Relicensing VCV Rack to GPLv3 with freeware/commercial exceptions?

Announcements
144

The exception certainly allows MIT/BSD/Apache/CC-0/etc plugins. Rack’s license does not limit what you can do with your code. It allows your code to be under any license, non-commercial or commercial. It does however limit what you can do when your code is combined with Rack’s code to form a “combined work” (as defined by the GPLv3). Here’s what happens for example:

  • You license your plugin under MIT. This is explicitly allowed by Rack’s exception.
  • Your or others can take any or all of your code and include it in non-commercial or commercial software, provided they do not link to Rack. This scenario would happen if a VST or Eurorack designer wants to use your DSP code to make money. (If you don’t like this possibility, license your plugin under GPLv3.)
  • You or others cannot take your code, use Rack’s API and link it to Rack, thus making a “combined work”, and use it in commercial software (unless the party has a commercial license).

The above has been confirmed to me by legal counsel. Exceptions (“additional permissions”) like these are allowed by section 7 of GPLv3 and used in other licenses such as the famous GNU Classpath license.

Another note: This is technically not a “triple license”, just a “dual license”. GPL+exception is one license.

If you see the license draft at Relicensing VCV Rack to GPLv3 with freeware/commercial exceptions? - #24 by Vortico, forks are given a choice to keep or omit the non-commercial plugin exception.

1 Like
145

@Vortico this is precisely why I asked about the #ifdef example. The concept of “link” is ambiguous (as is everything in license land because the legal tests are bad); and I think different counsel have different impressions of source contagion from GPL3 into repos.

If you think my #ifdef RACK code is derived and non-redistributable under MIT (you said “you need to delete it” or some such in reply - which is fine) then some lawyers will think that a repo containing that bit of code can’t be managed under MIT. Some other lawyers will think something else. Such is the way of lawyers.

I think the point @TeddyDD and I are making is (1) this doesn’t matter because if you don’t agree with your lawyers just split your repo but (2) some people may split their repo for an OK reason.

Again, I’m super supportive of you doing this. It is a clever model! Just if I can show you a bit of code and you tell me “you can’t redistribute that code except under GPL3” (which is what we talked about earlier!) then I think it is reasonable to conclude “that code is not MIT licensed”. See?

146

At the end of the day, what really matters is the answer to “If my code is used in a form other than a Rack plugin, is it still a Combined Work?” That’s the litmus test, and I think it should be faily simple for most developers to answer this given their specific scenario.

147

I agree.

148

Ah this makes things clear. I was under false impression that there will separate license you grant for freeware/permissively licensed plugins. Since this exception is part of the license it covers forks and custom builds (although forks can get rid of the exception if I understand following sentence correctly)

Derived works of this software may keep or omit this Exception.

One more question: does the exception apply to GPL plugins as well? If not, it is possible to sell commercial plugins as long as they are under GPLv3 (GPL does not prohibit commercial usage, it’s not often used in commercial software though)

I agree with @baconpaul. I love open source and I believe it should be commercially sustainable for the authors. Your licensing model seems to good compromise.

1 Like
149

It doesn’t need to be, because the exception gives no additional permissions if your plugin is GPLv3. You can sell plugins without a commercial license if you release your source code under GPLv3. This point is hinted at in the title of the “I want to sell my plugin commercially under non-GPLv3 terms.” section at Plugin Licensing - VCV Rack Manual

I actually don’t think I’ve made that point strong enough in this thread. This is an option commercial plugin developers could use to make profit if they don’t agree with my commercial terms for any reason. The catch is that they have to release their source code, so people who compile the plugin may freely use, modify, and share the source code or its compiled binaries. (Although providing binaries of unmodified commercial GPL software is considered rude.)

Remember that this license is less restrictive than GPLv3. In terms of restrictiveness, GPLv3 > GPLv3 with exception > GPLv3 with exception and commercial licensing options

3 Likes
150

I responded to what was written by the OP, narrowly. But you’re right, it’s a change to charge a royalty from all commercial plugins regardless of how they’re distributed. I’m assuming that Andrew has always taken a cut from the commercial plugins distributed via the plugin manager, that’s always been my understanding.

Yes, it’s a change. It’s the Windows bazaar model versus the iOS appstore model. Both have flourished quite well. I guess some people are upset because:

  • It’s a change and I don’t like that change. Fair enough.

  • Andrew will now take a cut from all commercial plugin sales. Yeah, it’s the appstore model. I can’t help mutter “greedy bastards” when the richest company in the world (Apple) take a 30% cut from app developers’ sales through the appstore. I have a very hard time putting Andrew and Rack in the same category, and I think he needs to assure a source of revenue to continue developing Rack. I have no problems with that assuming the cut will be a reasonable one.

  • Andrew will impose acceptability guidelines for Rack plugins. He always did and communicated so, now they’ll be written down and enforced.

I have a very hard time seing that, assuming that Andrew has always taken a cut from the commercial plugins sold on the plugin manager. The sale outside the PM has always been dwarfed by the sale in the PM, as explained further up. I’m curious what you would attribute the momentum and excitement around Rack to? For myself I’m certain it has nothing to do with zero-cut, outside Plugin Manager sales.

4 Likes
151

I just wanted to chip in quickly and say that as a commercial plugin developer, I’m 100% behind @Vortico’s decision. We’ve only ever sold our plugins through the Plugin Manager, because we want to support the development of Rack, and I think the terms have been 100% reasonable so far.

4 Likes
152

Was curious of pricing for various software stores:

  • Apple App Store: $99/yr + 30%
  • Google Play Store: $25 one-time + 30%
  • Windows Store: $99/yr + 30% for the first $25k, then 20%
  • Amazon App Store: $99/yr + 30%
  • Blackberry World: 30%
1 Like
153

I’ve gotta say that some of those seem somewhat obscene to me. I’m not on the inside of all the biz numbers behind running those stores, and the actual expenses, but to me it smells a bit like “the new cloud milking cow, yay…” and I don’t like that. But maybe your numbers, at the high end, will be up there as well Andrew, or…?

154

Those numbers definitely surpass the maintenace costs of running their stores. The majority is profit, otherwise those companies wouldn’t use it as such a large investor pivot. Of course, Apple etc have expenses for developing the platforms themselves in order to make those stores exist, but in Apple’s case, they sell hardware to access the platform in the first place, so I agree it’s a bit obscene. In Google’s case, it makes a bit more sense because they are primary contributers to the Android operating system, which is licensed to Samsung, Motorola, etc. (and Google Pixel, but that’s a fraction of total Android sales.)

Anyway, I was just curious of app store pricing and thought it was relevant to this thread. Who knows, maybe I’ll use this information for an iOS port in X years if enough people stop using PCs.

In other news, it may happen sooner than later, due to the many suggestions in this thread, to post an “advertisement” page on the vcvrack.com website for potential Rack commercial plugin developers which will list guidelines, benefits, and a subset of terms for adding your plugin to the VCV Plugin Manager and/or licensing for outside distribution. I don’t see a desperate need to onboard a bunch of new commercial developers in the next couple months because a steady stream of open-source, freeware, and commercial plugins will be released by VCV and others after the v1 release which might even be overwhelming for me and users, but maybe later in the year I’ll start appealing to new companies via a website rather than private solicitation. Just a thought, not a guarantee. VCV emailing developers (and developers emailing VCV) has given us more than enough commercial plugins in the last year, and I don’t see the “private solicitation” method declining in success soon.

5 Likes
156

Copying https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt to LICENSE.txt in your repository is what most people do.

You don’t have to choose GPLv3 though. You can use an open-source license of your choice. Your plugin STS is licensed BSD 3-clause, which is fine. No change required unless you want.

157

Updated https://vcvrack.com/manual/PluginLicensing.html with changes:

  • Added reminder that GPLv3 allows commercial distribution if the source is released under GPLv3.
  • Addressed forks of Rack plugins used in non-Rack plugin contexts.
  • Added VCV Rack Plugin Ethics Standard for commercial plugin licenses.
2 Likes
158

:rofl::joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy::rofl::joy:

159

You’re laughing now, but you just wait! (But yeah, this probably won’t happen.)

1 Like
160

Reposting from the Facebook VCV User Group in case anyone’s not a member, since it’s relevant to this thread. Apologies for the novel.

Here is my Matthew Friedrich’s FAQ which addresses several questions I’ve received about his status.

Why is Matthew banned from the VCV Facebook Group?

There is no single reason but a combination of many reasons.

  1. He entered the VCV scene by showing absolutely no respect for others’ designs and intellectual property. Many of you recall his Make Noise clone, which pissed off Tony Rolando from Make Noise, but many don’t know that he cloned Frap Tools Falistri, which also pissed off Simone Fabbri from Frap Tools. Both Eurorack manufacturers reached out to me to complain, which took several email exchanges to convince them that VCV had nothing to do with what should be Matthew’s responsibility.

  2. Tony made a polite request to change his panel, and he handled the situation extremely poorly and unprofessionally. It took weeks for him to finally comply to Tony’s kind request to change the panel, he never apologized, and he continued to sell his clone and advertise it on the VCV communities. VCV has always encouraged original designs, and in 99.9% of cases, each module that is announced on these forums is the fruit of creativity, programming skill, and design expertise. One person committing intellectual property theft devalues the achievements of honest developers.

  3. I finally came to my senses a year after his Floats release when I noticed his weekly use of VCV community as a marketing platform for his unlicensed Make Noise port. I removed his two most recent posts, he immediately posted one more with an unprofessional snarky remark, and it became evident to me that Matthew had no interesting in changing his behavior and had no place in the VCV community. If you search for “Floats” in this community now, you will no longer find his threads.

I hereby publicly apologize to all VCV Rack users and developers, as well as Make Noise and Frap Tools, for allowing this go on as long as it did, not implementing better community standards, and failing to take actions for these events.

This experience gives me major deja-vu of the Blue Lantern drama ~8-10 years ago in the Eurorack community. I forgot his name, but the guy showed complete disregard for other Eurorack manufacturers (in a time when there are only ~20 companies) by plagiarizing existing designs and circuits. He was banned from the Muff Wiggler forum and was eventually welcomed back years later after a public apology to the community. He even showcased some of his new original designs he had been working on, and the last time I checked, he’s still regularly releasing cool new Eurorack modules. I met him in 2017, and he’s a fantastic guy, so we have to understand that people make mistakes, and we should allow their reputation to be rebuilt with time.

What will happen to my Hot Bunny / Floats / whatever purchase after Rack v1 releases?

As many already know, VCV will make a change to Rack v1’s license which will not affect open-source and freeware plugins, or commercial plugins sold in the VCV Plugin Manager. Its goal is to require all commercial plugin sold outside the Plugin Manager to follow the same standards and support VCV Rack development, as plugins inside the Plugin Manager. This was a difficult and controversial decision to make, but it was clear that there are developers out there that will work against the progress of the several man/woman-years spent developing this platform and its modules.

Back to the question: If Matthew contacts me via email for licensing, I will give him a reasonable royalty offer so he can continue selling his plugins, and I will work with him to make sure his modules follow the “VCV Rack Plugin Ethics Standard” at the bottom of Plugin Licensing - VCV Rack Manual. I’m sure everyone would agree that his customers should not be penalized for his actions.

If Matthew’s plugins eventually become licensed, I would urge potential future customers to follow the “buyer beware” principle. That is all I have to say.

11 Likes
161

THATS A MAC GORRAMIT :stuck_out_tongue:

162

As a user, I’ll add my own views which may or may not coincide with others.

First, I see nothing wrong with Andrew changing the licensing. It is his product mainly, and he has every right to secure it and secure funds for further developing. Whether or not others concur is a moot point, it isn’t a democracy. As users, we have the right to choose to use a product, choose a different product, illegally “hack” a product and take our risks, etc. DAW’s and Developers come and go, sell off their product, give it away free, or simply fold. We users merely skate along until we find another product that we can afford, that is stable and suits our purposes.

Second, as far as Developers and Licensing goes, my main concern is what will happen to pricing of what currently is the best, and most reasonably affordable, modular system. The Developers I have seen so far seem to be either users with their own needs sharing their results with others, or “small business” or “niche” developers who may or may not have hardware modules also. Yes, there are a couple larger names, but the vast majority especially in freeware modules, comes from the former. Now that Andrew has stated that other Developers may be forthcoming, and the licensing is changing, I am concerned that the affordability will be changing as well. Larger businesses are NOT known for their generosity, and if for example, everyone is only purchasing the lower-priced software and not the hardware versions, will those Developers pull out? Jack their prices up to make up for loss of hardware sales? Will they attempt to swallow up the smaller Developers, as Sony and others have done in the past? And, how will that affect the users?

Finally, as to the “Hot Bunny” issue- All I can do is hope that Matthew and Andrew work something out, but I will keep Rack .60+ around on at least one of my machines, as I purchased a new system in order to take advantage of the upcoming V1 improvements. As for offers of VST plugins and such, that doesn’t cut it for me, I have tons of vst’s as well as programs for making random, fractal, and generative music (what brought me to Rack in the first place), and I have no real need for Host or to bring VSTs into Rack. I will definitely not buy one module in order to use another set of modules I have already paid for in a roundabout circumventing way.

In summary, I enjoy the hell out of VCV Rack, and I see no problems with the license change. My only concerns are where Developers and larger businesses come into play, and by whose set of rules and pricing. If it starts getting pricey and no longer affordable, I’m out. There’s a reason I don’t use Reason, or Blocks, or Kontact, or what-have-you. I’m poor. When it is no longer affordable or enjoyable to me, I’ll go elsewhere as will my support.

3 Likes
163

@Vortico
Bad timing on my part. It was seeing Hot Bunny listed in the Rack Plugin Manager recently that nudged me into purchasing both it and Floats.

Oh well. Not a problem though, I was always surprised that you allowed 3rd parties to sell products outside of the plugin manager. And much as I recently purchased Mathews plugins, I do agree that it’s only proper that a code of practice exists for developers to follow, and that code should advise strongly against blatant IP theft.

Modules that are a carbon copy of someone elses IP with nomenclature chosen to tickle potential customers neurons into action isn’t ideal; but Eurorack is chock full of major name developers that do exactly the same thing - exhibit number one, Korgasmatron (which had to change it’s name for infringing Korg’s IP), and the Make Noise Math’s unit itself is loosely bases on the Buchla 281, Buchla 257 and the Serge DUSG units so there’s an element of ‘people in glass houses’ to this discussion too. I don’t mean that to dis Make Noise (as there’s a huge difference between inspiration and facsimile with a new faceplate). My own rack is populated with a fair bit of Make Noise kit (and Mark Verbos stuff too) because it’s inspired by Buchla and Serge.

Not so long ago there was a Google Sheet doing the rounds of the VCV community detailing exactly which modules are based on which manufacturers so it’s maybe a little unfair to single Mathew out on this. At the moment many of these IP infringements are flying under the radar as those developers don’t PR their activities to the same extent as Mathew, but as VCV Rack grows in popularity, even more hardware manufactures will be keeping an eye on the VCV Rack plugin manager to see if their IP has fallen foul to dubious developer activity. So now’s as good a time as any to start enforcing consistency with regards to that code of practice.

2 Likes
164

So does this change prevent people from cloning the repo and releasing vcv it without these changes so they could carry on as it was but with them at the helm rather than Andrew?