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Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

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Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#111

Post by the_other »

mort96 wrote: post #92
TeMPOraL wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, accessibility is probably the last remaining hope of power users[0]. With general-audience software, the market doesn't care much about the minority that are the serious users, and it's hard to make a convincing argument to business people here. However, accessibility does have a strong enough ethical argument behind it, which is also increasingly being backed by regulations. Allowing accessibility tools to…

100% agree. I've noticed this as well. A lot of the time, the best objective-sounding argument for something I want is "it's necessary for accessibility", even though _I_ want it for reasons which would've been ignored. And a whole lot of the settings I rely on to make my computing devices comfortable are hidden under "accessibility" menus in settings screens. There are even cases where the strongest argument for som…

> make my computing devices comfortable are hidden under "accessibility" menus in settings screens.

That IS accessibility.

Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#112

Post by johannes1234321 »

meowface wrote: post #78
detaro wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license covers the code, not the trademark. You can use the code/software as long as you observe the license, you can use the trademark as long as you follow the rules set out by the trademark owner. E.g. you can totally use the code to make your own audio editor and distribute it, but the trademark terms might not allow you to call it "Audacity".

I'm curious: does the WTFPL also let you appropriate a trademark? Or does it not encompass trademark rights?

Copyright law and trademark law are different topics and have different ruling. Most software licenses (except 4 clause BSD or PHP License and few others) don't make any claims about names.

One might try to argue that a name used in software code and distributed under some open source license also gives rights to the name by being source ... but to my knowledge there are no court decisions.

Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#113

Post by goodmachine »

wexq wrote: post #9
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #4

Tantacrul who has been working with Muse Score for a while now to improve their UX will also be working on Audacity. They also plan to hire some full time devs. Source: https://youtu.be/RMWNvwLiXIQ Well worth watching his other videos too, even if you don’t use musical notation software. Funny and insightful commentary on software usability in general.

OSS needs more UI/UX people, and I think Tantacrul is fantastic for this. His twitter ( https://twitter.com/Tantacrul ) and youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/user/martinthekearykid ) are full of interesting tidbits, an you can tell he's passionate about things. Even if you don't do music/notation his video on Sibelius, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI , is ridiculously funny, but also on point.

Thank you for the Sibelius video link. It's very good indeed.

The thing is (unmentioned in Tantacrul's Audacity video) is that Audacity's UI has always - from day one - been a terrible copy of the much beloved SoundEdit16, afaict. I just want something as easy to use as SoundEdit was, if Tantacrul is reading.

Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#114

Post by randmeerkat »

marrs wrote: post #97
throw_m239339 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OSS needs more UI/UX people, and I think Tantacrul is fantastic for this. True, Blender really exploded when they re-designed the interface. I hope someday GIMP team understand that. The software is solid, but the interface isn't great. Some very simple workflow changes made Blender easier to use.

It’s odd that you singled out Gimp as they are the only free software project I’m aware of who engaged a professional UX consultant to redesign their UI, and that must be maybe 15 years ago

Gimp is great, but it’s also the UI that I think of when I think of OSS that lacks finish. Hiring a UX consultant one time, 15 years ago, isn’t how people realize a good user experience. That’s why companies employ UI / UX engineers full time…

Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#116

Post by robenkleene »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #107
robenkleene wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone care to chime in about why Blender seems to have the resources for this kind of work but the GIMP doesn’t? I know Blender has a lot of corporate sponsorship, so I think the explanation is there’s a “commoditize your complements” effect going on. But does anyone have a more specific hypothesis? E.g., why does Blender have so many complements and the GIMP so few?

Maybe because there are relatively fewer options for free modeling software, compared to the tons of free 2D graphics programs one can choose from? Putting money into Blender helps those companies getting rid of buggy, expensive 3D software. For 2D graphics, they already have plenty of options.

Curious what other free options you mean? Krita, I’m guessing? Other options for raster graphics?

Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#118

Post by zxzax »

ratww wrote: post #51
marcan_42 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What scares me is musescore.com. That website went from being a largely free repository of sheet music to a subscription service paying into the music industry, with no support for CC style licenses (it's either public domain or paywalled), locking everyone's sheet music retroactively behind a paywall regardless of actual license, sometimes in violation of said licenses (e.g. anything with a BY-NC or similar style li…

On the link you posted: > Otherwise, I will have to transfer information about you to lawyers who will cooperate with github.com and Chinese government to physically find you and stop the illegal use of licensed content. This is by far the worst takedown request I've ever seen in Github. The physically find you is especially concerning, since the owner of the repository seems to be a Chinese national. Apparently by t…

If you do illegal things, the authorities will get involved. That's how that works.

Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#119

Post by ehutch79 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #31
VadimPR wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get UI/UX people in from?

Learn. That's what I did. The issue is that many designers and engineers loathe Usability and Accessibility people (like Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman). For me, it all started with Don Norman's excellent book The Design of Everyday Things [0] (nee The Psychology of Everyday Things ). Reading that book changed the way that I view the world. I can't walk through a door, anymore, without evaluating its affordances and us…

For a long time nielsen groups webpage was one of the uglier websites on the web in the name of accessibility. That's part of where mistrust of them specifically comes from.

Re: Audacity Aquired by Muse Group

#120

Post by IshKebab »

marcan_42 wrote: post #29
spamalot159 wrote: post #6

My first reaction was "oh no..". Audacity has to be one of the most beloved and widely recommended software of all time. It's not often that an aquisition like this goes well for very long. After looking at MuseScore and UltimateGuitar, however, it looks like they are also free and have a similar aesthetic to Audacity. Maybe this will work out after all.

What scares me is musescore.com. That website went from being a largely free repository of sheet music to a subscription service paying into the music industry, with no support for CC style licenses (it's either public domain or paywalled), locking everyone's sheet music retroactively behind a paywall regardless of actual license, sometimes in violation of said licenses (e.g. anything with a BY-NC or similar style li…

How do you expect them to pay for developers without some form of income?
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