Illegal to load plugins with GPL licence, in music programs that isn't open source

[xos]

It suddenly dawned on me that GPL licenced plugins may be illegal for usage in non open source audio hosts. If these plugs would be using a LGPL licence it would be ok, but now it's not legal. But it would probably only affect anything if the music program was shipped with GPL licenced plugins, and would force them to not include them any more.

If this was enforced it would probably pressure steinberg to release VST3 under a more liberal licence if someone was a PITA and pointed this out whenever this was possible in embarrassing situations. This would in fact make it illegal for steinberg to load plugins that uses the same licence that open source plugins use GPLv3 using their VST3 SDK. What's problematic in this situation is that steinberg actually knows what plugin makers are that actually has a written agreement with them. Making it highly immoral for them to actually load plugins using the GPLv3 licence, that they know is illegal to use in their non open source software's.

Or should this only be seen as a possibility to be able to use open source code in closed software. Made possible by only loading the code using different licences within a plugin system rather than a default loading of an DLL

Any thoughts on this and what the licence for different plugins uses may imply legally?

[whyterabbyt]

It suddenly dawned on me that GPL licenced plugins may be illegal for usage in non open source audio hosts.

Technically, GPL cant legitimately be used for writing plugins against APIs which are not GPL-compatible open source.

Of course noone has ever bothered about that in the past 20+ years of plugin development.

edit : the notion that it is illegal for someone to write a host which is capable of loading a GPL'd plugin is completely misfounded. The requirement for a plugin to meet the hosts API licensing and that not being respected is where the issue lies, not with loading a plugin where the author didnt resolve any issue between the API license and their own choice of open source license.

[xos]

Technically, GPL cant legitimately be used for writing plugins against APIs which are not GPL-compatible open source.

Of course noone has ever bothered about that in the past 20+ years of plugin development.

edit : the notion that it is illegal for someone to write a host which is capable of loading a GPL'd plugin is completely misfounded. The requirement for a plugin to meet the hosts API licensing and that not being respected is where the issue lies, not with loading a plugin where the author didnt resolve any issue between the API license and their own choice of open source license.

The problem arise when steinberg licence VST3 with a GPLv3 licence. If their software only used their own plugins it would be no problem. But when it uses plugins under the GPLv3 licence (that they haven't made themselfs) they them self has to abide to the GPLv3, as these plugins does not have commercial licence. And Steinberg know what plugins has a commercial licence and not.

[whyterabbyt]

The problem arise when steinberg licence VST3 with a GPLv3 licence.
If their software only used their own plugins it would be no problem. But when it uses plugins under the GPLv3 licence (that they haven't made themselfs) they them self has to abide to the GPLv3, as these plugins does not have commercial licence.

If you're using 'commercial' to mean closed source, please stop, that's not what it means. There's nothing at odds with commercial software in the GPL whatsoever.

And i'll repeat... the notion that it is illegal for someone to write a host which is capable of loading a GPL'd plugin is completely misfounded.

And the notion that it would be illegal for Steinberg to write a host which is capable of loading a plugin which is based on GPL'd API code of their own is just laughable.

And Steinberg know what plugins has a commercial licence and not.

No, they dont.

[xos]

And Steinberg know what plugins has a commercial licence and not.

No, they dont.

Ok! interesting. So Steinberg doesn't know that authors that has signed a licence agreement with them? So there is nothing in a VST3 plug that reinforce their commercial licence for closed source plugins?

[xos]

The problem arise when steinberg licence VST3 with a GPLv3 licence.
If their software only used their own plugins it would be no problem. But when it uses plugins under the GPLv3 licence (that they haven't made themselfs) they them self has to abide to the GPLv3, as these plugins does not have commercial licence.

If you're using 'commercial' to mean closed source, please stop, that's not what it means. There's nothing at odds with commercial software in the GPL whatsoever.

GPL is definitely at odds with closed source software. Ever wondered what the LGPL licence is for? It's for making a software load shared libraries (and that's what a dll is) without having to open source.

[whyterabbyt]

Ok! interesting. So Steinberg doesn't know that authors that has signed a licence agreement with them?

Strawman. The license agreement isnt a list of plugins. One isnt predicated on the other.

So there is nothing in a VST3 plug that reinforce their commercial licence for closed source plugins?

I repeat, there's no commercial license. There's a closed source one and an open source one. Either could be used for commercial use or noncommercial use.

And what could there possibly be in a plugin that would 'reinforce' any source code license?

Why would there be?

Have you read the GPL3 information that covers the scenarios for plugins?

I do get the impression you dont really understand the GPL though... the point of the concept, or how its applied.

. I'm all for open source, but locking in things to GPL3 only, is not my cup of tea. I'm not a communist.

In the best of worlds, open source should be able to be used in closed source projects.

[whyterabbyt]

GPL is definitely at odds with closed source software.

Strawman. I was referring to your use of 'commercial' because that isnt the same thing as closed source.

. Ever wondered what the LGPL licence is for?

Nope, Ive always known.

t's for making a software load shared libraries (and that's what a dll is) without having to open source.

Nope. Its for making a code library reusable without having to open source the software that uses it, no matter how it does use it. That library doesnt need to be 'loadable', it doesnt need to be a dll, and, more importantly for this conversation, its completely irrelevant. The applicability of GPL to plugins is already documented, including the situation where a GPL'd plugin may be used in a non-GPL'd application.
The GPL pages tell you those situations. Go read them. They apply

[xos]

Ok! interesting. So Steinberg doesn't know that authors that has signed a licence agreement with them?

Strawman. The license agreement isnt a list of plugins. One isnt predicated on the other.

So there is nothing in a VST3 plug that reinforce their commercial licence for closed source plugins?

I repeat, there's no commercial license. There's a closed source one and an open source one. Either could be used for commercial use or noncommercial use.

And what could there possibly be in a plugin that would 'reinforce' any source code license?

Why would there be?

Have you read the GPL3 information that covers the scenarios for plugins?

I do get the impression you dont really understand the GPL though... the point of the concept, or how its applied.

. I'm all for open source, but locking in things to GPL3 only, is not my cup of tea. I'm not a communist.

In the best of worlds, open source should be able to be used in closed source projects.

From the GNU GPL FAQ:
"If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins."
...This means that is one of them uses GPL3, the other part of that program also has to use it. No part of that program can be closed source. To make one part of that program closed source, there is another licence for that, that's called LGPL.

And your right what I meant all along was The "Proprietary Steinberg VST 3" license. It was wrong of me to call it a commercial licence. Of course you can make a commercial open sourced plugin. I understand that.

[xos]

To make it clear the GPLv3 licence is totally incompatible with closed source software, either as a host or a plugin. As that licence enforces that both parts needs to be open source.

[whyterabbyt]

From the GNU GPL FAQ:
"If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins."

Nice cherry picking.

Here's the paragraph before that.

It depends on how the main program invokes its plug-ins. If the main program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, and they establish intimate communication by sharing complex data structures, or shipping complex data structures back and forth, that can make them one single combined program.[/b] A main program that uses simple fork and exec to invoke plug-ins and does not establish intimate communication between them results in the plug-ins being a separate program.

Now I get the impression that you'll probably want to be exceptionally literal about that 'simple fork and exec' bit, but again, that'd be cherry-picking. Its about whether its definable as a 'single combined program' or not.
I suspect Steinberg think they're the ones who can say for sure regarding their own API for plugins.

Not only that, there are specific statements about the copyright owner being able to add exemptions in their license that allow it.

And yet no doubt you'll want to argue that Steinberg dont get to define whether they can use their API to load plugins derived from their API. And that Steinberg somehow dont have an expemption for themselves and others for one of the two license use cases for their API.

So you go ahead and ignore the fact that Steinberg quite obviously set things up that specific way for a reason, and ignore the fact that if it were somehow illegal for them to use their own f**king API in conjunction with a plugin written under a derivative of that API subject to their own GPL conditions, then there'd be no GPL version in the first place, and lets get back to your actual statement.

That its allegedly illegal for an application to load a GPL'd VST plugin.

Now its clearly not illegal for applications to load plugins. Its clearly not illegal for GPL'd applications to load plugins, and teh FSF say so.
Its perhaps a breach of the GPL if a plugin is defined to constitute 'a single program' in conjunction with the application that loads it, and the FSF very specifically have an opinion as to when that occurs, but its not actually a legally binding opinion, nor is there a definition thats an intrinsic part of the GPL itself.
So Im not convinced by that for a situation where GPL plugin usage is encouraged by the developer of the GPL API that permits it... I think they may know better than you.

Also, in case you didnt know how plugins work, its not Steinberg who initiate the loading of a plugin, its the plugin user. Its not illegal to provide a mechanism for loading plugins that conform to an API you wrote.
So, since this pertains to copyright law, the resolution of 'illegal' would be that the creator of the plugin would be responsible for taking an infracting end-user to court for breach of copyright by the act of loading code that only worked as a plugin because of use of a GPL'd API into an application designed to host plugins using that API.
Im not sure many plugin developers would want to win that case, and Im not sure they'd keep their license to derive from Steinberg's code in the first place.

And its never been proven in court to be illegal.

I dont think you get to decide.

...This means that is one of them uses GPL3, the other part of that program also has to use it.

In that case, the one you cherrypicked, yes. But obviously, Steinberg know better than you whether that is the case for their API and those who license use of the VST SDK from them.

[whyterabbyt]

To make it clear the GPLv3 licence is totally incompatible with closed source software, either as a host or a plugin. As that licence enforces that both parts needs to be open source.

To make it clear, this is a completely false assertion, and the FSF specifically state that a GPL3'd plugin can be used from within a closed source host in specific circumstances, and provide two specific situations where it would be legitimate.

[xos]

From the GNU GPL FAQ:
"If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins."

Nice cherry picking.

Here's the paragraph before that.

It depends on how the main program invokes its plug-ins. If the main program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, and they establish intimate communication by sharing complex data structures, or shipping complex data structures back and forth, that can make them one single combined program.[/b] A main program that uses simple fork and exec to invoke plug-ins and does not establish intimate communication between them results in the plug-ins being a separate program.

[...]

[/quote]
What you are referring to is a special case, otherwise the plug and the host is considered to be the same program, and there by incompatible to use GPL licenced code if either the plug or the host in combination with closed source code.

Here is the whole section proving that this is no cherry picking. Since when does an audio plugin only call main and doesn't use any shared functions and data structures? As this is 100% what they does, the host and the plugin is considered to be the same program. It's quite clear and not an opinion but a fact.

The following part can be found here https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins

quote:
When is a program and its plug-ins considered a single combined program? (#GPLPlugins)

It depends on how the main program invokes its plug-ins. If the main program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, and they establish intimate communication by sharing complex data structures, or shipping complex data structures back and forth, that can make them one single combined program. A main program that uses simple fork and exec to invoke plug-ins and does not establish intimate communication between them results in the plug-ins being a separate program.

If the main program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single combined program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. If the main program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the ‘main’ function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case.

Using shared memory to communicate with complex data structures is pretty much equivalent to dynamic linking.

[xos]

To make it clear the GPLv3 licence is totally incompatible with closed source software, either as a host or a plugin. As that licence enforces that both parts needs to be open source.

To make it clear, this is a completely false assertion, and the FSF specifically state that a GPL3'd plugin can be used from within a closed source host in specific circumstances, and provide two specific situations where it would be legitimate.

So you don't think that a host and audio plugins does any of the following?

"If the main program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single combined program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. If the main program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the ‘main’ function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case."

[whyterabbyt]

What you are referring to is a special case, otherwise the plug and the host is considered to be the same program, and there by incompatible to use GPL licenced code if either the plug or the host in combination with closed source code.

Its not 'a' special case, its two 'special cases'. Its the specific two special cases where the host can be closed source and plugin can be GPLd. That's the whole point.

Since when does an audio plugin only call main and doesn't use any shared functions and data structures?

Strawman.

As this is 100% what they does, the host and the plugin is considered to be the same program. It's quite clear and not an opinion but a fact.

False.