Freesound Forums

ermine

shareware game programmers, or someone making tapes to sell out of their basement

Cool. You wanna use a FS sound in a commercial project - talk to the author. Or shoot the sound yourself. If it isn't worth an email, it's no big deal if you don't have the sound, right? If it is a big deal or you have to get on a plane to record it, it's worth the effort of an email and maybe the price of a beer?

Shareware ain't free. So why should its components be? Don't wanna talk to the author because you might have to pay - heck, make it freeware, or even better, open source. Why is commercial use causing such chiseling? If you aren't going to work for your users for free, then I ain't gonna work for you for free. Just what part of that is so hard to understand?

Your point was that commercial users wouldn't give back to the community. You are wrong. Many (such as shareware developers or hobbiests that plan to sell their work for shits and giggles, or kids in their garage even) would.

Also you assume you can reach the author. This is THE INTERNETS. They might have stopped making sounds, stopped using the internet, or have died. Maybe they changed their email and never updated it here.

And ok, fine shareware isnt free. Fine make it opensource. Its still subject to making it be a more restrictive license than it has to be. For example, I couldnt use it in something that uses a freeBSD-esque license.

I just figured this was the 'free'sound project. Not the "cost of a beer" sound project. Musta typed the url in wrong.

but the fact that you have posted sounds on this site and the sampling license they have been released under do allow free uses of those sounds in commercial ways. I hope you're aware of that.

I am now, and I truly appreciate the efforts you and others have made to highlight this, and of Bram to take the necessary corrective action so that FS reflects more accurately the needs of its user community.

My beef with the pro community's approach to this still stands. It is the attitude "I want to be free to make money with this stuff, but I don't want to pay for it, I don't want to credit it, and I don't want to contact the author, I'm a busy pro, man, gimme NOW with no strings". It is repeated somewhat in

I just figured this was the 'free'sound project. Not the "cost of a beer" sound project.

It is free for a large community of users. In the same way as open source software is free for a large community of users. That community does NOT, however, include Microsoft in its current business model. Or shareware authors, in the case of GPL code. Is it really so unreasonable to ask if you are using sounds from here in a commercial project you should at least talk to the author and be prepared to pay, or credit?

I just figured this was the 'free'sound project. Not the "cost of a beer" sound project.

It is free for a large community of users.

In the same way as open source software is free for a large community of users. That community does NOT, however, include Microsoft in its current business model. Or shareware authors, in the case of GPL code. Is it really so unreasonable to ask if you are using sounds from here in a commercial project you should at least talk to the author and be prepared to pay, or credit?

Funny you bring that up. Microsoft very well could use opensource in their next version of Windows. For example, Apple's Mac OS X is based on Darwin, a free *nix based operating system. Also lots of shareware is based on open source software. OpenGL and OpenAL are two big examples of open source code used in ALOT of shareware apps. Many shareware apps are also open source. idevgames each year releases a slew of games all of which are open source and many of which are shareware. So no, its not "the sameway as open source software is free for a large community of users."

And, no. Its not unreasonable to ask a price. However, the question isn't whether its reasonable or not. The question is which is the best for this site.