Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
El domingo, 5 de marzo de 2006 a las 14:44:33 -0500, Joe Smith escribía: If a court is in doubt as to how the licence is to be interpreted it should look at such text. Such text, especially if included near the licence, has If the author intends it to be a request, not a requirement, nobody will end up in court over this. -- Jacobo Tarrío | http://jacobo.tarrio.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Junichi Uekawa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] The web page (http://www.portaudio.com/license.html) has the following additional clauses; which should be included in Debian package to clarify: Plain English Interpretation of the License The following is a plain English interpretation of the license. This interpretation is not part of the license and has no legal significance. To understand the full legal implications of the license you should consult the license itself. * You can use PortAudio for free in your projects or applications, even commercial applications. * You do not have to make your own source available as open-source code just because you used PortAudio. * Do not take our copyright information out of the PortAudio source code. * If you fix a bug in PortAudio, please send us the fix. * You cannot sue us if your program fails because of PortAudio. If I'm the only person uncomfortable with the current wording, so be it. Please do add the extra interpretation quote into the Debian packages. Yes. People on d-l seem to think that text that is not legally significant, such as that quote, or things like the preamble to the GPL have no significance. This is entirely untrue. While precedent may not make this clear, the intention of a licence is important. If a court is in doubt as to how the licence is to be interpreted it should look at such text. Such text, especially if included near the licence, has presumably been read by both parties. So if there are tems that are unclear, non-parseable, or part of the licence is self contradictory, it is only reasonable that the clause be interpreted in the manner most directly implied by the explanitory text. Rember that the U.S. Supreme Court will sometimes rule based not on the text of laws, but the intent of the laws. If a court is willing to rule law based on intent rather than text in the case of law, then it most certainly should do so in the case of contracts. Note: IANAL, but the above is just plain common sense. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi, Can you please identify yourself as someone who has legal qualification to make the following assertions. I am concerned that any arbitrary Debian user can take offence to our license without reasonable legal grounds. I simply do not know who you are. I am a Debian Developer; without any legal grounds; so I am suggesting a clarification. The packages and the sources only contain the following: PortAudio Portable Real-Time Audio Library Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Ross Bencina and Phil Burk Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ON INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. The web page (http://www.portaudio.com/license.html) has the following additional clauses; which should be included in Debian package to clarify: Plain English Interpretation of the License The following is a plain English interpretation of the license. This interpretation is not part of the license and has no legal significance. To understand the full legal implications of the license you should consult the license itself. * You can use PortAudio for free in your projects or applications, even commercial applications. * You do not have to make your own source available as open-source code just because you used PortAudio. * Do not take our copyright information out of the PortAudio source code. * If you fix a bug in PortAudio, please send us the fix. * You cannot sue us if your program fails because of PortAudio. If I'm the only person uncomfortable with the current wording, so be it. Please do add the extra interpretation quote into the Debian packages. regards, junichi -- [EMAIL PROTECTED],netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hello Junichi Can you please identify yourself as someone who has legal qualification to make the following assertions. I am concerned that any arbitrary Debian user can take offence to our license without reasonable legal grounds. I simply do not know who you are. I've opened bugs now, I don't know if it hasn't happened before. Please Cc' the respective bugs so that we know it's fixed either way. The possible options that I see are: 1. audacity/portaudio are removed from Debian 2. license text is modified so that it clarifies that the 'request' is a non-binding request which is optional and not a mandatory section. From my point of view this matter was discussed at length a number of years ago and as a result Debian decided to include PortAudio in main -- to me this indicates that a decision was made to allow the intended interpretation of our current license. I understand that such decisions may not be final however you are asking me to spend a considerable amount of my time organising for the license to be revised.. and right now I am not getting a clear picture that this is absolutely necessary. Best wishes Ross. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Ross Bencina [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can you please identify yourself as someone who has legal qualification to make the following assertions. I am concerned that any arbitrary Debian user can take offence to our license without reasonable legal grounds. I simply do not know who you are. Searching on http://db.debian.org/ provides a link to http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/ which may help you. Indeed, any arbitrary Debian user can file a bug report without any reasonable grounds whatsoever. It should be up to the maintainers to help by processing small bugs and deciding what they forward to you. The reporter of this bug seems to have taken a short-cut there. I don't know why. In case you didn't notice, members of debian-release and debian-legal have already commented on the bug reports. [...] and right now I am not getting a clear picture that this is absolutely necessary. I agree with this summary: right now, it seems not necessary. These are wishlist at best, maybe even wontfix. Best wishes, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi Don Can you please identify yourself as someone who has final authority for giving this advice. On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, Ross Bencina wrote: [someone said] Or, if the request clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. If we changed it to this would debian-legal be happy? That would be fine; it's not absolutely essential so long as it's clear that it's a non-binding request, and that you interpret it as a non-binding request. Well, if it isn't essential I'm not going to go to the trouble of changing it. The PortAudio authors made it clear that this is a non-binding request a few years ago. Perhaps if we put up a web page to that effect it would sufficient to avoid this problem from arising in the future? Presumably since PortAudio is already in Debian someone at Debian heard us the first time around.. Best wishes Ross. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Ross Bencina [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Don Can you please identify yourself as someone who has final authority for giving this advice. I will be very surprised if Don satisfies that request. No debian decision is final: we reserve the right to find or admit bugs in the future, whether coding, usage or licensing. The most positive decision possible is: good enough as far as we know. If portaudio is in main and has no open or disputed bugs at http://bugs.debian.org/src:portaudio or elsewhere, it's OK now. For information, the decision-makers I can think of are: 1. the package maintainer for portaudio; 2. the ftpmasters listed on http://ftp-master.debian.org/ who are supposed to listen to debian-legal, but who knows? My view is that if you can't get consensus from at least the liberal members of this list, you've some sort of problem; 3. the debian developers by way of general resolutions to override ftpmaster decisions, described on http://vote.debian.org/ - I don't remember whether this has ever been used. Well, if it isn't essential I'm not going to go to the trouble of changing it. The PortAudio authors made it clear that this is a non-binding request a few years ago. Perhaps if we put up a web page to that effect it would sufficient to avoid this problem from arising in the future? That sounds like a good idea to me. Reduces risk of future people or other projects missing what we've been told. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#354898: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Package: audacity Severity: serious Hi, I'm filing a bugreport against audacity in case we forget at all. It kind of sneaked in; without a resolution this package should be removed from Debian. regards, junichi [1 text/plain; us-ascii (quoted-printable)] On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, Ross Bencina wrote: [someone said] Or, if the request clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. If we changed it to this would debian-legal be happy? That would be fine; it's not absolutely essential so long as it's clear that it's a non-binding request, and that you interpret it as a non-binding request. [That said, if you're going to touch the license at all, it would be a nice thing to clarify, or move out of the license text itself.] Don Armstrong -- Q: What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years? A: Nothing. -- Bokonon _The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon_ (Vonnegut _Cats Cradle_) http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu [2 Digital signature application/pgp-signature (7bit)] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#354899: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Package: portaudio Severity: serious I'm filing a bug so that we can remember there is an issue here. regards, junichi At Sun, 19 Feb 2006 20:19:18 -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: [1 text/plain; us-ascii (quoted-printable)] On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, Ross Bencina wrote: [someone said] Or, if the request clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. If we changed it to this would debian-legal be happy? That would be fine; it's not absolutely essential so long as it's clear that it's a non-binding request, and that you interpret it as a non-binding request. [That said, if you're going to touch the license at all, it would be a nice thing to clarify, or move out of the license text itself.] Don Armstrong -- Q: What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years? A: Nothing. -- Bokonon _The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon_ (Vonnegut _Cats Cradle_) http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu [2 Digital signature application/pgp-signature (7bit)] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi, Can you please identify yourself as someone who has final authority for giving this advice. I will be very surprised if Don satisfies that request. No debian decision is final: we reserve the right to find or admit bugs in the future, whether coding, usage or licensing. The most positive decision possible is: good enough as far as we know. If portaudio is in main and has no open or disputed bugs at http://bugs.debian.org/src:portaudio or elsewhere, it's OK now. I've opened bugs now, I don't know if it hasn't happened before. Please Cc' the respective bugs so that we know it's fixed either way. The possible options that I see are: 1. audacity/portaudio are removed from Debian 2. license text is modified so that it clarifies that the 'request' is a non-binding request which is optional and not a mandatory section. regards, junichi -- [EMAIL PROTECTED],netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi, I've opened bugs now, I don't know if it hasn't happened before. Please Cc' the respective bugs so that we know it's fixed either way. The possible options that I see are: 1. audacity/portaudio are removed from Debian 2. license text is modified so that it clarifies that the 'request' is a non-binding request which is optional and not a mandatory section. I'm confused. d-legal came to the conclusion, as far as I can tell, that this isn't a problem; that it would be nice to move it out of the license (wishlist), or to note redundantly on their webpage that this is a request (also wishlist), but this is unambiguously a non-binding request already; it uses the very word request. Why are you opening bugs? License text does not explain that it is a 'wishlist'; the term 'request' can be binding or non-binding depending on interpretation, and is not a good word to use without defining the scope. That is where the non-clarity lies. I'd like to see the license text itself updated, rather than the website adding some clarification outside of Debian archive. regards, junichi -- [EMAIL PROTECTED],netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#354898: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
severity 354898 wishlist severity 354899 wishlist thanks On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 06:41:19PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 08:15:05AM +0900, Junichi Uekawa wrote: I've opened bugs now, I don't know if it hasn't happened before. Please Cc' the respective bugs so that we know it's fixed either way. The possible options that I see are: 1. audacity/portaudio are removed from Debian 2. license text is modified so that it clarifies that the 'request' is a non-binding request which is optional and not a mandatory section. I'm confused. d-legal came to the conclusion, as far as I can tell, that this isn't a problem; that it would be nice to move it out of the license (wishlist), or to note redundantly on their webpage that this is a request (also wishlist), but this is unambiguously a non-binding request already; it uses the very word request. Why are you opening bugs? Agreed. I don't see anything here that warrants a serious bug. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 08:57:55AM +0900, Junichi Uekawa wrote: I've opened bugs now, I don't know if it hasn't happened before. Please Cc' the respective bugs so that we know it's fixed either way. The possible options that I see are: 1. audacity/portaudio are removed from Debian 2. license text is modified so that it clarifies that the 'request' is a non-binding request which is optional and not a mandatory section. I'm confused. d-legal came to the conclusion, as far as I can tell, that this isn't a problem; that it would be nice to move it out of the license (wishlist), or to note redundantly on their webpage that this is a request (also wishlist), but this is unambiguously a non-binding request already; it uses the very word request. Why are you opening bugs? License text does not explain that it is a 'wishlist'; the term 'request' can be binding or non-binding depending on interpretation, and is not a good word to use without defining the scope. That is where the non-clarity lies. I think the word request is pretty unambiguous. Anyway, ambiguities regarding the meaning of a license aren't RC bugs. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
On Wed, 01 Mar 2006, Ross Bencina wrote: Can you please identify yourself as someone who has final authority for giving this advice. As MJ Ray has already pointed out, I'm just acting in an advisory capacity here, explaining to you what ftp-master and/or the maintainer are likely to decide based on the input of debian-legal.[1] I don't have the authority to make a final decision (nor indeed does ftp-master or the maintainer) as we can all be overriden by a GR of the developers. On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, Ross Bencina wrote: [someone said] Or, if the request clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. If we changed it to this would debian-legal be happy? That would be fine; it's not absolutely essential so long as it's clear that it's a non-binding request, and that you interpret it as a non-binding request. Well, if it isn't essential I'm not going to go to the trouble of changing it. The PortAudio authors made it clear that this is a non-binding request a few years ago. It would be ideal if it was included in some text distributed in the package just so we don't have to reference it; alternatively, a GPG signed mail sent to the maintainer from someone at PortAudio telling us[2] that this is the case would be even better. [Most web pages are surprisingly mutable and transient, unfortunatly.] Don Armstrong 1: Whether they decide to take my advice or write me off as a raving lunatic is up to them, of course. 2: If it's already the case that they've done so, just respond to the bug with the text; its inclusion would clear up any confusion that I can see. -- Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it. -- Richard Feynman http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Junichi Uekawa wrote: However, portaudio looks non-free to me. http://www.portaudio.com/license.html: * Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. Sounds quite clearly like a request to me, not a requirement. The difference between a non-binding request and a requirement is a fine line especially considering why it's in the main license text not some accompanying documentation. Clarifying this is what is really required; moving the problematic clause out of the way would help. Hence my suggestion of the use of the word 'encouraged' instead. It is Debian Policy to encourage Maintainers to cycle changes back upstream anyway. It does not say 'Must' or even 'Should' here. I agree that it would be good if it were worded less ambiguously. I don't see how this phrase would prevent any particular usage of PortAudio, either in Debian or derived distribution, surely that is the critical issue? The direction we give to the PortAudio devs needs to be clear and unambiguous too, so I won't go on about this, to save driving round the block again. ;) cheers tim hall -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi, However, portaudio looks non-free to me. http://www.portaudio.com/license.html: * Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. Sounds quite clearly like a request to me, not a requirement. The difference between a non-binding request and a requirement is a fine line especially considering why it's in the main license text not some accompanying documentation. Clarifying this is what is really required; moving the problematic clause out of the way would help. regards, junichi -- [EMAIL PROTECTED],netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project pgpmGAK0faDUD.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
On Monday 20 February 2006 04:51, Bjorn Roche was like: My app runs on Linux and definately has trouble with PA/ALSA, so I'd like to work on that as well, though, to be honest, I am a bit baffled by ALSA. If PA gets into Debian, I really think that will help, as more people would hear about it, see it, use it, and, presumably, tell the developers what isn't working. Yes. I'm very happy to test any audio stuff, however, being a rather slack late beta-tester I have to wait until packages trickle through into the DeMuDi repositories before I can work with them. My rationale is that studios tend to want stable software, like servers do. I still have vague hopes that Open Music may yet be got to work under Debian. If PA could be made to work with ALSA, I think it would encourage Linux Audio Developers to look at it afresh. ALSA/JACK has become the standard for serious, professional quality Audio in Linux, which is also the category PortAudio should be in. The LAD/LAU community are likely to be supportive of such a move and it would bring PA into the frame (Purely MO). My fear is that anything you can't sync straight up to Ardour, using JACKd could prove an annoying waste of time. PBOWhen you're in the creative flow, this has to all Just Work/PBO. As soon as there is a package that reportbug can recognise, I'm sure you'll get plenty of feedback from Debian. ;) -- cheers, tim hall http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Ross Bencina schrieb: There are numerous active commercial applications which depend on PortAudio.. it is far from dead and gone. Quite naturally I believe it to be a technically superior solution to RtAudio, primarily because (last time I checked) RtAudio does not attempt to solve many of the technical problems which PortAudio does. I agree that PortAudio has many functions and design elements that are not (yet) in RtAudio. The desire by the Audacity development team to look at other APIs is because of the following factors. Note that I can only speak for myself here, though I think that other members of the team may share some of the thoughts outlined below: * While I agree that there may be constant development on PortAudio v19 CVS, I cannot see that there is a definitive plan to release a new stable version or even incremental releases to v18. It is very frustrating having to use a library in a stable product that has been in beta state literally for years. I'm not saying, you should release a stable v19 tomorrow. But at least making incremental releases with a clear management of bug reports and clear priority assignment on those reports would help the process. This would also assist in release planning for applications depending on Portaudio. * Portaudio v18 is way to outdated. For example, it does not support ALSA on Linux, and it does not have the same latency management Portaudio v19 has. Therefore we must move away from it. I assume the commercial applications you're talking about use Portaudio v18. * Portaudio v19, on the other hand, is simply not usable on some platforms. E.g., I am a maintainer of the German Audacity forum (http://audacity.fuchsi.de/) and I regularly receive reports that Portaudio v19 does not work correctly. Speaking for myself here, I have two machines here with ALSA (Ubuntu 5.10), and all ALSA apps I've tested so far work, except Audacity, when compiled with Portaudio v19. Sometimes playing works, but after some seconds, the application just hangs. Another field of problems is on the Mac. It seems that there are lots of Mac users who are having problems with Portaudio (v18 and v19). We're not talking about multichannel soundcards here, but about USB mics, simple USB sound adapters etc., stuff that really should work. I understand that you didn't write the Mac port for Portaudio, but still switching to RtAudio might be of help here :) * There are a number of patches which were submitted to PortAudio by us, which have not been incorporated into PortAudio. This is one of the reasons why we maintain a locally patched version of PortAudio. It would be good to have a formal patch management, like the one that is available on Sourceforge, so we would know which patches are accepeted and which ones are rejected and for which reason. As I see it, the goals of the projects Portaudio and Audacity just seem to differ. While development of Portaudio seems to incorporate a it will be ready when it is done approach (which I think is perfectly okay for an open source project!), Audacity needs something that works _now_, and on all platforms. This is why we're looking at alternatives. Markus -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
This one time, at band camp, Junichi Uekawa said: However, portaudio looks non-free to me. http://www.portaudio.com/license.html: * Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. While it would be nice to have that clarified (so as to put it outside the 'conditions' block), it clearly says 'request', which does not have the same meaning as 'require'. I am not sure how a request to do something is non-free. We allow requests in other licenses (charityware and so forth spring to mind immediately). -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Let me say as a long time member of this list and user of Portaudio and its proponent in many projects, there was a period of a year where this project was a big time user of Ambien. It was asleep for the most part. A few folks came along and woke it up. Flex Radio depends heavily on PortAudio in its commercial offerings. I shudder to think what would have been done without it. While the support for WDM-KS is not complete, Flex Radio contributed back the WDM-KS driver in a usable state. It has instabilities but it should be possible to finish from there. I proposed its use for this commercial offering and Eric Wachsmann of Flex has done a great job with using, adding, and giving back the WDM-KS code to that which was in a stale and unusable state for a long time. Arve Knudsen has almost single handedly changed my view of PortAudio for Linux. I added PortAudio support for the Linux version of WSJT: http://pulsar.princeton.edu/~joe/K1JT/index.htm and helped it become an open source project supported on berlios. This support includes support for ALSA, OSS, and Jack. It is an invaluable tool in making this python, C, Fortran project a cross platform offering. Essentially the same code runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, and soon on Mac because of PortAudio. I have constructed a module for GnuRadio to support PortAudio because of my experiences in support of WSJT. I hope that comes together in the next couple of weeks: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/ and http://comsec.com/wiki and intend to add the same kind of PortAudio support for the DSP which underlies the Flex Radio SDR in this project: http://dttsp.sourceforge.net We are doing this because of the RECENT forward motion in the support of the *nix, MacIntosh computers and Coreaudio. On the Linux offerings, I have seen none of the instability you mention. I have used it on jack, alsa, and oss with great success. As a regular user of Audacity, I would view it as a real turn off if PortAudio support was deprecated in Audacity. It is my opinion that while development on PortAudio has proceeded in fits and starts, it has proceeded and with a bit more help, could easily congeal to a nice form. We desperately need a cross platform audio API like this and RtAudio is not it. It is my view IMNSHO that a better thing would be for Audacity and other developers to stop whining and start helping. I would strongly support a Debian compatible license but Ross and PA are going to have a heck of a time tracking down all developers and getting the signed pieces of paper needed. KEEP PA IN AUDACITY. Bob Ross Bencina wrote: Hi Guys I'm the dev lead for PortAudio. Matt Brubeck wrote: Junichi Uekawa wrote: Things like portaudio and MIDIshare never really arrived. (OK, I'm exaggerating slightly - Doesn't Audacity use portaudio?) Audacity does use portaudio. Portaudio isn't dead and gone, but development is barely progressing. With portaudio-v19 audacity can use jack. There are numerous active commercial applications which depend on PortAudio.. it is far from dead and gone. Quite naturally I believe it to be a technically superior solution to RtAudio, primarily because (last time I checked) RtAudio does not attempt to solve many of the technical problems which PortAudio does. Best wishes Ross. ___ Portaudio mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://techweb.rfa.org/mailman/listinfo/portaudio -- AMSAT VP Engineering. Member: ARRL, AMSAT-DL, TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP/AMQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. ARRL SDR Wrk Grp Chairman Laziness is the number one inspiration for ingenuity. Guilty as charged! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Ross Bencina wrote: PortAudio upstream was planning to change the license to clarify this, but I don't think they ever got around to tracking down all the contributors in order to do this. I think there was never any clarity on what the license should be changed to. I am in touch with all of the contributors who hold copyright on the PortAudio source base. If Debian legal could provide some guidance as to what the change should be we would be happy to co-operate to ensure greater interoperability with the Debian Free Software community. I would like to see PortAudio use an unmodified X11 license (widely used, and identical to the current PortAudio license except for the non-binding request clause). Rather than appearing in the license's list of conditions, this clause could appear in the documentation, or any other way that is explicitly not a condition of the license. Or, if the request clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. Of course, licensing decisions are entirely up to you and the other PortAudio copyright holders. I'm speaking as an Audacity maintainer and as a Debian developer. Fixing this possible ambiguity would make things easier for me and other users and distributors of PortAudio. [Moving this thread to the debian-legal and portaudio lists. Please see those lists for followups. Other addresses have been moved to BCC.] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
On Monday 20 February 2006 00:46, Matt Brubeck was like: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. Messy. Is the word RECOMMENDED too strong here? Something fluffier like 'encouraged' might work instead. Moving it outside the actual license would be nicer for Debian for sure. -- cheers, tim hall http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi Markus First of all, thanks for taking the time to put your concerns in writing -- some of these issues are news to me. I've received a lot of traffic over this issuein the last 24 hours and I'll have get back to you with some more detailed responses to the strategic issues, however I want to respond immediately to some factual issues which your email raised. The desire by the Audacity development team to look at other APIs is because of the following factors. Note that I can only speak for myself here, though I think that other members of the team may share some of the thoughts outlined below: * While I agree that there may be constant development on PortAudio v19 CVS, I cannot see that there is a definitive plan to release a new stable version or even incremental releases to v18. It is true that there is no published plan. The current status is that we are in the process of migrating to SVN afterwhich we will be restructuring the V19 directory heirarchy and then we will be in a position to release V19. I believe that most/all active development is on the v19-devel branch. It is very frustrating having to use a library in a stable product that has been in beta state literally for years. I'm not saying, you should release a stable v19 tomorrow. This is a reasonable concern. I think that the beta perception may be limited to people who aren't directly engaged in PortAudio development. But at least making incremental releases with a clear management of bug reports and clear priority assignment on those reports would help the process. This would also assist in release planning for applications depending on Portaudio. Currently we depend on people posting bugs to the PortAudio mailing list. I am not aware of any bugs which have been raised which were not fixed more or less immediately. I'm not saying there aren't bugs, or there aren't bug reports which I don't know about. But I havn't seen any indication that we are inundated with bug reports and hence need tracking/prioritisation. If you have posted bugs which havn't been addressed (or know of some) please do let me know and we can assess and respond to the situation in more detail. * Portaudio v18 is way to outdated. For example, it does not support ALSA on Linux, and it does not have the same latency management Portaudio v19 has. Therefore we must move away from it. I assume the commercial applications you're talking about use Portaudio v18. I have three applications in mind. JSyn from SoftSynth, Plogue Bidule (and OEM derivatives) and AudioMulch. The latter two use V19. I'm sure other people on the PortAudio list can let you know about others, there are certainly many listed on the PortAudio web site. * Portaudio v19, on the other hand, is simply not usable on some platforms. E.g., I am a maintainer of the German Audacity forum (http://audacity.fuchsi.de/) and I regularly receive reports that Portaudio v19 does not work correctly. Speaking for myself here, I have two machines here with ALSA (Ubuntu 5.10), and all ALSA apps I've tested so far work, except Audacity, when compiled with Portaudio v19. Sometimes playing works, but after some seconds, the application just hangs. Another field of problems is on the Mac. It seems that there are lots of Mac users who are having problems with Portaudio (v18 and v19). We're not talking about multichannel soundcards here, but about USB mics, simple USB sound adapters etc., stuff that really should work. I understand that you didn't write the Mac port for Portaudio, but still switching to RtAudio might be of help here :) Do you have experience with the new AUHAL PortAudio version which has been under heavy development in the last 2 months? Once again I am concerned that you are complaining about problems which were never reported to our developers through our mailing list. I strongly invite you to participate in our community (as you are now, thank you!) but submitting problem reports to us -- this is how things get fixed. * There are a number of patches which were submitted to PortAudio by us, which have not been incorporated into PortAudio. This is one of the reasons why we maintain a locally patched version of PortAudio. It would be good to have a formal patch management, like the one that is available on Sourceforge, so we would know which patches are accepeted and which ones are rejected and for which reason. I would appreciate it if you could send me another email detailing these patches and who they were sent to. If this is really a problem then obviously we need to look into ways of addressing the problem. My focus for a number of years has been on V19, however I am not aware of any uncommited patches. I'm sure we would be happy to give you write access to our repository if your patches are suitable. As I see it, the goals of the projects Portaudio and Audacity just seem to differ. While development of Portaudio seems to incorporate a it
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi Matt I would like to see PortAudio use an unmodified X11 license (widely used, and identical to the current PortAudio license except for the non-binding request clause). Rather than appearing in the license's list of conditions, this clause could appear in the documentation, or any other way that is explicitly not a condition of the license. Or, if the request clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. If we changed it to this would debian-legal be happy? Ross. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, Ross Bencina wrote: [someone said] Or, if the request clause is not removed from the license, I would like to see it clarified as follows: Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested BUT NOT REQUIRED to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. If we changed it to this would debian-legal be happy? That would be fine; it's not absolutely essential so long as it's clear that it's a non-binding request, and that you interpret it as a non-binding request. [That said, if you're going to touch the license at all, it would be a nice thing to clarify, or move out of the license text itself.] Don Armstrong -- Q: What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years? A: Nothing. -- Bokonon _The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon_ (Vonnegut _Cats Cradle_) http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Markus: Thanks so much for your comments. I will say more below about our code, but I think you are right to critisize our process. Personally, I'd like to see us using a bug tracking system and a better source code management and patch management system. I don't have enough expereience in this area, (I am a math and audio geek not an open source software developement geek), but I do believe Sourceforge can offer many of the tools we need to improve our process but that is for another thread. More comments below On Sun, 19 Feb 2006, Markus Meyer wrote: Ross Bencina schrieb: There are numerous active commercial applications which depend on PortAudio.. it is far from dead and gone. Quite naturally I believe it to be a technically superior solution to RtAudio, primarily because (last time I checked) RtAudio does not attempt to solve many of the technical problems which PortAudio does. I agree that PortAudio has many functions and design elements that are not (yet) in RtAudio. The desire by the Audacity development team to look at other APIs is because of the following factors. Note that I can only speak for myself here, though I think that other members of the team may share some of the thoughts outlined below: * While I agree that there may be constant development on PortAudio v19 CVS, I cannot see that there is a definitive plan to release a new stable version or even incremental releases to v18. It is very frustrating having to use a library in a stable product that has been in beta state literally for years. I'm not saying, you should release a stable v19 tomorrow. But at least making incremental releases with a clear management of bug reports and clear priority assignment on those reports would help the process. This would also assist in release planning for applications depending on Portaudio. I agree. The fact that v18 is dead and v19 is still percieved as beta is a serious problem. I am not sure of the solution, but maybe some numbered releases that carefully state their limitations would be a good start. Bugzilla and wikki with up-to-date information would be great, too, but, again, another thread * Portaudio v18 is way to outdated. For example, it does not support ALSA on Linux, and it does not have the same latency management Portaudio v19 has. Therefore we must move away from it. I assume the commercial applications you're talking about use Portaudio v18. The commercial apps are probably not Linux-based. My app on the mac is XO Wave (www.xowave.com), and there are a bunch for PC. I think PortAudio's acceptance into Debian would improve its support almost immediately, as debain is the root of other distros. If there is something I can do to get PA in debian, please let me know. (We certainly discussed the licensing issue to death and I thought everyone agreed that the send us improvements bit was a recomendation not a requirement.) * Portaudio v19, on the other hand, is simply not usable on some platforms. E.g., I am a maintainer of the German Audacity forum (http://audacity.fuchsi.de/) and I regularly receive reports that Portaudio v19 does not work correctly. Speaking for myself here, I have two machines here with ALSA (Ubuntu 5.10), and all ALSA apps I've tested so far work, except Audacity, when compiled with Portaudio v19. Sometimes playing works, but after some seconds, the application just hangs. Another field of problems is on the Mac. It seems that there are lots of Mac users who are having problems with Portaudio (v18 and v19). We're not talking about multichannel soundcards here, but about USB mics, simple USB sound adapters etc., stuff that really should work. I understand that you didn't write the Mac port for Portaudio, but still switching to RtAudio might be of help here :) The v19 code for the mac has gone through some hard times. However, I recently rewrote it and I personally tested it on a variety of hardware from built-in to USB mikes and headsets to pro hardware. It has also been tested on multichannel devices, intel macs and more. The reviews so far have been very positive. I am actively maintaining and improving it and I don't think you should have trouble with it anymore. There are no outstanding issues or bugs that I am aware of, although some things are not implemented, but these are well documented. If you do find trouble, and forward to me or to the list any error reports, I will fix it fast. * There are a number of patches which were submitted to PortAudio by us, which have not been incorporated into PortAudio. This is one of the reasons why we maintain a locally patched version of PortAudio. It would be good to have a formal patch management, like the one that is available on Sourceforge, so we would know which patches are accepeted and which ones are rejected and for which reason. This doesn't address the long term issues, because I cannot commit to supporting Linux, but I have two Debian systems and
portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi, On Thursday 16 February 2006 22:49, Junichi Uekawa was like: Audio on the other hand seems to have mostly settled for ALSA and jack. (I'm not sure if portaudio is gone?) Things like portaudio and MIDIshare never really arrived. (OK, I'm exaggerating slightly - Doesn't Audacity use portaudio?) Audacity does use portaudio. Portaudio isn't dead and gone, but development is barely progressing. With portaudio-v19 audacity can use jack. The current portaudio snapshot seems to work ok, though audacity still creates and destroys jack ports with every record/play action. I don't know if there is any plan for an eventual release date of v19. However, portaudio looks non-free to me. http://www.portaudio.com/license.html: * Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. c.f. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/11/msg00091.html However, it's included in Debian main, as part of source to audacity, and libportaudio. strange. I'm sending mail to request updated information on this topic; I don't know how this resolved. regards, junichi -- [EMAIL PROTECTED],netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Junichi Uekawa wrote: Hi, On Thursday 16 February 2006 22:49, Junichi Uekawa was like: Audio on the other hand seems to have mostly settled for ALSA and jack. (I'm not sure if portaudio is gone?) Things like portaudio and MIDIshare never really arrived. (OK, I'm exaggerating slightly - Doesn't Audacity use portaudio?) Audacity does use portaudio. Portaudio isn't dead and gone, but development is barely progressing. With portaudio-v19 audacity can use jack. The current portaudio snapshot seems to work ok, though audacity still creates and destroys jack ports with every record/play action. I don't know if there is any plan for an eventual release date of v19. However, portaudio looks non-free to me. http://www.portaudio.com/license.html: * Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. c.f. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/11/msg00091.html However, it's included in Debian main, as part of source to audacity, and libportaudio. strange. I'm sending mail to request updated information on this topic; I don't know how this resolved. Hmm, I wasn't aware of that. Who are you mailing? I've had a few contacts with the main authors since RFA hosts the portaudio mailing list. If I can be of assistance let me know. -Eric Rz. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Junichi Uekawa wrote: Things like portaudio and MIDIshare never really arrived. (OK, I'm exaggerating slightly - Doesn't Audacity use portaudio?) Audacity does use portaudio. Portaudio isn't dead and gone, but development is barely progressing. With portaudio-v19 audacity can use jack. Audacity upstream is considering switching to RtAudio, which is partly based on PortAudio and uses the same MIT-like license. RtAudio supports JACK, and appears to be more actively maintained than PortAudio: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.audio.audacity.devel/10840 However, portaudio looks non-free to me. According to my reading of the license (and according to the PortAudio upstream authors), this clause is a non-binding request, and so it does not make the license non-free. Please see this thread: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/11/msg00114.html PortAudio upstream was planning to change the license to clarify this, but I don't think they ever got around to tracking down all the contributors in order to do this. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi, However, portaudio looks non-free to me. According to my reading of the license (and according to the PortAudio upstream authors), this clause is a non-binding request, and so it does not make the license non-free. Please see this thread: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/11/msg00114.html PortAudio upstream was planning to change the license to clarify this, but I don't think they ever got around to tracking down all the contributors in order to do this. I think we were waiting for this clarification or modification to happen, but it never came... Ah, deja-vu: http://lists.debian.org/debian-wnpp/2004/09/msg00137.html regards, junichi -- [EMAIL PROTECTED],netfort.gr.jp} Debian Project -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Portaudio] Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Hi Guys I'm the dev lead for PortAudio. Matt Brubeck wrote: Junichi Uekawa wrote: Things like portaudio and MIDIshare never really arrived. (OK, I'm exaggerating slightly - Doesn't Audacity use portaudio?) Audacity does use portaudio. Portaudio isn't dead and gone, but development is barely progressing. With portaudio-v19 audacity can use jack. There are numerous active commercial applications which depend on PortAudio.. it is far from dead and gone. Quite naturally I believe it to be a technically superior solution to RtAudio, primarily because (last time I checked) RtAudio does not attempt to solve many of the technical problems which PortAudio does. Audacity upstream is considering switching to RtAudio, which is partly based on PortAudio and uses the same MIT-like license. RtAudio supports JACK, and appears to be more actively maintained than PortAudio: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.audio.audacity.devel/10840 I would question whether RtAudio is more actively maintained... there are a number of developers actively working on PortAudio. It may be that Linux maintenances is lower with PortAudio than RtAudio.. I can't speak for that because PortAudio is a cross-platform solution and doesn't focus only on Linux. As far as I know, at present we have only one active Linux comitter.. more are always welcome. In general my opinion is that PortAudio is stable, and does not require a lot of development/maintenance. Certainly that is my personal experience with PortAudio on Windows (my primary platform). There is a lot of active development for PortAudio on MacOSX. I would love for there to be more Linux developers working on PortAudio.. perhaps you guys would consider participating more actively? However, portaudio looks non-free to me. According to my reading of the license (and according to the PortAudio upstream authors), this clause is a non-binding request, and so it does not make the license non-free. Please see this thread: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/11/msg00114.html This is my understanding. PortAudio upstream was planning to change the license to clarify this, but I don't think they ever got around to tracking down all the contributors in order to do this. I think there was never any clarity on what the license should be changed to. I am in touch with all of the contributors who hold copyright on the PortAudio source base. If Debian legal could provide some guidance as to what the change should be we would be happy to co-operate to ensure greater interoperability with the Debian Free Software community. Best wishes Ross. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: portaudio in Debian, license updates?
Junichi Uekawa wrote: However, portaudio looks non-free to me. http://www.portaudio.com/license.html: * Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical version. Sounds quite clearly like a request to me, not a requirement. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
