Ardour newbie : process to get rid of "silent break"?

[domreb]

Hi there,
I am a French newbie, using Ardour with Ubuntu for several weeks, for “playing”, not for professionnal use.
I really enjoy the software and want to use it more and more.
I am OK to make a donation, in order to become an “official” user of Ardour and to get rid of the “silent break” .
I don’t understand the process. What will happen when i will donate 25 $ ? How will the silent break disappear ? Will I receive a “secret key” which unlock Ardour ? Or will I have to download and install an “unlocked” version of Ardour ?
Thanks a lot for helping.
Best regards,
Dom.

[uii]

Or will I have to download and install an “unlocked” version of Ardour ?

Oui.

Best regards.

[domreb]

Ok, let’s go !

Thanks a lot for your reply.

[GuntherT]

Donating will not provide you a full version of Ardour. You will instead need to purchase it or become a subscriber. The donation system is there for people who want to provide additional financial support without receiving anything in return. You can purchase a full version of Ardour for as little as a dollar, but donating $45 will entitle you to receive updates through the next major version (someone please correct me if I am wrong about that). A subscription gives you unlimited access to the download system for as long as your subscription is active.

https://community.ardour.org/realfaq

[domreb]

In the last post, Gunther says :
“Donating will not provide you a full version of Ardour”
“Donating $45 will entitle you to receive updates…”
Perhaps I’m not fluent with English language, but this is confusing for me.

I prefer donating $50 than subscribing $1/month, it’s simplest for me when managing my bank account.

So, if I donate $50, will I be entitled to download a full version of Ardour without the “silent break” ?
Thanks in advance,
Dom

[uii]

Here is everything explained:

https://community.ardour.org/download_form

Please click on download and select your OS. Then you can choose.

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@domreb

In the last post, Gunther says :
“Donating will not provide you a full version of Ardour”
“Donating $45 will entitle you to receive updates…”
Perhaps I’m not fluent with English language, but this is confusing for me.

I prefer donating $50 than subscribing $1/month, it’s simplest for me when managing my bank account.

So, if I donate $50, will I be entitled to download a full version of Ardour without the “silent break” ?
Thanks in advance,
Dom

The follow up post to yours explains it very well, but I wanted to clarify @GuntherT 's post a little. There are actually two ways you can donate. Donating through the process uii mentions, being logged into the website and donating as part of the download process for instance, will get you the access on that page.

But you can, without being logged in, click on donate to the right hand side on many of the community/forum pages and similar on the website. Being that you are not logged in when you do so there is no way of really tracking that donation back to you to allow for downloads of the non-free/non-demo version. Some people use this to just give money to the project, especially if they either build it themselves, or get it through a distro repo.

One thing to mention, the only officially supported version is the pre-compiled one you have to get through this website. It doesn’t mean you won’t find help for others but at some point you are likely to run into bugs due to the compilation and packaging process with, for instance, a distro provided version, and that cannot be supported. That also means one of the first steps for support is often, did you et the package from the website? Just a caution for anyone that reads this.

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