to hold of commercial competition, you should have made a better product. Be one step further ahead than the competition.
Look for example at SQLite. Public domain. Controlled by a very small (3) developer group. Accepts contributions under very strict conditions. Has a commercial division. Oh and makes money.
A slightly related video this thread made me think of:
3 Likes
Sometimes I think Godwin’s Law needs to be rewritten for this community:
Every longer thread seems to be ending in a pointless discussion about licensing and why it is so tremendously bad that VCV Rack’s license changed to GPL.
7 Likes
Exactly! But if discussions regarding the license were hidden/banned, the folks are going to complain because “VCV does not let us fix their licensing issues”. Just right now “VCV does not let us fix his code”.
3 Likes
I’ll bite–why not?
By not accepting patches, and keeping the commercial part of the product proprietary? 
One difference with SQLite (great software, and a true open source success story) is that their money comes from support in the form of $1,500 (or $8,000 to $35,000/year) private support or membership in the SQLite Consortium. Sarah Belle Reid/Richard Devine/etc. are not going to pay 35 large to Andrew every year for Rack support. (Maybe Martin Gore would?)
Another difference is that SQLite needed to drive use, whereas Rack needed to drive two related ecosystems: a huge free module library, with tons of open code so that everybody’s modules could get better, and a thriving set of high-quality commercial modules from VCV and others. It’s done so.
You’ve probably seen this, but the licensing options were extensively discussed at the time:
And there was a pretty extensive postmortem (the later post, which I’ve linked to separately, was an eye-opening moment for me around GPL):
Expectations.