Lockable Modules (split from "SynthMaker Update" topic)

[Jay]

Bootsy Most of SM's users are not here hopeing to become the next big audio soft maker and use SM for personal usage and some might not be able to make cetain things but still would like to have them, so hence there is a market for modules

I don't know where all this "you can't sell SM made plugs" comes from,there are a few ppl doing very well out of their SM based stuff

it should be more "you cant sell half assed SM plugs" because most i have found for sale SM based have been half assed or just not worth the money. Thats where the bad press comes from not SM's Bugs however bad they are.

Bootsy you are a good developer who should find no probs getting recompensated no-matter what platform you use and there are others just like you here! All the usual suspects that frequent this place are devs or wanna be devs right! but that couple of dozen ppl are not the SM userbase, who would appreciate the abillity to purchase modules they may not have the learning to make for themselves nor the time to learn

Best Regards
Jay

[trogluddite]

Hmm, I think actually bootsy made a very good point.

If you want to sell SM plugins you need a developer licence (more expensive) - the personal licence only covers doing non-public stuff or freebies - that's perfectly fair, as OutSim provided the tools to produce the things from which a commercial developer may profit.

To have 'module trading' implies yet another layer of licensing terms - and it is easily possible that a 'module' could contain more 'value' (functionality/quality) than many of the 'half-assed' full blown plugins that have been spoken of.

That scalability is one of SMs charms - but at what point of complexity is a module just a module? To export my 30000+ primitive PLUGIN that took me 2 years to make, I put it into a MODULE and press the little VST button.
So could I profit from it by 'module trading' and claim not to be a commercial developer? - What license would I need? - Who would I be allowed to sell it to? - just reg'd SM users? (who might trade it on to a 3rd party, or make a commercial plugin with it) - Who's job it is to police such a scheme to see that it is not abused?

etc. etc.

The idea of locked module sharing (I'm against trading for $$$) is not in principle a bad one - but I believe that it could open up a massive can of worms re: licensing, piracy, disputes between developers etc. Look already at the turmoil created here by the release of Flowstone - cross compatible (sort of) yet with totally different licensing term than SM - do we really want to invite more of that kind of confusion?
We already have a regular hackle-raising 'spot the pirate' thread every couple of months or so as it is!

I do think ultimately that either you share or you don't - and if you choose not to share then you cannot have it both ways and expect to share in other's knowledge and discoveries

[aliasant]

....mercial developer? - What license would I need? - Who would I be allowed to sell it to? - just reg'd SM users? (who might trade it on to a 3rd party, or make a commercial plugin with it) - Who's job it is to police such a scheme to see that it is not abused?

'
Simple.

Full license can create and use locked modules.
Cheap License can only use locked modules but not create them.

About Piracy, disputes between developers etc. We have that already and will continue having it as long as there are humans.

[trogluddite]

The creation part yes, fine, makes sense - selling is selling at whatever level.

It's the trading of the modules that concerns me - if they are to be sold (rather than just freely shared), then the developers creating modules will require reasonable security that only those who paid can use them. I'll not concern myself with how that could be implemented (but I doubt it would be easy or particularly effective)

Suddenly our nice little helpful community on the forum becomes fractured - I'd like to help 'userA' with his schematic, but I can't download it because it contains a module that I don't have permission to use.
I want to post a beta of my osm for some help with debugging/suggestions - but only 1 other user can download it because I used 'moduleX' that didn't sell very well
To see what could happen - just look at SynthEdit - it's capabilities are great, but every user effectively has a different version of the software, which is really off putting if you're looking for help, or to find collaborators for projects.

I'm sure that as a purely 'hobbyist' user my perspective differs from that of a 'pro' -but I really do think that keeping the 'point of sale' as complete plugins just makes life a whole lot easier.

And, of course, there will always be pirates - but I do think that opening up a market in 'component parts' would just encourage them even more.

[mwvdlee]

And, of course, there will always be pirates - but I do think that opening up a market in 'component parts' would just encourage them even more.

This always makes me think of the excellent "World of Goo" game. Besides being an absolutely brilliantly fun game, it also had a business model of that let you download it for free, without any copyright protection, and pay whatever you wanted. Kinda like what Radiohead did with their recent album.
Pretty soon the warez sites were full of groups claiming to have cracked this wonderful game.
I myself had commercial software which didn't have any copyright protection (note; there is no noticable difference in sales depending on the existance of copyright protection in any of the commercial product I ever released; it simply makes absolutely no difference). I've even seen "warez releases" for free, open source software.
Pirates don't need any encouragement. They pirate for the benefit of "social status" with their peer group, even if all they're doing is pretending to crack something.
I'd be perfecly happy with a market place without copyright protection. Only thing I'd ask is that people do not share the purchased modules. Then again, I really don't care much about the plan of selling user-made modules: I use modules to make bigger things; sharing those modules makes sure other people can improve the things I missed and vice versa.

[aliasant]

The creation part yes, fine, makes sense - selling is selling at whatever level.

It's the trading of the modules that concerns me - if they are to be sold (rather than just freely shared), then the developers creating modules will require reasonable security that only those who paid can use them. I'll not concern myself with how that could be implemented (but I doubt it would be easy or particularly effective)

I see you point now.
You are right in your view but I dont think it matters that much unless you thinking about making a livin out of selling modules.

I just had an idea...

EDIT: This first idea wouldnt work but maybe another would... Ill drop the new idea at the bottom of this post....

There could be a time based protection system. Meaning if I give you an .osm that has a special module "X15" that I bought from mwvdlee you and anyone else that downloads te .osm will be able to use that module for 5 days and then it will stop functioning.
That should be fairly simple to build into the lockable system. It could use something like harddrive id number, MAC address or something to sense that it has been deployed on a new computer and then start in 5 days demo mode.

Of course it wont be hacker proof or even near that but Id rather be living out there in some danger then locking myself into a safe bunker...

I do agree with mwdlee though. I want lockable modules and if copy protection is to hard to make thats ok. As long as we get this function. There are so many other really interesting aspects of this. Selling is just one small part of it.

Here is idea 2:
Instead of a time demo maybe a limit so that only the owner of a module can create .exe, vst or what ever Flowstone can create. If you dont own the module you can use it in SM/FS but you cant use it in an export.
That should work much better. We can still share .osm's no matter how many weird locked modules we have and we can test new modules out but not create apps with it. If we really like it we should contact the creater and buy a copy or even better go to the new Outsim ModStore and just grab it. Outsim already has our visa card number ( in my fantasy that is) so grabbing it and paying the 3 usd for it is no harder then 1 mouseclick.
This would also mean that new modules would get a good spread trough the community and that helps a good module to proof itself.

If you try to create, eg. a VST plug from SM but one or more of your modules arnt really yours a popup tells you that; this and that module is a demo only and to buy them click on respective link button... and off you go If you want them that is.

The only thing now is to make a lockable system that knows if you bought the module or not.
And forget about the hackers. No matter what we do they will hack it in no time but I dont think that matters that much. A well working system will have plenty of honest users. Just like Apples iTunes Store / App store. Some hack their iPhones but 95% dont.

[trogluddite]

sharing those modules makes sure other people can improve the things I missed and vice versa.

Yes, whether we sell our plugins or not, we want them to be able to compete with the quality of the best plugins out there.

I don't have a problem per se with hard working developers ('pro' or otherwise) protecting their 'trade secrets' - but sharing our knowledge is much more likely to raise the level of what we can all achieve with SM - even the gurus and 'pros' benefit by SM plugins having a better reputation.
In this sense, sharing our knowledge seems a better approach than merely amassing a collection of 'secret' modules that (a) we can learn nothing from; and (b) the maker of the 'secret' module cannot benefit from enhancements made by other users.
The overall quality of SM plugins can only ever be held back by such secrecy, even though a clever few might temporarily gain some advantage by it (but only temporarily - because someone else will always find a way to duplicate the clever tricks sooner or later - even doing it the hard way with no cracking/piracy)

Lockable modules, especially if they are for sale and will require keys or licences, seems to me a big burden to place on the developers. Surely there are far more pressing issues (host compatability, timing issues, CPU load etc.) that would be much better use of the dev's time and resources.

Ultimately, if people wish to have their secrets, they can do so by not sharing and I would not hold that against them - but dealing with the other bugs/issues will benefit every single user whatever their skill level or opinion of 'module locking'.
Good bug free software plus a forum community that is inclusive and generous leads to a healthy user-base for SM, without which the software will die out, and we will all be left with nothing.

[mwvdlee]

Ofcourse, somebody could always just try it out.
I'm sure some of us have stuff lying around which isn't critical to our full-scale projects but may still be worth a price to others; set up a paypal account and basic website and see how it goes with selling plain .OSM schedules.
I'll see if I have something worthwhile lying around to test this myself.

[Disco_Steve]

thats why I sugested the 'No Export' locked modules

you can send it to your friend, they can look at it, fix the bits they can penetrate I.E not the locked modules bit, but they wont be able to export the plugin or coppy the locked module to other projects or to the toolbox.

SM is linked into your username, and you down load the modules directly into your toolbox via a 'module store'

modules then have a licenece, no export for non developers, or developer export for developers.

there will be hundreds of free modules on their too. just like the app store
ranging from compleate VST's to some knobs.

it wont ever happen! but I think its a great idea. I personally would become a module developer, because that's what I'm good at! algorithms, not compleate products! I want o be able to sell an algorithm, but people dont want algorithms they want fully working sexy looking VST's.

[Nu Audio Science]

I think there is some kind of pipe dream here that SM can do like SE and have a third party market of locked modules
Never going to happen because
1 SM is percieved as a toy even compared to SE
2 There simply aren't enough clever developers around here to do anything worthwhile that somebody else couldn't do easily (Restrictions of no SDK/API)

Unless the new update of SM is radical (Lets be honest here it wont be) SM will remain a great toy/fixer for when you are in the studio and need a plugin to do such and such real quick
Beyond that it will never be a serious development platform because it has no weight of development behind it
If it had any weight behind it there would already be a mac version (How they think they will make anything with flowstone with no mac version surprises me)

I know this may be a "I hate NAS from now on" kind of statement to some of you but hey its just being honest
Accept SM for what it is because it isn't going anywhere rapidly so deal with it

NAS

[tektoog]

I know this may be a "I hate NAS from now on" kind of statement to some of you but hey its just being honest

Hahaha...
No worries NAS, I still like you...and I always have... First because you were the first one to help me here on this forum...(I'll always be grateful for that) and second because I just love so much your direct way to tell things... Like you always say aloud what we think a low...
It is true that this second business coming out of nowhere for us, SM users, with absolutlly no anticipation what so ever from the managers part, is kind of impolite and rude, almost could say disrespectfull...
But As I always, since the begining, enjoyed the SM spirit ' sofware, forum, users, admins...and possibilities... I've always been trusty and I did well..As reasonnable and sensible people they are at SM/Flowstone management, they kind of quickly gave us a satisfying answer... the FS crossgrade and the ability to pay-per-render with the free version... Thanks guys !!!
But as far as SM is a toy...I wouldn't be that radical... the more time I spend using this software, the more I understand how these thousands payware little apps and freebies are flooding sites like 01net or download.com... and now I understand how I've been ripp off all these years...buying stuff that I've could have done myself.....
Thanks SM...just for that....And the more I work (and I say work !!) with SM, leads me to think that at one point, I just might take all the plugins, apps and module I made over the time, and just put them together to make a complete workstation, including, sequencer, synths, drummachines; visualization, and even video now with FS... Of course this wouldn't be doable without adding a bit of ASM and coding... but the GrooveBox project shows that something really consequent can really be made with SM... ( And I like my personal instruments I made that I coudn't find nowhere on the internet when I started with SM...)

Personally I don't think SM is a toy, it's fun to use, that's for sure....but no toy for me....

UNLess the whole world is a game and computers toys to play with... in that way...yeah...that's a toy

[Nu Audio Science]

No you misread me
I don't think SM is a toy far from it
It is however percieved as one by the very customers we would wish to sell plugins or apps to
This next update may well rectify that by sorting out a few long time issues but the truth be told here the only value currently in SM is the userbase nothing else
SM and Flowstone will live and die by its community support (Don't like saying but the devs had little time before for the community and that will be even less now, not saying Malc hasn't helped me immensly over the years with bugs but the missing presence here on the forum has been telling)

On that note i don't think the crossgrade prices are fair in any way at all
Every owner of SM full should have been given a free crossgrade and the two apps combined simple as that
Splintering the userbase will be the worst thing ever for SM and Flowstone
If you don't get players like Exo and Oddson (Yes there are others but these two guys have been prolific over the years) on the Flowstone platform the knowledge that is not being utilised is terrible
If i didn't have faith in Malc (I do) i would say very much that this is a last gasp attempt to eek out every penny of a failed project
The ultimate shame of it all s they spent time creating Flowstone when in reality a mac port of SM with full price upgrade would have pulled nearly all current users into the update and a vast portion of SE and MAX/MSP users (Who just lost their plugin support)
So really i look on this new app in puzzlement at the moment simply because like i say i have a lot of faith in Malc

NAS

NAS

[infuzion]

Oh no, not the lockable modules subject again!

stop with the secrets already. if something is secret it very quickly tends to be stupid and not interesting.

SM's source code is secret, as is alot of source code...

I tend to hold back modules due to not protecting them. IMHO SE's community got bigger than SM simple due to the SDK.

[Acrobat]

thats why I sugested the 'No Export' locked modules

that's quite an original idea, but consider for a moment what will happen if the application
is been cracked: EVERY locked modules from EVERY developers will be unlocked in just ONE shot!
For this reason, it's a better idea if locking is linked to a PERCONAL key, it is safer from app-hacking.

Anyway I think the locking is not necessary anyway, I'm with Trogluddite on this, it will make
exchanges too much complicated. ATM I don't want to put economics into that and, think about it,
it's also a bit funny for such a microscopic business it could be!

I just see sharing as real sharing, then I judge people who are grateful in some way as
"friends", people who don't as "enemies" - period. A.

[infuzion]

Unless the new update of SM is radical (Lets be honest here it wont be) SM will remain a great toy/fixer for when you are in the studio and need a plugin to do such and such real quick

Obviously you've never used AcmeBarGig's stuff. He uses full convolution; does SE have that. I've never heard convolution as a "toy" before, have you NAS?