I did not know about those videos on Zyn. Maybe they are still relevant for the new version I have which does not look like that one from 2013 at all.
But I disagree. Although videos are an important way to gain knowledge about an audio/synth plugin, the 'printed' documentation plays a very good role depending, of course, on how its written and how much time was spent on writing it. Many commercial products do come with a good documentation. This is part of their customer offering, it is part of the product. Many also offers videos. Look at Rob Papen's streamings, Melda's tutorials, Image Line, u-he, Bitwig, Harrison, etc.
They cannot say "go read the code" to understand how it works
Let me open a parenthesis that blurs the two domains. First, 'open' contribution to commercial software. Witness this example of a 185-page manual on Harmor and additive synthesis written last year by Jens Malgren:
https://www.malmgren.nl/Harmor.pdf
This is a great free contribution to commercial software. There are several examples like this, to different levels. People like to talk about what they like and to share it with others.
The second example is about commercial-realm people extending their help to a platform they do not support (Linux, that is). Vojtech, founder of Melda Production, does not support Linux. And yet, when I had problems with MDrummer he sent me a couple of debug-enabled versions to generate log files and then spent some time analyzing them. For a platform he does not support at all.
jonetsu wrote:I believe (I might be wrong) that the commercial tools I have belongs to me. They are working now so I can keep the system running as it is for the rest of my life. None of these companies can force me to send them money, to upgrade, for something that's already paid and working.
tavasti wrote: In theory, yes. But then in reality, in most cases you are limited by lifecycle of hardware. When you need new hardware, in case of windows, moving your system to new hardware is nearly impossible. And even for linux, you can't use 10 year old version on new hardware.
Preserving software means preserving everything, OS included. ... until like you said the hardware dies. There were drastic changes, an rapid evolution of CPUs and such in the recent years which in some cases made it impossible for some software to run on newer platforms. That sharp evolution might be tamed and hardware in 10, 20 years from now might be able to run today's software. ... if not in a fully integrated very fast virtual machine that can run real-time tasks and audio.
Nevertheless, it'll be interesting to see what hardware will look like in 20 years from now.
Yes, you can install new OS. But will that old software work there? Is there some online licensing stuff involved? With closed source products, if manufacturer goes out of the business or just ends product, there is nothing you can do.
tavasti wrote: But still, you are right, there is some difference on opensource and commercial music software, but I can accept that. I am not willing to pay such sums of money most commercial products require. Instead, I am willing to help my small share on getting open source better. Not done too much, but maybe in future I will do bit more.
It is a blend of politics and finance. A choice to go a certain way and accept the limitation and work with it. Like saying I'm not buying furniture, I make my own. The hell with IKEA !
Basic furniture is easy enough to build once someone takes the time to look at it, get some tools and give it some time to learn and get basic skills. It will be nice, it will give a good feeling of having built it to a good enough daily use standard, but it will not be commercial furniture. It will have its pros and cons. It might not be as much sophisticated but will have its own charm and useful features.
tavasti wrote: On operating system side, I would not use windows or osx in any case. Or ok, if someone would pay me something like 3000€/year for switching to windows, I might consider.
I stopped working with/using Windows in 2000 and switched to Linux for both work and home use. Never used a Mac. I don't think I will ever switch back to using Windows. I do not consider using 'Windows' plugins to be actually using Windows. Those plugins were made by software people who happened, for a business choice, have chosen that OS. They are not related per se to the Microsoft business except for paying them for developer's tools and their OS upgrades and such.
Cheers.