VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

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rhansen
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by rhansen »

Kott wrote:Did someone successfully run their host example?
I've tried, but it doesn't load vst3's *.so
Jup, I tried the AGain and NoteExpressionSynth plug-ins. They build and start up successfully. I do:

editorhost /path/to/my/plugin.vst3

Do not give it the full path to the .so file but to the parent *.vst3 folder. The editorhost knows how to navigate inside the *.vst3 folder to get the .so file. It is like a plug-in bundle on Mac.

I am on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS

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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by Kott »

dmn, it was slash in tail when I tried
btw, no it loads but seagfaults:

Code: Select all

Thread 1 "editorhost" received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00007ffff58d5a10 in cairo_scaled_font_status () from /usr/lib64/libcairo.so.2
:D

Well. Some debugging point me that it doesn' "like" Arial font. Changing "Arial" to "Ubuntu" in
/VST_SDK/VST3_SDK/vstgui4/vstgui/uidescription/editing/editoruidesc.h
/VST_SDK/VST3_SDK/vstgui4/vstgui/lib/cfont.cpp

fixes that
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by danboid »

Please excuse me digging up this oldish thread but I'd like to hear what any plugin devs (tramp? Rui?) have to say about this.

If you are a plugin dev:

* Were you planning to make an LV2 only plugin but you've now scrapped that for VST3? If so, what features of VST3 made you choose it over LV2 if it wasn't mindshare / market penetration or cross platform support?

* How do LV2 and VST3 compare from a developer standpoint, now they have similar licenses?

* Is there any point in creating new LV2 plugins now that VST3 is GPL'd?

This kinda reminds me what happened with GNOME (LV2), KDE and Qt - Qt being like VST3 going GPL, GNOME being like LV2 in that it was created because Qt wasn't GPL at the time.
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by danboid »

falkTX wrote:Well, from what I could see only the base VST3 files are GPL.
Some files needed to build plugins are not released under the GPL, so you cannot truly release opensource VST3 plugins just yet.
???

Sounds like not much has changed if that's the case!

A load of fuss about nothing?
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by danboid »

Oh dear!

Hopefully this is just an oversight by Steinberg? Do you know if anyone has pulled them up on this F? It sounds like a major spanner in the works for VST3 adoption in Linux land and seems to nullify the whole point of making any of it open.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised as it looks like they've never heard of block comments either

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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by mike@overtonedsp »

.. it looks like they've never heard of block comments either...
@danboid - They probably have, but, to be pedantic, they've used C++ style comments, which would be sensible as it's a C++ API :)

/* comments */ are normally 'C style' comments..

From the wording quoted in the license it does seems a bit convoluted, but surely there isn't anything that's directly at odds with using it in an open-source project? It would be unrealistic to think they would make it GPL (and especially GPL3) only, as this would cause issues for a lot of commercial proprietary plug-ins, but I always thought the main objection to the original VST SDK was that, while you could aquire it for free from steinberg, you couldn't re-distribute it (e.g. as part of an open source project).
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by ssj71 »

https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk/issues/3

As they say in that issue the license falktx cited is the BSD license. I don't know anything about mixing licenses, whether this works or not. I assume they have lawyers and haven't messed it up.
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by Basslint »

Sorry for the huge bump people, two years.

But two years passed and almost nothing changed, while this should have been big news that could change audio on GNU/Linux forever.

First, Ardour did not implement VST3. This is possibly due to license incompatibility between Ardour (GPLv2+) and the VST3 SDK (GPLv3), which could be solved only if Ardour moved to GPLv3+.

Then, many major libre VST plugins were not ported from VST2, despite Steinberg really discouraging it (it also sends DMCAs to whom distributes it).

Are we as a community not going to do anything about it? Too bad, because this could be a huge opportunity to grow.
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by bluebell »

Basslint wrote: But two years passed and almost nothing changed, while this should have been big news that could change audio on GNU/Linux forever.

First, Ardour did not implement VST3. This is possibly due to license incompatibility between Ardour (GPLv2+) and the VST3 SDK (GPLv3), which could be solved only if Ardour moved to GPLv3+.

Then, many major libre VST plugins were not ported from VST2, despite Steinberg really discouraging it (it also sends DMCAs to whom distributes it).

Are we as a community not going to do anything about it? Too bad, because this could be a huge opportunity to grow.
Does VST3 solve any problem we have in the Linux audio world? I read a lot about issues with graphical frameworks – but does VST3 offer a solution? I doubt that.

And if VST3 has no additional solutions, why bother? The Windows and Mac world doesn't give a shit about LV2. Why should the Linux world give a shit about VST3?

I am no plugin programmer and may be wrong. But to my knowledge the only thing the Windows and Mac world has to "offer" is copy protection and registration/activation annoyances like "phone home" and iLok, combined with "installer" and "license manager" software on the customers' computers. I switched to Linux and Open Source because I am sick of that. I am willing to pay for good software but I am not willing to be a slave of iLoks and "license managers".

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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by Basslint »

bluebell wrote:
Basslint wrote: But two years passed and almost nothing changed, while this should have been big news that could change audio on GNU/Linux forever.

First, Ardour did not implement VST3. This is possibly due to license incompatibility between Ardour (GPLv2+) and the VST3 SDK (GPLv3), which could be solved only if Ardour moved to GPLv3+.

Then, many major libre VST plugins were not ported from VST2, despite Steinberg really discouraging it (it also sends DMCAs to whom distributes it).

Are we as a community not going to do anything about it? Too bad, because this could be a huge opportunity to grow.
Does VST3 solve any problem we have in the Linux audio world? I read a lot about issues with graphical frameworks – but does VST3 offer a solution? I doubt that.

And if VST3 has no additional solutions, why bother? The Windows and Mac world doesn't give a shit about LV2. Why should the Linux world give a shit about VST3?

I am no plugin programmer and may be wrong. But to my knowledge the only thing the Windows and Mac world has to "offer" is copy protection and registration/activation annoyances like "phone home" and iLok, combined with "installer" and "license manager" software on the customers' computers. I switched to Linux and Open Source because I am sick of that. I am willing to pay for good software but I am not willing to be a slave of iLoks and "license managers".
I didn't say it should replace LV2 as the de facto standard, I said that having it would increase the number of available effects and instruments on GNU/Linux, including some which are under free licenses.

Besides that, the VST3 SDK is GPLv3 and AFAIK has nothing to do with DRM, that's an entirely separate issue.

I don't use proprietary stuff to make music but having people who do use not use WINE wrappers would be an improvement for all of us, don't you think?
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by bluebell »

Basslint wrote: I don't use proprietary stuff to make music but having people who do use not use WINE wrappers would be an improvement for all of us, don't you think?
If a Windows or Mac developer only has to push another button and a native Linux VST3 plugin is baked then it *might* lead to more Linux plugins.

Theoretically, this could be an advantage in some cases.

But I am afraid in reality we get stuff we won't like, for example closed source stuff and Windows stuff that has to be run with WINE (and might fail as soon as the free version has to be "activated").

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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by khz »

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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by Basslint »

bluebell wrote:
Basslint wrote: I don't use proprietary stuff to make music but having people who do use not use WINE wrappers would be an improvement for all of us, don't you think?
If a Windows or Mac developer only has to push another button and a native Linux VST3 plugin is baked then it *might* lead to more Linux plugins.

Theoretically, this could be an advantage in some cases.

But I am afraid in reality we get stuff we won't like, for example closed source stuff and Windows stuff that has to be run with WINE (and might fail as soon as the free version has to be "activated").
VST3 is dual licensed: GPLv3 for those who want to release their plugins under the GPLv3, proprietary license for everybody else.

Those who want to release the DRMed plugins already can, pretty easily! And there is a proprietary DAW on GNU/Linux, Bitwig studio, which already supports VST3 plugins.

As I said, the biggest benefit here would be for free software users. There are plenty more VST developers than LV2 developers around, and this would offer them a chance to contribute to existing free projects or release their plugins as free software and get them packaged in distros like Debian (something that's harder to do with the restrictive VST2 SDK).
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by skei »

Basslint wrote:And there is a proprietary DAW on GNU/Linux, Bitwig studio, which already supports VST3 plugins.
Reaper too..
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Re: VST3 SDK finally GPL'ed!

Post by Kott »

with latest commit Surge works in Reaper as VST3 now
commit 514ed95dfa5e547803f02a8bb957bad26472ddac (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: Paul <baconpaul@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sun Jul 28 20:56:28 2019 -0400

VST3 Linux Attempt (#979)

This set of changes creates a VST3 which works in the Steinberg
Demo edithost but does not work in BitWig quite yet.

Addresses #514
guys do incredible work
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