Am I allowed to download Ardour from Ubuntu?

[Nicholas_Cureton]

I downloaded Ardour from Ubuntu because I wants to record my voice and just generally interested in Ardour.

To my knowledge, Ardour is a GPL licensed software.
Source code is free to download but Ardour charge for binary.

Ok…but…
I read a lot of topics in Ardour forum before I made this account to write this post.
I noticed Paul didn’t like downloading Ardour from Ubuntu or any other similar Distros.
He wants people to support development because no money, no development.
I understand. He even said to a guy who uploaded Ardour binary file to the Archive.org
" you’re responsible if the revenue drop" . I don’t remember the exact words but it’s quite similar.

I’m now really guilty because I downloaded Ardour from Ubuntu.
I can’t pay Ardour because Paypal banned my country.
We can’t also use any other international payments. The only option to buy software or apps is from mobile phone internet service provider company like Telenor. I bought a few apps just by topping up my phone bill.
But it’s only work for android apps.

I was happy to discover Ardour 4 days ago.
( I’m not a musician , I’m a 3D Graphic Guy).
I noticed Unfa is the (almost) only one who is making Ardour Videos on Youtube.
I was thinking maybe I can make easy video about Ardour to attract new people.
I was like " opensource …yay…I’m gonna introduce to new people".
Just like Blender 3D which is also GPL licensed software.

But now I decided to not to make Ardour videos on Youtube because Paul will get upset
if more people are downloading Ardour from Ubuntu or similar repositories.
I’m now thinking to just use Audacity for recording and not play around with Ardour.
I’m really guilty guys. Paul made Ardour GPL but he will upset if someone compile it from source. I don’t wanna make Paul upset. I respect his hard works.
I can’t even write hello word in C++ not to mention a full blown DAW.

So… Am I allowed to download Ardour from Ubuntu and
can I attract other people to use Ardour (maybe the same way that I downloaded)?
I love Blender 3D and I always say people how awesome blender is, and I told them to download and try Blender 3D.

But I think I shouldn’t do the same to Ardour, right?
I shouldn’t tell people to download and try Ardour from free sources like ubuntu
because Paul gonna upset. And I don’t wanna drop his revenue.
Please tell me what to do. I’ll be fine whatever you guys say.
After all, I just wants to record my voice and try an opensource DAW.
Maybe audacity is good enough for me.
I don’t really feels like belong to this forum either. This place full of professional Musician and I’m like " I know G Em C D on guitar".
Sorry for my english guys. I’m an asian who rarely speak english.

[seablade]

This is really a conflation of at least two different topics.

The first topic: Should I pay for Ardour? This has been beaten to death really and it sounds like you have read through some of it, but the short version is you are welcome to download Ardour from a distribution just the same, HOWEVER, continue reading

The second topic: Should I download Ardour from a distribution? The answer to this is often no, but not because of the financial reason, but often because many distributions will not package Ardour in the same way as it is done on Ardour.org, resulting in a binary version of the software that does not run the same, and often times resulting in a compiled version of the software with additional bugs because of this. There are lots of philosophical and technical reasons to why this is or isn’t, but that is the short of it.

As a result, the only officially supported version of Ardour is the binary that is downloaded from this site. For many bugs the first question you will get is, ‘Does it happen on the version downloaded here’ and often times you can download and test with the free version available here as well.

So end result, feel free to download from your distribution, but if you find you truly enjoy it please feel free to support it as well.

       Seablade

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

All that being said, you don’t have to feel guilty about getting Ardour from a GNU/Linux distro or from someone else.

Toy around… and if you land a hit, you can always donate later.

But as @seablade pointed out we can only realistically provide support for the binary from ardour.org

@Nicholas_Cureton

I’m like " I know G Em C D on guitar".

Hits have been written with less, but I’d suggest Am next

–

PS. I keep telling guitarists that use ardour to donate the same amount as they pay for guitar strings. That seems fair, pro-guys with 10 guitars vs. hobbyists with 4 year old strings. It also covers worldwide differences in price; some buy strings for $50, for others that’s a weekly income.

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

@Nicholas_Cureton

I decided to not to make Ardour videos on Youtube

Actually, please do. Promoting the software by showing it around is valuable!

[unsafelyhotboots]

Downloading it from the repos is how I got started with Ardour, and now I am a happy supporter. Think of it as a try-before-you-buy kind of situation - just don’t expect too much support during the try period.

A small, but good reason to pay for the binaries is that because it’s packaged the way that the Ardour devs intend, support is much easier for them to render.