If I were to run a audio technology class using Ardour as the DAW does it entitle the teacher to legally download copies of the binaries as a single subscriber and distribute to his or her students?
I think the answer is “yes” but with Ardour binaries behind a paywall, I just wanted to double-check. Of course, in an ideal world all students should purchase a subscription or give a donation to support the cause. Also, this topic starter is in no way minimizing the need for folks to support the amazing work that @paul, @x42 et al. are doing.
Indeed, this is a hypothetical from my own standpoint but I’m recommending Ardour to a colleague as the DAW to use for a school class.
Not sure this fits neatly into any category so admin should feel free to move as they see fit.
Ardour is released under the GPL, so you are free to redistribute it as you wish as long as you give anyone you give a copy to the same rights as we give you.
Some educational institutions have chosen various financial arrangements … one is a login that they provide to students to download a new copy. That’s not required, but it is an option.
I don’t think they have any fancy way to provide logins but I will definitely suggest that they either make a one-off payment proportional to the number of students in the class or a subscription amount that is within their means.
A jovial reminder that I’m not the teacher in this instance. I can make suggestions but what they choose to do will be up to them. To a 15-year-old “garageband” kid, it might well be the catalyst to an amazing career in programming, or, conversely, it could seem like a turn-off to those only familiar with ProTools and Logic. I get your point though!
I’m not understanding your second quote from @TomS though your winky face suggests I might take it lightly?
Just to be 100% clear: although I think Chris was mostly joking, someone redistributing Ardour is NOT under an obligation to hand out the source code unsolicited. However, you are under an obligation to provide source code if asked or point to fully accessible methods by which they can get the source. So, you just point them at ardour.org - mission accomplished.
Just the way that Discourse presents the link, it wasn’t a reference specifically to that last post fromTomS but to the whole thread. I don’t know if you followed any of it, but Paul started a long thread musing on whether Ardour users even cared that it was open source, is having access to the source useful, etc. Yes, the wink icon was to point out it was half joking, but as you rightly mentioned especially in a university environment it might be a catalyst for someone to realize that there are some very cool things to be done as a software developer, or might even plant seeds for someone to take up maintenance and development of ardour later in their career after they get tired of grinding in industry for a few years. Paul has only been working on Ardour for a little over 20 years, so I guess we could get another 20 or 30 years from Paul ( ) but eventually we’ll need some new programmers to start taking over. Might as well start recruiting from the universities now.
The teacher I’m recommending Ardour to is teaching middle school and high school students but it is never too early – I started messing with scripting .bat files and fiddling with Qbasic (sorry) before I was 10! I know that none of the students taking the audio/video course have a single bit of coding experience so being able to look at the source code in any meaningful way would be near impossible. The teacher is also not a programmer.
