In the realm of "high end audio" many organizations are working to claim that they have absolute mastery of every facet in their product. The high margin prices of these devices are a risk proposition that manufactures engage in with the expectation of return by convincing prospective customers that "everything will be handled" and "every facet" of the products design.
So, to me, seeing organizations like Cary struggle to adequately understand the engineering in their own products is morbidly laughable. The value proposition of purchasing Cary with expectations that any aspect of their products is "mastered" seems silly now. If there exists such a lack of internal understanding for the low level componentry of the player device, how should customers expect their valve circuit designs to be of "masterful" quality. Also, beyond purely product quality, with these high margins customers should expect manufactures to be socially/environmentally responsible. I'd hope that folks who enjoy music and high end audio equipment would familiarize themselves with some of the upstream open efforts (like MPD) that provide an excellent "product". I'm happy that maintainers are willing to challenge these manufactures who seem to have no sense of responsibility when selling others work. Restitution for the MPD project copyright holders aside, damage has already been done in terms of those who watch these mailing lists and purchase audio gear. I'd encourage others to vote with their money and discontinue any patronization of Cary. On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 1:46 PM, Max Kellermann <m...@duempel.org> wrote: > On 2018/03/04 18:44, Stefan Monnier <monn...@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote: >> > The source code provided by Cary is another fake redacted source. >> > The binary distributed by Cary contains an MQA decoder: >> >> Expecting them to give us some MQA decoder source code, distributed >> under a GPL license is completing ridiculous: it would cost them a lot >> more in fines&litigation with MQA Ltd to do that than it would cost them >> in fines&litigation to use MPD illegally like they've been doing. > > True. And the expectation that they open the MQA source code is based > on a misunderstanding of the GPL. The GPL is not absolute: nobody > needs to obey it. If you don't obey it, you don't have a license, and > that is copyright violation, but nothing else. Still nothing forces > you to obey the GPL. The GPL is just one way to resolve this. > > No, the MQA source code will not be opened by Cary Audio, even if just > for one simple reason: they don't have it (I suppose). > > When I said "redacted/incomplete source code", I did not mean the MQA > and Roon source code. I meant that Cary Audio removed lots of code > they developed, for which they own the copyright. For example, they > removed all traces of MQA bridging code. > > It is difficult to find an agreement with Cary Audio if they keep > lying to me. They pretend to be honest and sorry, but their actions > show the opposite. They try to fool me. > > >> So IIUC the above source is the result of changing their code so the MQA >> decoder is running in an external process, so that, from now on (more >> or less) they don't breach the GPL. > > Where do you see that? (I havn't read everything so far.) > > >> Obviously, it doesn't solve the harm done in the past, but you can't >> expect it to be solve by providing the source code, it's just not >> gonna happen. Better negotiate a settlement or plan for a legal battle. >> Personally, I think in the long run we'd be better off trying to make >> them friends than enemies, so I'd go for a reasonable settlement (where >> the expected ROI is much higher than for a legal battle). > > I'd very much like a settlement, but Cary Audio pretends they can't > hear me when I try to talk to them about it. They believe they can > just go on violating my copyright as if nothing had ever happened. As > if their license wasn't ever terminated, as if they don't need to > explicitly get a new license from me (and other MPD copyright > holders). > > Yes, how I wish Cary Audio would, for example, let their full-time > engineers improve MPD and send me pull requests every other week. > That would be the best for MPD and for Cary Audio and their customers. > How I wish they had this much reason. > > Then look at Billy Wright's emails and try to make a prediction if > that is a realistic outcome. > > I'd love to be proven wrong. Please. But I'm very very pessimistic. > > Max > _______________________________________________ > mpd-devel mailing list > mpd-devel@musicpd.org > http://mailman.blarg.de/listinfo/mpd-devel _______________________________________________ mpd-devel mailing list mpd-devel@musicpd.org http://mailman.blarg.de/listinfo/mpd-devel
