Download - Free Software And Free Music
Free Software for Free Sound
Index
Free Software and Open Source
Why?
Arts and Free Software
Free Software and Linux for Audio and Music
Conclusions
What is Free Software?
Freedom 1: unlimited use for any purpose
Freedom 2: freedom to study and adapt to your own needs
Freedom 3: freedom to copy
Freedom 4: freedom to redistribute
Free (Libre) as in Freedom not as in Beer
Freedom is kept through the viral license policy (mainly GPL)
The Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is founded in 1985 by Richard Stallman:
Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free.
To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others. Free software has become the foundation of a learning society where we share our knowledge in a way that others can build upon and enjoy.
The FSF campaigns for free software adoption and against proprietary software. Threats to free software include Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), Software Patents and Treacherous Computing. Find out more about our campaigns, and ways to volunteer.
Open Source
Open Source (OSI) is an initiative that starts in 1998 mainly because of personal differences between the founder of the FSF and OSI.
It abandons idealistic thinking related to Free Software and only promotes practical advantages related to being able to read the code of a piece of software.
As a result of that there are now about 50 approved different open source licenses, even some by Microsoft..
Names and Dates
Richard Stallman Starts the GNU Project (1983) Defines Free Software (1985) Introduces the GPL (free software license) (1985)
Linus Torvald Develops the Linux kernel (1991)
Eric Raymond Founder of the Open Source Initiative (1998)
Technical/Practical advantages of FLOSS
Code is revised by many developers
Security (kerchoff's principle)
Estability
Collaborative effort of large communities
Price
Although interesting, there are even more important reasons...
FLOSS and Economy
Proprietary software by definition favors monopolies
that then extend to hardware
FLOSS does not kill software industry
FLOSS can be comercial
It promotes the culture of paying for services, not arbitrarily priced licences
Large companies like IBM or Novell are already basing part of their business around FLOSS
FLOSS and Education
Education should be worried about learning and learning is promoted through a free and open access to information (e.g. libraries)
Technology is more than a tool: it is a learning environment in itself
Within education we must present with several perspectives and favor criticism and dialog
University teaches how to learn not how to use a particular tool
Coding is not only for programmers but for scientists, artists, children...
FLOSS and Science
Scientific method depends in many senses on the free exchange of knowledge and ideas
Nowadays implementation is actually part of the result
Software is and should be considered in many cases like some other sort of publication
With Free Software we:
Facilitate for others to compare results
Preserve knowledge
Social and Ethical aspects
Access to software determines people's ability to:
Communicate
Educate
Work
Software should be considered as cultural heritage
Software will condition more and more the vision of the world new generations have
Who should control these aspects of society? A single
company? Two companies?
Art and Free Software
Piece of Art = Content + Techniques
In order to fully understand a piece of art we need to understand the techniques
Digital Piece of Art = Content + Techniques + System
In order to fully undertand a digital piece of art we also need to understand the system and be able to access it to the lowest level (code!)
Free Expression and Free Software
There is no Free Expression without control of the Tools you use (agnula.org)
Would Mozart have composed a line of music for an instrument he wasn't exactly sure what was doing internally or producing its sound?
Would Michelangelo have painted the Sixtine Chapel using a strange device that might have been recording his personal conversations while painting
An artist needs to be in full control of the tools (be able to modify, adapt, copy, redistribute...)
This can be done personally or through trusted technical staff
Digital Art Heritage
In order to preserve a digital piece of art we need to preserve the system
Systems that are closed and proprietary in general cannot be preserved
There are already key compositions in Computer Music that have already been lost because the original (closed) system cannot be reproduced
Digital Art Preservation = FLOSS
Creative Commons
In music mainly Creative Commons Lisences are used to share and remix music.The Free Software Foundation has only approved two of the 6 available CC Licenses as being free:CC-BY v2.0 CC-BY-SA v2.0
Sound/Music vs. Video/Image
Due to amazing pressure by Record Industry (through RIAA, SGAE...) implementing a website such as Flicker or YouTube in the sound/music world is extremely difficult Artists are sometimes not even allowed to post their own content in their websites
See http://freesound.iua.upf.edu or http://www.ccmixter.org/
Linux and Audio
There are plenty of applications, even distributions for Linux audio (visit linuxsound.org)Kguitar
Amarok
Ardour
Rosegarden
Muse
Rosegarden
Planet CCRMA
Agnula
etc.
Linux and Audio
Gnu/Linux has unique and outstanding features for professional audio and music:
Low latency
Stability
Standard protocols
Very active community
...
Free Software and Audio
So what about other platforms?
Most of the previous apps are compatible with Windows/OSX
But if you are not going to use proprietary software... what is the point of not using Linux?
What Gnu/Linux?
Because the code of gnu/linux is available to everyone there are now many different Linux system available. A few popular:
Ubuntu a good distribution for beginners
Debian where Ubuntu is based on
Fedora
Gentoo for the more expierenced users
GnewSense totally free Linux distro
Dynebolic (multi-media distro) Etc.. See: http://distrowatch.com/
(cd's can be ordered there at low costs, but you can also download all of these distro's from their original websites)
Links
http://www.linux-sound.org
http://www.opsound.org/
http://www.jamendo.com
Conclusions
Free Software = Open Source + Freedom
Freedom of Expression => Free Software
The future of digital arts is at stake
If you are convinced to use FLOSS there is no reason not to use Linux
If developing your own app. try to first see if you can build it out of an existing open framework.
License
This presentation is a remix of a presentation by Xavier Amatriain /University of California
It is available under this license:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/
The originial can be found here:http://www.slideshare.net/xamat/free-software-for-free-sound-1824828