[rectang]

https://soul-lang.github.io/SOUL/docs/SOUL_FAQ.html

> What is the licensing/business model?

> Our intention is to make SOUL entirely free and unencumbered for developers to use. All our public source code is permissively (ISC) licensed. We’re currently keeping some of our secret sauce closed-source, but the EULA allows use of it freely to encourage its adoption in 3rd party hardware and software. Ultimately, we plan to commercialise SOUL by licensing back-end drivers and other IP for use by vendors who are building SOUL-compatible hardware products.

[QuadDamaged]

been bit by another audio engine that had the same license and pulled a bait and switch. No thanks.

[cesaref]

Hi, one of the developers here.

How would it be possible to allay your concerns? I think we've tried to be as clear as possible with our intentions - how could we rule out such possibilities with our license agreement?

[an_d_rew]

Sadly, I’ve been bitten by this before, too, and even if I love the product, I stay away.

It isn’t that I don’t trust you or your intentions now, it’s that intentions (and requirements) change.

You asked about allaying fears. Personally for me this means actually take-to-the-bank licensing that I could get through a legal audit, even if hypothetical.

Talk of “secret sauce” and future closed source and IP licensing of future maybe-must-have magic... that’s way too much future risk for me.

An example of what I think is good licensing is JUCE (https://juce.com). Everything from “free” to “paid with support”, all open source… but the point is I always know exactly where I stand legally, what I can and cannot do... and what I can and cannot do in the FUTURE.

[julesrms]

Well, as the person who also created JUCE and its license, I can't really argue with that. :)

We're very keen to make sure that the end-user developers are totally unencumbered and license-free, because we want lots of people to adopt it.

All our licensing is more aimed at device and driver builders - think of it like e.g. openGL - the industry making GL cards and drivers is legal complex, but none of that stuff affects the coders writing GL apps.

[jdmoreira]

What if I want to write a software renderer that implements the openGL api?

Or what if want to write a Vulkan to Metal like MoltenVK?

What if I want to write an interpreter for your bitcode?

What if I want to port soul secret source on top of Apple's Accelerate framework? Would you sue me to oblivion?

[cesaref]

The license is pretty clear, you can do anything you like with the language and the software that has been open sourced. If you want to write your own renderer, that's great! If you want to write a decent interpreter, or a rubbish one for that matter, again, that's great, that's your business.

[an_d_rew]

Ah! I didn’t realize it was you! :-) Cheers!

And good point. I understand where you’re coming from, but... I didn’t understand it when I read the post and blurb(s).

[devenblake]

Disclaimer: *I'm not your target audience*; I don't plan to use your product even if you made it public domain.

I never want to agree to an EULA before starting to develop something outside of a professional setting. That's an immediate dealbreaker for me. But even if I did - I wouldn't be able to disassemble or reverse engineer your software (2.2)? Also - why are there so many clauses in the EULA telling me to obey really specific laws? Aren't these redundant to section 2?

[julesrms]

We have two user-bases in mind:

- end-user developers. This is kind of like being a user of any other language, there's no EULA, nothing to sign, you just write SOUL code, test and debug it with whatever tools (which may themselves have a EULA, but probably nothing heavy)

- device and host developers: These are the people writing DAWs, plugins, hardware that can run SOUL code, audio device drivers etc. These are professionals, and licensing is a normal part of life when you're doing this kind of work.

[jdmoreira]

The JIT for a language must be licensed? I was totally onboard and super excited before I read this thread.

[julesrms]

sigh... The JIT engine in your graphics driver stack will contain millions of lines of heavily-licensed, patent-riddled code.

But that doesn't stop you as a developer from freely writing a 3D game that runs on it.

Same here. Think of it as a device driver. Ideally we'll open-source everything eventually, but anyone who's ever been involved in real-world commercial software development will understand that things aren't always quite that idyllic when you're building a business around it.

[noahadavis]

Which group would a DAW and plugins developed by a FOSS community like KDE or GNOME belong to?

[julesrms]

We've been using a BSD-style license to make sure we don't stop those people using it if they want to.

[naewonawonga]

If there's no mechanism to bind those intentions to the intellectual property, what you're building is just another time bomb which will eventually detonate at the expense of your users.

[nextaccountic]

"We're currently keeping some of our secret sauce closed-source"

What secret sauce is this? What parts of https://github.com/soul-lang/SOUL are closed source?

[julesrms]

Joke answer: the bits that aren't in there.

Real answer: Mainly the JIT engine, and the very complex rewriting algorithms that turn multi-threaded soul code into a form that can actually be executed.

We're certainly keen to open-source everything when possible, just been advised by our lawyers not to do that yet. C'est la vie.

[justforyou]

I've been advised by my lawyers to avoid your software.