Hello,
One thing is open source and another is free code, which has nothing to do with free in the sense of not paying, like free beer, but has to do with freedom: freedom to be able to use, modify, redistribute and even SELL a program. The only thing that free software requires is the source code to be available, although it doesn't oblige you to distribute it binary for free (in the sense of paying).
Cakewalk is excellent software, just like -in the area of 3D animation- Blender, a free software. And blender is an example of a free software business model that has undoubtedly succeeded. Can we say that the fact that its license is GPL implies that we have overlooked its great VALUE?
Like Cakewalk, Blender started as proprietary software. The same thing happened with Toonz, today Open Toonz. Open Toonz is not quite free, in the sense of freedom, although it is open source.
Open source licenses, compared to free software, are less permissive. It is an intermediate point between proprietary software and free software.
Most of the products that Microsoft distributes today are open source! Example: Azure, or Visual Studio Code. Most of the technologies we use today... like html5, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, typescript, and almost all frameworks, are free, open standards. The programmers who build Cakewalk every day are likely to be working with these tools that I just mentioned. Can we say that these products have no VALUE? On the contrary, they do not stop growing, thanks to the contributions (the work) of hundreds of programmers around the world, who send pull requests with new and interesting features. In no case are the original developers obliged to accept them, although they could.
Why would we want a program as good as Cakewalk to adopt a license like the GPL? Out of fear: we are afraid that tomorrow the project will be abandoned (as happened with Adobe Flash).
I beg BandLab that if at any time they think about abandoning the project unless they decide to sell it, they release it: this way Cakewalk will not die.
For now, I thank you for rescuing it from oblivion and putting it back into circulation.
All the best
:-)
Charlie Martínez
Quirinux GNU/Linux Developer
