Re: [fluid-dev] Soundfont licensing (was: Research: Fluidsynth as internal samplerfor Denemo)

[David Henningsson]

S. Christian Collins skrev:
> This thread reminds me: I would really like to release GeneralUser GS
> under an open-source license (GPL, etc.).  Right now the license is just
> one I made up, but I understand that prevents GeneralUser from being
> included with open-source projects, so I would like to change that.

I'm glad that you've come to that conclusion.

> I am very new to the whole licensing thing.  Does anybody have any
> recommendations for a good license to use?  

It depends on what you want people to be able to do with the SoundFont
and not. I primarily have two suggestions, either BSD (free for all
purposes), or GPL with a font exception, possibly modified (restricts
people from doing several things with the SoundFont).

> If there are future
> contributers to GeneralUser, I would still like to be able to have the
> final say in what changes make it in or not.  

One of the most important points of open source is the possibility to
modify. That is, if a Debian maintainer of your SoundFont finds
something peculiar with a sample/preset/instrument, he must have the
possibility to change that and publish the modified version as a part of
Debian instead of your original version. Debian won't accept anything
into their repository, that they can't correct (or enhance) of their liking.

This does not mean they remove that you're the original author of the
SoundFont, and most times they'll ask you to incorporate their change in
your original version instead of modifying the SoundFont.

>From what I know, other Linux distributions probably have similar
restrictions to what they let into their distributions, although Debian
is probably among the hardest to enforce the rule of modification.
Sometimes there is a "non-free" or "restricted" section of a Linux
distribution with less strict rules, but they're only letting something
in there if there is no other option, which is probably not the case
here (i e there are other free soundfonts).

> I also know that some of
> the samples in GeneralUser are borrowed from the sample banks
> Creative/E-MU has provided for free (shipping with the sound cards, or
> on their website as free downloads), and while many other samples come
> from free banks online, there is no way for me to be 100% sure that some
> of them didn't come from copyrighted sources.  I don't know how this
> plays into an open-source license.

All sources are copyrighted one way or another. The question is under
what license terms you're allowed to use the source. I suggest you read
the license terms of the Creative/E-MU banks as well as any other free
bank you remember having taken samples from, to make sure you don't
violate those terms already.

For example, your soundfont has the following license condition: "Don't
take portions of GeneralUser GS and claim the work as your own."
Would you allow someone to take portions of GeneralUser GS, add some of
his own samples and publish it under another name - just as you did to
Creative, and possibly more people?

Last, some personal thoughts. Releasing some work under a "free" license
means passing through a mental barrier, at least for me. It means giving
up some rights that you have, and that is sometimes a difficult thing to
do. And things can go wrong and your work can take turns you did not
want to in the first place. But there are also chances, that your work
will become something greater and better than you could ever do
yourself. Often I'm willing to take that chance. Are you?

// David